Profiteers push up food prices

Rising food prices had been on everyone’s mind since the start of the war and it was subject of a public meeting in Stirling.

It took place in the Lesser Albert Hall and was organised by the Stirling branch of the Independent Labour Party.

The principal speaker was William Anderson, trade union leader and ILP MP for Attercliffe, Sheffield, who was from Aberdeenshire.

Referring to government figures, he said since the start of the war food prices had risen by 84 per cent. He was of the view that without drastic action prices would soon be up by 100 per cent.

The bill for a poor family’s basic foodstuffs, which at start of the war had cost 25 shillings, now came to 43 shillings and the purchasing power of a pound had shrunk to under 12 shillings since autumn, 1914.

Mr Anderson added that since the war began prices had been rising, not because of a scarcity in the supply of foodstuffs but because “powerful interests” had taken advantage of the conflict to profiteer.

He said claims that some groups of workers were also cashing in on the war were incorrect. Those working in munitions had seen their wages rise but only because they worked long hours.

For others, apart from the occasional war bonus, wages had not greatly increased while the poor, pensioners and soldiers’ wives were struggling to make ends meet.

Representatives of working people had urged the government to regulate prices, said Mr Anderson, but the financial and industrial interests in the House of Commons had blocked such a move.

He said food had not been in short supply at the start of the war but shortages in the world harvest and of shipping had changed that.

The total cereal crop in the northern hemisphere for 1916 was 25 per cent down on the previous year and southern hemisphere growers could not make up the shortfall.

Mr Anderson anticipated food rationing within the next few months. He hit out at profiteering at the expense of the consumer and called for more use to be made of the cooperative movement.