the ladies of Cambridge. The Bishop and Canons of Ely have extended hospitality to them, and most of them have by now visited our great East Anglian Cathedral. Colonel Harding has shown them over his historic hall at Madingley, where Charles the First is, rather mythically, said to have taken refuge for a few hours, and where Edward the Seventh undoubtedly lived while he was a student at Cambridge. Lady Sandwich has invited. parties to visit the historic mansion at Hinchinbrooke near Huntingdon, a name that will ever be associated with that of Oliver Cromwell. There has also been, as seems to be the case everywhere, a great outbreak of dancing, in which the American students have played a large part, and bridge parties have been arranged for them on wet afternoons. Altogether, the ladies of Cambridge have risen nobly to the occasion. Let me end with a most heartfelt wish, and a bit of a benediction : On us, O sons of England's greatest daughter, A kindly word from heart and tongue bestow. Then chase the sunsets o'er the western water, And bear our blessing with you as you go. THE HIGH COST OF LIVING N the Outlook of April 30 we published an article by Theodore H. Price which showed in an "Index Number Table" the increase in prices of the essential commodities of life since 1896. That article has attracted wide attention in the press throughout the country. It has, of course, elicited some criticism, as all original and suggestive articles on controversial subjects do. As a fair example of the objections that have been made to it we are glad to publish the following correspondence, with a table which has been worked out carefully by Mr. Price. It may be said, we believe, that the ablest financiers ascribe much of the increase of prices to the inflation of credits and currency growing out of the European war. The point about Mr. Price's original article that most interested us was that the increase of wages has necessarily followed the increased cost of living.-THE EDITORS. Mr. Theodore H. Price, The Outlook, New York: Dear Sir-I cannot read and let pass without protest your article in The Outlook, April 30, 1919, both because it is not practically correct and because it gives the agitator an argument from statistics. Any practical housekeeper knows that his living expenses have not advanced two hundred per cent since 1896. It is said that the price of whisky has advanced in Detroit two thousand per cent, but that would not materially increase the cost of living in a family when it is used only in Christmas pudding. per Paper may advance one thousand cent. Who cares? What do householders pay? That's the question. A card index is a machine, not a human being. Again, you omit an item which takes forty per cent of the wage, Rent. This has not advanced. My Dear Mr. George: June 4, 1919. Because of my preoccupation with other matters I have not been able sooner to reply to your letter of May 6. You assail the figures published and the conclusions reached in the article that I wrote upon "The Index Number Wage" for The Outlook upon the ground that the former are not practically correct and the latter gives the agitator an argument from statistics. You say further that any practical housekeeper knows that his living expenses have not advanced two hundred per cent since 1896. Inasmuch as I believe that the agitator is helped rather than hindered by any attempt to suppress or distort the facts and the truth, I shall publish this my reply to your letter in The Outlook and call your attention to the subjoined comparison between the wholesale prices of nearly all the more important staples of life on January 1, 1896, and the prices for the same articles on October 1, 1918. You will notice that with only six exceptions the advance recorded is well in excess of two hundred per cent, and the average is two hundred and forty-four per cent. The exceptions are coffee, No. 1 nails, cut nails, and iron bars. Since buff hides, structural steel beams, wire October 1, 1918, the price of coffee has advanced until it is now nearly thirty-six per cent above the quotations of 1896. In view of these figures, I think you will admit that strictures upon the your accuracy of statistics are undeserved. my No statistics as to the rents paid throughout the United States are available. Real estate values and rents are always the last factors in the cost of living to advance, and are generally the last to decline, but I am inclined to think that you will find that rents will have advanced fully two hundred per cent on the average before the present cycle of high prices has been completed. Yours very truly, THEODORE H. PRICE. J. F. George, Esq., 1950 Summit Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota. NEW ORLEANS AM MERICAN industries are invited to consider the advantages offered by the New Orleans Inner Harbor or Industrial Canal, one of the really great engineering triumphs of national development. This new Inner Harbor, now well on its way to completion, will rank with the half dozen greatest world canals, with a depth of water equaled only by those of Panama, Suez and Kiel. It will provide a direct outlet to the sea for the largest ships from the Harbor of New Orleans via Lake Pontchartrain, reducing by approximately one-half the distance from the port to the Gulf via the Mississippi River. It will provide miles of ideal factory sites, on a fixed navigable water level, and served on the land side by the New Orleans Public Belt Railway, directly connecting with all trunk lines entering the city; all this within the city limits of New Orleans, with trolley service to all parts of the city, and with all other public utilities immediately at hand. These miles of factory sites may be acquired on long-time leases by private enterprises-something that is impossible on the city's river front, for the reason that that frontage has been permanently reserved for public development of facilities that shall be open to all commodity handlers alike and without preference or favor. Within the Inner Harbor will be a turning basin, ample in size to permit the free movement of the largest ships. At the River end of the Harbor will be a great lock, with a minimum depth of water of 30 feet over the sill, to facilitate the passage of ships at whatever stage the River may be and to maintain the fixed water level in the Industrial Canal proper. At the River entrance of the Inner Harbor the National Government is completing three great depot warehouses, six stories in height and with a combined capacity of 178,500 tons of miscellaneous goods. Serving these is a wharf and wharfhouse nearly half a mile in length. Two of these warehouses will be turned over to the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans for public use, and the third will be retained for Government use. The construction work on the new Inner Harbor is in the hands of the genius that made the Panama Canal a realitythe Goethals Engineering Company. The enterprise is under the direct supervision of the Board of Port Commissioners, or Dock Board, a state institution. In this connection it may be said that the harbor of New Orleans as a whole furnishes a striking example of successful ownership and operation of public utilities. Sixty per cent of the port facilities have (This is the Third of a Series of Advertisement:) INNER HARBOR been built or developed by the Dock Board, and in the seventeen years this Board has had charge more than $15,000,000 has been expended on wharves, steel sheds, elevators and warehouses on the east bank of the Mississippi. These, with terminals built by the railroads, give New Orleans almost eight miles of docks, capable of accommodating at one time eighty vessels each 500 feet in length. All are served by the Public Belt Railroad, another triumph of public ownership and the only ning Through me the progressive business men of New Orleans and of the South ask American Business, in plannew and greater enterprises for the future, to weigh carefully the extraordinary advantages of seaport, manufacturing center and distribution point offered by the Port of New Orleans. Write today on your business letterhead for the 64-page book, "The Book of New Orleans and the Industrial South," which gives in greater detail the facts concerning developments in this region. A copy will be sent you free for the asking, and I shall promptly furnish any further specific information you may desire. Mr. American Business Man, the first great international educational business congress following Victory will be held in New Orleans September 21-26-The Associated Advertising Clubs of the World. Its worth to you and to your business may only be measured by your ability to adopt and absorb. Domestic business and foreign trade problems will be discussed by master minds. Come and come prepared to obtain your share of the benefits. A WEEKLY OUTLINE STUDY OF CURRENT HISTORY BY J. MADISON GATHANY, A.M. HOPE STREET HIGH SCHOOL, PROVIDENCE, R. I. Based on The Outlook of June 18, 1919 Each week an Outline Study of Current History based on the preceding number of The Outlook will be printed for the benefit of current events classes, debating clubs, teachers of history and of English, and the like, and for use in the home and by such individual readers as may desire suggestions in the serious study of current history.-THE EDITORS. [Those who are using the weekly outline should not attempt to cover the whole of an outline in any one lesson or study. Assign for one lesson selected questions, one or two propositions for discussion, and only such words as are found in the material assigned. Or distribute selected questions among different members of the class or group and have them report their findings to all when assembled. Then have all discuss the questions together.] I-INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS A. Topic: Easing Germany's Burden; 1. Give several reasons why the Peace 1. What leads The Outlook to conclude that the Senate has rendered a good service in voting to print in the "Record" the full text of the Peace Treaty and to investigate the question of the Treaty getting into the hands of private citizens? Tell why you do or do not agree with The Outlook. 2. The Outlook believes that "Senators have good reason to feel that all opportunities for performing their Constitutional duties have been denied by the President." Is The Outlook right in this matter? Discuss our treaty-making power. 3. Who is responsible for making the League a personal and partisan issue? Discuss at length. 4. Give several reasons why it is a grave duty for the American people" to hear a full and free discussion of the Peace Treaty's merits and defects"? 5. Read an excellent book by David J. Hill, "The Rebuilding of Europe" (Century). II-NATIONAL AFFAIRS A. Topic: Striking Against Everybody; 1. Make clear what is meant by a sympathetic strike. Do you believe in this sort of strike? Reasons. 2. What are public (Read references in the order given.) III-PROPOSITIONS FOR DISCUSSION (These propositions are suggested directly or indi rectly by the subject-matter of The Outlook, but not discussed in it.). 1. All peoples should support their governments whether wright or wrong. 2. No President can seriously harm the United States. IV-VOCABULARY BUILDING (All of the following words and expressions are found in The Outlook for June 18, 1919. Both before and after looking them up in the dictionary or elsewhere, give their meaning in your own words. The figures in parentheses refer to pages on which the words may be found.) Pretext, reason, argument (273); fiasco, sinuous, crafty, preconcerted, sinister (291). A booklet suggesting methods of using the Weekly Outline of Current History will be sent on application THE NEW BOOKS This Department will include descriptive notes, with Across the Stream. By E. F. Benson. The Gay-Dombeys (The). By Sir Harry Johnston. The author, a distinguished African explorer and administrator, has in this his first novel carried out the singular fancy of making most of his characters descendants of the characters in Dickens's "Dombey and Son." Florence Dombey and Walter Gay of the old story actually survive here and are prosperous and influential under the Gay-Dombey name. Lovers of Dickens will enjoy the ingenuity and surprises in this queer plan-how it will strike those unfortunate moderns who know not Dickens is another question. But quite apart from that the story is a remarkable one-audacious in ita references to actual people and the glimpses of traits of known persons under fictitious guises; absorbing in many episodes; permeated with knowl edge of English society, politics, colonial policy, trade, and exploration, and much else all presented with humorous touches. It is a fascinating book in some parts and an original book in all parts. Mr. H. G. Wells's prefatory note is a capital introduction; informal, keen, and frankly critical as well as laudatory. King's Widow (The). By Mrs. Baillie Keynolds. BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS Here is a dog story with plenty of thrills FROM your country's rich mines, from fertile soil, from uncut forest, American **Industry seeks raw materials to fashion into the myriad needs of modern life. But our industrial greatness is only partly due to bountiful nature. Unless men and management, with hands joined, are backed by invested capital, the wheels of industry will clog and halt. American Industry will need added capital to produce the foods and manufactured goods which the world demands. This forward movement will mean a prospering nation of full-time workersresulting in more profit for all. The needed money to carry on " will be raised by If chosen under sound advice, these bonds are dependable income-bearing promises to pay." Their soundness is backed by the actual properties themselves. A thorough, painstaking analysis of each issue precedes our offering of bonds tothe men and women of the country. Our recommendations are at the free disposal of everyone who has learned the habit of saving money and now wishes to put that money to work. The National City Company National City Bank Building, New York You will find a National City Company Correspondence Office in 47 of the leading cities of the country. In each of these offices you can purchase Government, Municipal, Railroad, Industrial, and Public Utility Bonds of the highest character. Each of these offices is equipped to render unusual service to investors generally, and to bond buyers in particular. BONDS SHORT TERM NOTES ACCEPTANCES |