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Show THE HIGH COST OF LIVING. , The following table from Broadstreet's gives the increase in-crease in prices for the last four years: 1912. Flour, per barrel $4.65 Beans, per 100 pounds :. 4.95 Potatoes, per 180 pounds r.'. 1.50 Sugar, per pound "4J Lard, per pound 1U 1916. Flour, per barrel 7 - 8.40 Beans, per 100 pounds -J 9-45 Potatoes, per 180 pounds 2.75 Sugar, per pound -08 Lard, per pound rTT; . . Further comparisons are made in Current Opinion, October, 1916: Bread that was 5 cents, is 10 cents. Sugar that was 22 pounds for a dollar, now 12 pounds for $1.00. Steak was 18 cents, now 32 cents. Veal was 15 cents, now 25 cents, i Butter was 20 cents, now 40 cents. ' Eggs now 45 cents. Clothes, shoes, wool, cotton, and silk have advanced from 20 to 40 per cent. Lumber that was $15 to $25 a J thousand is now selling at from $28 to $60 a thousand. Wood that was $4 a cord is now $10. Flour that was $5 ! a barrel three years ago is $10.50 a barrel now. Sugar jwas 66 cents a pound in memoria hominum; it is 81 cents a pound now. The price of sandwiches and pie and beans ,in restaurants has joined the aeroplaning crew. Catsup ' and bread and butter are charged for extra. On this question Hon. Thomas D. Schall, of Minnesota, asks: "Is there no way to get together, put our backs against the avalanche of descending dollar values? What is to become of our middle class, our laboring class, if this I level of prices continues? The strife that has slumbered 1 for so long between class and mass must; with this new ifuel, burst forth into fresh strikes, riots and revolutions. (Already we hear sharp evidence of discontent. Each day we read of new labor demands, refusals by capital, and I resulting strikes. The air is full of speculation, disquiet, land doubt. We live in troublous times; a time of wealth j and squalid poverty, extravagance and misery, ostentation ostenta-tion and wretchedness, dishonesty and trickery. I If a monopoly has control of our food supply, what 'course have we but to pay the price they demand? If a time comes when personal gain is too exacting, when the burden is past all bearing, private enterprise can not complain com-plain if the government step in. Greed that can not curb itself, history has ever shown, will inevitably suffer a curb. |