THE FOOD SUPPLY 21 



and monopoly prices are created by its operation. 

 In other words, the farmer and the consumer should 

 be given the fullest possible assurance of free com- 

 petition and the consumer should be protected from 

 any monopoly price because of a shortage. 



First, as to the increase in costs of food and the 

 condition of the great mass of the people in conse- 

 quence. 



The April, 1917, Review of the United States Bu- 

 reau of Labor Statistics, discussing the rise in wages 

 as compared with the rise in the price of food, says 

 that while the former rose nine points from 1912 to 



1916, retail food prices rose twenty points. Food rose 

 in price twice as rapidly as wages. In the four years 

 from February 15, 1913, to February 15, 1917, flour 

 increased 69 per cent., eggs 61 per cent., and potatoes 

 224 per cent., says the same authority. Anthracite 

 range coal sold in New York for $5.00 a ton in 

 January, 1915. In January, 1917, its price was 

 $8.75 a ton. 



Mr. Amos R. E. Pinchot, in a statement presented 

 to the Senate Committee on Finance in the spring of 



1917, stated that the rise in wages in the five years, 

 1912-1917, was less than 18 per cent. In the case 

 of most professional people, shopkeepers, farmers, 

 etc., there has been no appreciable increase at all. 

 On the other hand, the cost of living has gone up to 

 such a degree that, according to the figures in the 

 New York Times Annalist, April 23, 1917, the prices 



