Allading again to high prices of commodities, we reproduce below a clipping sent us by a correspondent as showing how profits are divided between the manufacturer and the retailer. The paragraph is as Statistics submitted by the Federal Commission in @ memorandum ing up to date the results of the investigation it made into the shoe in. dustry several months ago will be used in the United States Senate's investigation of the boot and shoe business. According to this authority, shoes which were selling for $9 in the autumn of 1919 were selling for $10.50 in the spring of 1920. The price charged by the manufacturers in these two periods was $4.36 and $5.48 respectively. Tu 1919, the leather cost $2.35 and $3.37 in 1920. The labour cost 90 cents and $1.04 for the respective dates. The manufacturer took a margin of 89 cants in 1919, and $1.02 in 1920, and the retailer took $3.75 and $4 at the corresponding dates, Unfortunately the information contained in the above is incomplete. It shows the retailer as making a profit about four times as great as the manufacturer, but it does not mention that very important person the middleman, if indeed there is only one of him. He is, at present. under a cloud, supposed to he the curse of society, and were he to be eliminated a considerable cost to the consumer would be effected. Tntil we know how much of the profit. he has taken. we cam hardly call down Jovian thunder on anybody else's head.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.