Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 232, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1918 — Japanese Cities Open Public Markets. [ARTICLE]

Japanese Cities Open Public Markets.

The large cities of Japan are making efforts to keep down prices of foodstuffs by opening municipal market* Ever-increasing cost of living has caused this step to be taken. The results at Tokyo have been satisfactory. In Osaka a market has been opened by the authorities in each ward, greatly to the public benefit. The government has taken up the matter, and the home minister, at the recent conference of prefectural governors, urged the necessity of protecting the public from exactions of middlemen and profiteers. He assured the established retailers that, so long as they asked fair profits, the government policy would be to let them alone, but in cities where markets had been established by the local authorities the latter would be sustained. —East and West News.