166 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 944 



in 1912 in comparison with 1880, because 

 the cost of living conditions in the two 

 years are very much alike and the years are 

 far enough apart in time to furnish an ex- 

 cellent basis for sound conclusions regard- 

 ing the relative rates of income of all classes 

 of labor. The results would probably sur- 

 prise those economists who distrust the 

 possibilities of social progress. 



finally recommended this plan to congress. 

 Endorsements have been given by resolu- 

 tions of the New York Chamber of Com- 

 merce and more recently by the Interna- 

 tional Congress of Chambers of Commerce 

 of the world. The Sulzer bill, providing 

 for such a commission, is now before con- 

 gress. 



The work of such an international com- 





In 1907, the writer proposed the appoint- 

 ment of an international commission^ to 

 study the causes of the advancing price 

 level, believing international causes were 

 chiefly responsible. In 1912, as a result of 

 the Washington meetings, when Senator 

 Burton, vice-president of the American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science, 

 read a paper on the causes of the high 

 prices and Professor Irving Fisher spoke 

 before the American Economic Association 

 in favor of the proposition. President Taft 



'Yale Eeview, 1906, and Moody's Magazine, 

 1907. 



mission on the cost of living might well in- 

 clude the computation of a series of iden- 

 tical numbers for the principal countries 

 of the world. Such index numbers should 

 disclose the absolute as well as the relative 

 changing cost of living as measured by 

 fifty to one hundred leading commodities, 

 by providing for identical commodities, 

 identical grades and identical weighting. 

 Such an investigation is quite as proper 

 for the Carnegie Institution or for the 

 United States Bureau of Standards to 

 undertake, inasmuch as such measurements 

 of price levels are not only very central, 



