THE  PRICE  LEVEL

175

prices  of  the  finished  products  seems,  on  the  other
hand,  not  to  have  been  very  great.  Of  the  ten
groups  of  commodities  whose  prices  are  carried  by
the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  the  largest  increases
in  price  from  August,  1917,  to  August,  1918,  are
found  in  the  cloths  and  clothing,  and  housefurnishings’
  groups.  In  both  groups,  finished  products  predominate. ­
  Some  of  these  finished  products,  however, ­
  were  made  of  raw  materials  which  were  themselves ­
  not  regulated,  so  that  the  rise  in  the  price  of
the  fabricated  goods  was  due  partly  to  the  rise  in  the
price  of  the  raw  material.
The  analysis  of  fluctuations  of  controlled  and  uncontrolled ­
  prices,  to  which  reference  has  already
been  made,  may  be  profitably  examined  in  this  connection: ­


1918  Controlled  Uncontrolled  All
Jan  106  128  119
Feb  107  129  ng
Mar.  107  129  120
Apr  108  133  122
May  109  133  122
June  109  135  123
July  in  140  128
Aug  no  145  130
Sept  112  151  134

It  appears,  in  striking  contrast  to  the  preceding
period,  that  the  prices  of  controlled  commodities
not  only  showed  no  decline  but  actually  registered
an  increase  —  traceable  as  far  back  as  October,
1917.  This  rise  was,  however,  much  less  pronounced ­
  than  in  the  case  of  the  uncontrolled  group,
and  to  that  extent  the  upward  course  of  the  “  all