The Report of the Departmental Committee which has been inquiring
into the prices of meat was sum- marized in the papers of Wednesday. It is a noticeable fact that the ratio between retail prices and wholesale prices is now much higher than it was before the War, and Lord Linlithgow and his colleagues suggest that influences are at work unfairly to keep up the retail prices. What has happened is distinctly traceable to the Government control during the War. That control was necessary, but its consequences are very disagree- able and very difficult to dislodge. The retailers have found out "ways of doing things." It is easy to com- plain of the number of hands through which meat passes on its way from- the producer to the consumer, but if the middlemen did not perform some sort of service they would not be there.
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