146 THE HIGH COST OF LIVING 



and foodstuffs of all kinds. In almost every Ger- 

 man town there is an open market in or near the 

 public square which is used in the early morning 

 and then cleared away at nine or ten o'clock. Large 

 enclosed markets are also found in most of the cities 

 in which vegetables, meat, fish, and other farm prod- 

 uce are sold. In Berlin there are fifteen such mar- 

 kets. These local market-halls are usually supplied 

 from a central wholesale terminal market, located 

 upon the railroad, river, or waterwa}^, into which 

 food is brought by the farmers and sold at pubhc 

 auction or at private sale to the retailers. The 

 municipal markets frequently have ice plants and 

 cold-storage plants attached in which space can 

 be rented as in a safety-deposit vault. The public 

 authorities supervise the markets and the dealers 

 to insure proper prices and sanitary conditions. 



In addition to the public ownership of all of the 

 agencies for the handling of food, price regulation 

 was quite common even before the war. The price 

 of bread was regulated by municipal authorities. 

 Food monopolies have been broken down in some 

 cities by this process, while a number of municipal 

 bakeries have been erected. In 1910, for instance, 

 certain octroi duties or custom taxes on food enter- 

 ing the cities, which had been imposed by the im- 

 perial customs tariff law of 1902, were abolished. 

 Butchers did not reduce the price of meat in con- 

 sequence, and the local authorities stepped in and 



