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174	WAR BORROWING

resort to payment by credit after August, 1917,
would accordingly be reflected in a continuous rise
of prices.

As to the Government’s price-fixing activity; In
the first five months of 1918 the list of price con-
trolled commodities was steadily extended. The
price of zinc was fixed in February; aluminum in
March; rubber, hides and skin, and wool in May.
Up to June, 1918, little attempt had been made to
regulate the prices of goods in higher stages of fab-
rication, control being exercised primarily over the
prices of raw materials or of materials in the early
stages of fabrication. On June 25, 1918, however,
the price of harness leather was fixed, followed by
the control of the prices of a large number of classes
of cotton goods, beginning on July 1, 1918; and later
by a form of control of the retail prices of shoes.
This shift in the character of price control in June,
1918, is apparently indicative of a feeling in the
Price-Fixing Committee of the War Industries
Board that the regulation of the prices of raw ma-
terials was not in itself sufficient to retard advances
in the prices of fabricated goods.

The actual effect of the public control of prices on
the level of prices in this country is, of course, diffi-
cult to evaluate because of the large number of fac-
tors operating on the prices of particular commodi-
ties. With respect to raw materials and of ma-
terials in the early stages of fabrication regulation
seems in the main to have been successful in check-
ing any further upward tendency in prices. The ef-
fect of control of the prices of raw materials on the