have done even less. No doubt the public insists on having a good deal more than formerly, which contributes to raising prices against itself.
Inflation is a resonant word, and the idea it conveys is a convenient scapegoat; but at present it is a phantom. Railway passenger rates have been 3.6 c. per mile compared with 2 c. pre-war and commodity freight rates[1] something like 0.8 c. per ton mile vs. 0.5 c. and even so the railways have been starved. Every intelligent person knows that this is due to what is paid to railway labor. So does he know that anthracite costs $15 per ton in New York, just twice the pre-war figure, owing to the exactions of miners, plus railway men plus teamsters, etc. Rents are high because building costs in 1922 were about 1.7 times the pre-war for the same reasons plus the terms of the building mechanics and during the early part of 1923 rose sharply and high. Farm products are low because the farmers have not been able to arrange any restrictions upon production, but by the time the foodstuffs have reached the consumers the labor that has touched them has seen to it that they become costly enough.
The argument of labor is that it must have high wages in order to meet the high cost of living, but in fact it puts up the cost of living to itself, and, unfortunately, to the farmers and other people at the same time. The natural outcome of these vicious reactions is to raise prices so high as to develop a buyers’ strike, i.e., people are constrained to do without so many things as previously.
The present position is that we are dividing a quantity of production about the same as in 1913 among
- ↑ These figures refer to bulk commodity rates and are not in conflict with the data cited in Chapter III.
