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Show o WAGES AND PRICES. In speaking of high prices for the necessaries of life, especially of food, fuel and clothing, many persons are likely to forget that before the war 'there was a steady and at times an alarming increase. The war caught prices going up and they went higher. Federal investigation has shown that in many cases the war was not a reason or even the excuse, except by inference. Some dealers merely saw in the war abnormal conditions under which they might juggle prices without being subjected to uncomfortable un-comfortable scrutiny by the public. In some lines the war created a foreign demand and the increase in American Ameri-can prices was natural and, with unrestricted trade, inevitable. in-evitable. , Another school of economists sec in the abrupt advance ad-vance which cannot be explained on the grounds of war conditions an effort on the part of the directors of manufacturing manu-facturing enterprises to even up the score with organized labor. They maintain that about three years ago the country was ripe for a shift of the burden of wage increase. in-crease. Under our industrial system free competition is supposed to keep profits within reasonable limits, hence the theory is that a wage increase will be passed on to the consumer, and this is natural. But it is argued that wage increases are not always the determining factor, and that while a wage increase may drive one producer to increase tho price of his product his competitor may hold out, hoping to got a larger share of the business. The question of whether liigh wages have caused high prices or whether high prices have led to the successful demand for high wages is thus shown to depend upon so many .factors that tho economists who make sweeping dechrations to the effect that the workingman is only paying the fiddler, find themselves badly involved. Wages have undoubtedly exerted a great influence upon prices. It is not improbable that certain classes of producers have systematically cxorlod to unreasonable profit from tho mihlic. Yet these aro only two of many factors, and only the economist of tho future can see them all in their proper pro-per light and pass judgment with anything like authority. Indianapolis News. |