only immediate outcome was the appointment on June 17, under the Board of Trade, of a Committee

'to investigate the principal causes which have led to the increase of prices of commodities of general consumption since the beginning of the war, and to recommend such steps, if any, with a view of ameliorating the situation, as appear practicable and expedient, having regard to the necessity of maintaining adequate supplies.'

The appointment of the Committee was generally well received; and the inclusion of a Labour element led to the expectation of a ruthless exposure of 'profiteering,' which was popularly supposed-especially in view of the unexpected productiveness of the Excess Profits Tax-to be the chief cause of high prices. The Committee at once set to work, but did not present its first Report until the end of September.

Meanwhile prices crept up. In June they rose four points, in July two, in August they went down one; in September they made a jump of five, reaching 65 per cent. above the peace level. Ministers were approached by deputations from various Labour bodies, the most important being that of the Trade Unions Congress, which was received by Mr Asquith on July 19. It put forward three definite demands: (1) the commandeering by the State of all food and fuel supplies, and their distribution by the municipalities; (2) the State ownership and control of all merchant shipping; and (3) the commandeering of the home-grown crops at a fair price to the farmers. Mr Asquith gave the Deputation his usual answer, which, however sound in itself, was little calculated to satisfy their wishes. He pointed out that, even if the ship-owners were making high profits, they had to pay away 50 to 60 per cent. of the money to the State under the Excess Profits Act; and that they were competing with neutrals, who were making still higher profits, but none the less fulfilling the useful function of bringing us one-third of our imports. He saw no need for the Government to assume the ownership of our mercantile fleet, as, under existing regulations, it already exercised complete control over the whole of it, and had actually requisitioned one-half for its own purposes. to food and fuel-he thought it far more important for

the Government to secure sufficient supplies than to regulate their prices. German experiments in maximum prices had made him very doubtful of their success, and he was not at all disposed to repeat them here.

By September the situation had grown distinctly worse. Submarine activity, which had shown increased intensity as the summer wore on, took a sudden leap forwards and steadily became more deadly, even before the proclamation of 'ruthless warfare' in February 1917being extended from the more enclosed and shallower seas to the open and deep waters of the Atlantic, and even as far as the American coast. Neutral ships were attacked with as much virulence as British. A worldwide shortage was anticipated in the new harvest. In the United Kingdom the area under wheat had shrunk by a quarter of a million acres compared with 1915, mainly owing to dearth of labour; and the yield per acre was much poorer. What was still more serious, the North American crop threatened to be short. Further afield the Indian crop was comparatively poor; and in the Argentina a prolonged drought had rendered the prospects doubtful. The one bright spot was the enormous crop in Australia, the exportable surplus of which our Government had purchased in the spring and early Here the difficulty was transport; the voyage from Australia takes three times as long as the voyage from North America (hitherto the main source of our supply) and would require three times as many ships, when fewer ships were forthcoming.

summer.

The prospective shortage was naturally reflected in the prices of wheat and bread. Between July and October the former rose from 50s. to 60s. per quarter, the latter from 8d. to 10d. for the 4lb. loaf. So, when the Trades Union Congress, dissatisfied with Mr Asquith's reply to the Deputation in July, met at the beginning of September, it unanimously passed a strongly worded resolution accusing the Government of having 'failed to give proper attention to the people's grievances due to the enormous and unjustifiable increase in the cost of living,' and demanding a revision of the prices of necessaries, either by fixing maximum prices or by taking full control of supplies, in order to prevent the people being 'systematically robbed.' Serious trouble, too, was threatened by

the railway men, who through their National Union demanded a further bonus of 10s. a week to meet the increased cost of living, and soon succeeded in getting this demand in great measure conceded. At the same time certain newspapers began a campaign against 'greedy and unscrupulous food pirates,' who filled their own pockets at the expense of their fellow-citizens.

Even to cool critics, like Dr Arthur Shadwell, a dangerous situation seemed to be rapidly developing. The moment called for an authoritative statement. Accordingly, in a letter to the borough of Poplar dated Sept. 20, and in a speech at Dewsbury on Sept. 28, the President of the Board of Trade defended the Government from the charge of inaction by recounting the measures which it had taken from the very beginning of the war to maintain the supply of, and to secure control over, sugar, meat and wheat. It was true that, notwithstanding Government intervention, these articles had undergone the highest rise in price; but he pointed to the fact that the German Government, with all its powers, had not been able to prevent food prices rising by 117 per cent., while in this country they had advanced only by 65 per cent. The Government, he explained, though it held its first duty to be rather to maintain supplies than to regulate prices, was considering whether it should try to secure, as had been suggested, the same control over home-grown supplies as it possessed over imports; but, as to fixing maximum prices for bacon and a hundred other articles, for his part he was not going to follow the German example, unless he was sure that good would come from it.

On Sept. 29 the Food Prices Committee at last published an Interim Report, dealing first with prices in general and then with those of meat, milk and bacon in particular. Prices, the Report stated, had risen by 65 per cent.; but the average increase in the cost of living for the working classes, when all items of expenditure-apart from increased taxation-were considered was estimated to be about 45 per cent., on the assumption that the standard of living had not been modified in view of war conditions. Though there had been many increases in wages, the rates of increase were much below those recorded in the prices of food and

other necessaries. On the other side, however, it had to be remembered that the official figures did not include increases in earnings which had resulted from greater regularity of employment, overtime and night-work, substitution of piece-work for time-work, speeding-up of piece-work, transference of individuals from less to more highly paid employments, and other factors which had tended to raise the actual earnings quite apart from the increases in rates of wages. At any rate the general result had been that there was less distress in the country than in ordinary times of peace and much less unemployment, though some classes, like the cotton operatives and people with small fixed incomes, had been hard hit by the war. The general prosperity of the people was beyond doubt, and had shown itself in a considerable increase in the demand for food, which was one of the main causes of the advance in prices. As to the prices of meat, milk and bacon in particular, the Committee found that the advance was mainly due to the increased costs of production and distribution rather than to any unrighteous 'profiteering' on the part of 'rings,' speculators, or traders; and that the high profits, where made went primarily to the producers, secondly to the wholesalers, and not at all to the retailers.

In conclusion the Committee made various recommendations to the Government-none of them very drastic-such as to hasten the construction of mercantile shipping, still further to restrict the import of superfluities, to develope the large-scale purchase by the Government of frozen meat and to impose such conditions on wholesalers and retailers as would secure its sale at reasonable prices, to invite patriotic citizens to observe meatless days, to open municipal shops, to urge upon employers and public bodies to raise the wages of their lower-paid workers, etc. Seven members of the Committee, including the Labour representatives, were so discontented with the mildness of these recommendations that they appended a memorandum of their own, calling vaguely upon the Government to take farreaching action, which should include the State purchase of all foreign meat and the State control of the prices of all the primary food-stuffs produced at home.

On Oct. 10 a further step towards the State control

of our wheat supply was taken. On that day Mr Runciman announced to the House of Commons, which had just reassembled, the appointment of a Royal Commission 'to purchase, sell and deal in wheat,' alleging, as the reason, that our wheat supplies could no longer be left to private enterprise,' as private traders were becoming 'too timid to hold stocks,' though the still more urgent reason was, as appeared a few weeks later, the shortage of the world's harvest. Mr Runciman further explained that the Commission, among its earliest tasks, would have to arrange for the transport of a large amount of Australian wheat already purchased.

A week later the Labour Party in the House of Commons renewed their old demand for stronger State action, asking in particular for a Food Controller, a fixed price for bread, and the maintenance of the milk supply at a reasonable price. In refusing all these demands, the President of the Board of Trade stated that he had no change of policy to announce on the part of the Government. Its aim was still, as it had been hitherto, plenty of supplies and prevention of exploitation; but, to secure these objects, the Government had of course to adapt itself to changing circumstances. The general causes of the rise of prices were threefold-the restriction of production, the narrowing of markets, and the difficulties of transport; to which he would add a fourth, the inflation of currency. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the consuming capacity of the people had actually increased. After reviewing the Government's activities since the outbreak of the war in securing our sugar, meat and wheat supplies, Mr Runciman passed on to our transport difficulties, and in dealing with them partially lifted the impenetrable veil in which successive Governments have shrouded the situation of our mercantile marine. He admitted that the shortage of vessels was at the root of the whole problem, but stated that it was caused much more by the requisitions of our own Admiralty than by the depredations of German submarines and mines, although enemy action and wrecks together had since the beginning of the war resulted in the loss of 2,250,000 net tons, or 3,000,000 gross tons, of British shipping.

Next he showed how far the Government had already Vol. 230.-No. 456.

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