WHY PRICES ARE SOARING
Tavenner, C. H.
WHY PRICES ARE SOARING Any Investigation Into the Increased Cost of Living Must Include the Recent Revision-Upward Tariff Law By CLYDE H. TAVENNER w HY IS the cost of living increasing so fast...
...And even this is not all...
...Butter, best, per pound..................$ 0.28 $ 0.36 Eggs, per dozen...
...In France, Italy and some other European countries, a part of the municipal revenue is raised by duties on goods entering the towns...
...1.00 2.00-3.00 "But," protest the protectionists, "there has been an increase in the United States in the cost of many articles on which there is no tariff...
...Does not this show that protection is not the cause of the increase in the cost of living...
...This is an instance of how protection puts a fictitious value on an article...
...50 .60 Turkeys, dressed...
...34 .42 Beef, cheapest cut...
...2. By the middle of October the Berlin consumer was paying $10.56 for his quarter of wheat, which represents $7.48, the average English price of wheat at the time, the German tariff of $2.84, and a shilling extra...
...Detroit...
...While reading the following comparative prices, Mr...
...If we should change our policy of free trade for one of protection, would not the cost of living be increased...
...There have been "investigations" galore...
...19 .24 Wheat, No...
...The year 1896, which was the year preceding the enforcement of the highly protective Dingley tariff, is taken as the standard year, the cost of food in each country being taken as 100...
...104.4 104.6 1898...
...Chamberlain admitted that the import duty on maize and bacon would have to be paid by the consumer, and not the "foreigner...
...Thus it will be seen that the Berlin consumer paid the free trade English price and the amount of the tariff...
...After it is explained that the German duty on wheat is ttM a quarter (480 pounds), four paragraphs will suffice to-convince even protectionists that at least in this instance the import duty is added to the price of the article taxed, and that insteii...
...And under the Payne-AIdrich law the American consumer is being bled in the same manner every time he purchases an article on which there is an excessive tariff rate, such as sugar, clothing, blankets, farming implements and some two thousand other articles too numerous to mention...
...But you must take into consideration the fact that if the manufacturer can charge more for his products, he can and will pay higher wages, and you will not mind the increased prices...
...11 .15 Milk, per quart...
...At the gates of such towns there is an official who collects this tax and it is found that the difference in prices of articles purchased outside of the towns and within the towns is in nearly every instance exactly the amount of the duty...
...Secretary of Agriculture Wilson, at the behest of Senator Aldrich and others of the high priests of protection, made an "investigation" for the purpose of whitewashing the recent revision-upward tariff law and fastening the blame on the corner grocer...
...109.6 112.6 1899...
...The meaning of the table is that food which cost $1 in Great Britain in 1896, could not be duplicated for less than $1,077 in 1906, and that food for which the American consumer paid $1 in 1896, cost $1,343 in 1906...
...107.2 124.3 1901...
...For two months discussion over this question has been raging like a blizzard of words, the zone of discontent over the 11 per cent, increase in the cost of living during the last year extending from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic to the Pacific...
...Tariff Affect...
...35 .40 Beets, per bushel...
...0.60 0.78 Potatoes, per bushel...
...George Broomhall, MR expert, and printed in the "Economist," a journal of pronrnspri in Great Britain...
...Windsor...
...1896...
...The protectionists of the United States are practically the only protectionists who refuse to concede that the import duty is paid by the consumer, and not the foreigner...
...108.7 127.9 1906...
...70 .65 Cabbage, per head........................05- .07 .08- .15 Turnips, per bushel...
...not being "protected," the Windsor man pays $15 for a fuit of clothes that the Detroit man will find it difficult to duplicate in quality for $25...
...The leading political economists of the world, agree almost without a dissenting voice that the coBt of living is increasing more than four and one-half times faster in the United States than Great Britain, owing to our policy of maintaining excessive import duties...
...13 .20 Lard, prime...
...While the price of wheat fell in free trade England, it increased in high-protection Germany...
...Another question: If our protective system is not the "substantial" explanation of the abnormal increase in the cost of living in the United States, how does it come that British prices, under free trade, increased but 7.7 per cent, in ten years, while American prices under protection, increased 34.3 per cent...
...109.0 132.8 1903...
...There is no doubt about that," replied the speaker, frankly...
...U. S. Prices...
...Answering this question, Senator Mo?es E. Clapp of Minnesota, says: "You will hear it said constantly, with reference to something on which the price has been advanced, 'Oh, that isn't in the tariff at all...
...j Consumer Par* the Tax IF an import duty does not enkance the price of an article, how do the protectionists account for the fact that the pries In wheat in Germany is always equal or greater than the Englissi or free trade price, by the amount of the German import dntjl on wheat...
...THE writer attended a political meeting at Manchester, England, last summer, at which a workman interrupted a protectionist speaker to ask a question...
...As a result, a village of 4,000 inhabitants has grown up at Glanerbrug, near the German frontier...
...There are other "investigations" in progress...
...The only place where there is any doubt as to what is the CHIEF cause of the increase in the cost of living in the United States is in our own country...
...And between the two cities there are but 2,561 feet of water—and the Aldrich-Payne tariff bill...
...Price...
...In other words, Mr...
...Prices of foodstuffs, wearing apparel and rents average from 20 to 25 per cent, more in Detroit than in Windsor...
...of being paid by the "foreigner" it is paid by the cons'imstl (The figures given were supplied by Mr...
...President Taft declares the increase in the cost of living is due to the "proportionate increase in the output of gold...
...it In Holland there are no import duties on food or raw materials, the sole protective element being a tax of 5 per cent, on imported manufactured goods...
...4. On March 10, 1909, the Berlin consumer was paying $11.78 for his quarter of wheat...
...ttJPy...
...108.0 127.8 1904...
...What the Figure ¦ Show JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN, the British protectionist, in a speech at Glasgow, said: "I propose to put no tax whatever on maize, because maize is a food of the very poorest of the people...
...asked the workman...
...The, same happens in trade between nations...
...1.00 1,11 Corn...
...50 .60 Rutabagas, per bushel...
...107.7 134.3 Increase...
...07 .08- .09 Cheese, per pound...
...Every one of them, however, has studiously avoided taking into consideration the Dingley law and its still more infamous successor, the Payne-Aldrich-Cannon law...
...The leading protectionists of Europe tacitly admit that as a general rule the price of an article is enhanced by about the amount of the tariff...
...3. At the end of November the price of wheat in Berlin was $11.04, which means that the Berlin consumer was paying the prevailing English price of $7.72, the tariff of $2.84 and two shillings extra...
...06% .10 Pork, mess...
...English Prices...
...There German manu-facturers have built houses for a colony of their workmen, .because they can live more cheaply and better across the fron&fr in the foreign country where there are practically no import duties...
...11 .13 Bacon, breakfast...
...I propose to exclude bacon from protection also, because bacon forms the staple food for many of the poorest of the population...
...2 mixed...
...INLAND PRICES ARE RAIDED, so far as a consideration of the circumstances of the last ten years will allow us to judge, IN PROPORTION TO THE DUTIES...
...When the German government introduced its tariff law of 1902, it published with it, as is the custom in Germany, a printed explanation of the reasons for its introduction...
...11% .16% Plug tobacco, per pound...
...That increase has nothing to do with the tariff.' But the fact is that the tariff reaches all along the line...
...25 .60 Parsnips, per bushel...
...What the Windsor man is escaping in this instance is the Aldrich-Payne tax of 44 cents a pound on good all-wool clothes, and the additional tax of 60 per cent, of the value of the goods...
...But there seems to be a disposition on the part of some investigators, at least, to avoid looking into any corners where there is the remotest possibility of finding the real cause of the agitation...
...In Germany there is a high duty on food and an excessive tariff on all the necessaries of life...
...40 .60 Carrots, per bushel...
...Here is the table which tells its own story, and ought to be considered "Exhibit A" in any Congressional or other investigation into the increased cost of living: Year...
...2 red...
...A household of six persons can buy for $5.04 in Gelderland (one of the eastern provinces of Holland) the necessaries of life which, in Germany, just across the frontier, would cost $6.78...
...At that time the pricewheat per quarter in free trade England was $7.64...
...105.1 117.2 1900...
...Reader, keep in mind that Detroit and Windsor are practically one city, that all in the world that separates them is the half mile of water—and the "revision upward" tariff wall: Price in Price in Commodity...
...7.7 34.3 These figures are calculated from official statistics of the British Board of Trade in the "Eleventh Abstract of Labor Statistics," and from figures in 71st "Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor...
...This official document which squarely declares that import duties raise the cost of living, reads in part as follows: "A means whereby the agricultural interests are enabled to cover their cost of production is to be found, under the given circumstances, by creating a factor which will determine the inland selling price through relative protective duties...
...The Detroit man is "protected," and the Windsor man isn't...
...WHY PRICES ARE SOARING Any Investigation Into the Increased Cost of Living Must Include the Recent Revision-Upward Tariff Law By CLYDE H. TAVENNER w HY IS the cost of living increasing so fast in th« United States...
...100.0 100.0 1897...
...This represented the prevailing English price of $8.36, the $2.84 tariff tax and a 58-cent steal...
...A Striking Companion GOMING nearer home, the difference in the cost of living in Detroit and just across the river in Windsor, Canada, supplies us with a striking definition of the real meaning of excessive tariff rates...
...1. At the beginning of August, 1908, the Berlin warMM paid for a quarter of wheat $10.48...
...You can't raise the cost of living to a man who is producing something to sell without forcing that man to raise correspondingly the price of what he has to sell...
...107.6 126.3 1902...
...20 .25 Chickens, dressed...
Vol. 2 • February 1910 • No. 6
