56 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



In the spring of 1917 speculation went wild not 

 only in eggs but in other produce. Prices advanced 

 to exorbitant figures. An investigation made by 

 the government showed that eggs had gone through 

 fifteen or sixteen middlemen's hands in reaching a 

 market, each one of whom took off a profit. Yet, 

 while we were paying 50 to 75 cents per dozen for 

 eggs, the people of England, after two and a half 

 years of war, were buying the same eggs at from 32 

 to 35 cents a dozen. In England food speculation 

 is prohibited. 



The prices established in the Chicago Butter and 

 Egg board do not represent buying and selling of 

 actual eggs; they represent fictitious sales in "paper 

 eggs" for the purpose of sending the market up or 

 down, as the speculators desire. Yet these sales of 

 eggs that do not exist fix the price of eggs to all 

 buyers throughout the United States. As a result of 

 an investigation in Chicago it was said that 4,000 

 car-loads of eggs that never existed were traded in 

 by members of the Butter and Egg board. And each 

 time the eggs were traded in the price was elevated 

 from I cent to 1 cent per dozen. By these means 

 eggs which should have sold for approximately 22 

 cents, if the price had been fixed by legitimate sup- 

 ply and demand, were selling at from 34 to 35 cents 

 a dozen in Chicago. The speculators took excess 

 profits of $6,000,000 on the Easter trade alone in the 

 United States. 



