those of trust-controlled and patented goods, to prices in free-trade countries as well as to those in countries having a protective tariff, to prices in countries without labor unions as well as to those in countries with them, to prices of necessities as well as to those of luxuries, to prices of unadvertised goods as well as to those of advertised goods, to prices in non-militaristic nations as well as to those in militaristic nations, to prices in the country as well as to those in the city, to prices where sanitary laws were absent as well as to those where they were present, to prices of bulk goods as well as to those of package goods.
I do not mean that the above suggested causes had no influence on prices. The prices in free-trade countries seem to rise (or fall)—or did before the war—somewhat less than in other countries; prices of proprietary breakfast cereals are far above the prices of the materials of which they are made; trade unions have added to costs in many industries; middlemen have sometimes combined to depress the prices of truck to farmers, while increasing the prices to consumers; trusts have sometimes raised prices above competitive levels, although they have sometimes reduced them and made their monopoly-profits by still further reducing costs through the economies of trust-organization[1]; and war-time prices rose more in countries near the seat of war than in those remote. But interesting and important as are these facts, they do not go far in helping us understand the cause of high prices.
- ↑ Prof. Meade (in Journal of Political Economy, April, 1912), shows by index numbers that trust-made products have been more stable and, on the whole, have been less inclined to rise than competitive products.
