. Hardware merchandising March-June 1917. ill mean a longstride. If the Government wishes to dic-tate prices it must be prepared to go intothe market and buy all produce when itcomes to the market, and sell it when itgoes to the consumer. This will raise manyproblems. In the first place, the Government willrequire a marketing machine which willcover the whole country for buying and sell-ing. This will be difficult to establish andwe venture to say from experience withsuch Government efforts in Canada, thatthe expense and the loss through the in-efficency which will develop when partyservants e
. Hardware merchandising March-June 1917. ill mean a longstride. If the Government wishes to dic-tate prices it must be prepared to go intothe market and buy all produce when itcomes to the market, and sell it when itgoes to the consumer. This will raise manyproblems. In the first place, the Government willrequire a marketing machine which willcover the whole country for buying and sell-ing. This will be difficult to establish andwe venture to say from experience withsuch Government efforts in Canada, thatthe expense and the loss through the in-efficency which will develop when partyservants endeavor to operate such highlydeveloped plants as those of the packing;companies will be greater than the benefitwhich will result. We say this with em-phasis, in the light of the fact that pro-fiteering in foodstuffs has still to be proven. Then there will be the consequence ofartificial prices to be considered. We areexporting and not importing foodstuffs inCanada. Therefore, it is to our nationalinterest to have high prices. We do not. think that even a food controller can estab-lisn an export price on a different level tothat for home consumption, if a maximumprice is established lower than the naturalmarket—that seems to be the public desire—then production will be discouraged, andthat would be the greatest evil of all. Be-sides, our exports are going to our Allies,and we should not ask them to pay higherprices than we ourselves at home. Or,should we go so far as to fix prices onexports to our Allies, then we would haveCanadian food products being sold at alower level in the world market than thoseof other countries. This would be discourag-ing to our agricultural industry, the great-est industry of the country. We believe that if a food controller isappointed, he should devote himself to in-crease of production, reduction of consump-tion, and elimination of waste. The cruxof the difficulty is that there is a shortageof supply and the people are not satisfiedto reduce
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