The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-08-09
ton of prices charged the governments
in itself tend to lower prices generally.
STATEMENT ISSUED

The statement said:
1T is the purpose of the war indus
tries board to carry out the policy re-
Gently announced by the President and
with which the members of the board
are in complete accord, that in the pur-
chase of war materials in this country,
our allies shall be charged with no more
than our own government has to pay.
Guns and ammunition employed against
our enemies are for our benefit as much
when used by our allies as when used
by our men, and it is obviously unjust
to require our allies when fighting our
battles to pay our own people more than
our own government pays for the ma
terials necessary to carry on the war.
"A mere statement of proposition seems
enough. and we are confident that our
manufacturers, who have so periodically
responded thus far to the calls of our
government in this emergency, will read
lily accept this policy.
TWO SITUATIONS
But this policy has two important
limitations First, it is to be reciprocal.
The allies must henceforth apply the
same principle in dealing with their own
producers and in selling to us and in
selling to each other. Secon@. the ar
rangement must be limited to war mate
rails, in order to protect our own in
dustry. We must not allow raw mate
rails sold by our producers at prices pa
triotically conceded to our government
and to it's allies for war purposes to be
diverted to industry and trade abroad
which may come in competition with our
own manufacturers and producers. Meas
ures will be taken by the board for the
best possible assurance that materials
sold at a concession in prices for war
purposes shall be applied only to war
purposes
ALLOW REASONABLE PROFIT
In fixing the prices to be paid by
the governments, we shall allow a rea-
sonable profit. but shall deny the extor-
ton now exacted for many commodities
of prime necessity. We shall pay the
just price so admirably defined by the
President in his public statement of July
Il, as follows:
BY a just price, I mean a price
which will sustain the industries con-
cerned in a high state of efficiency, pro-
vide living for those who conduct them.
enable them to pay good wages and
make possible expansions of their enter
prises which will from time to time be-
come necessary as the stupendous I'M
dertakings of this great war develop.
The war industries board has not yet
had and may not have occasion to deal
with the prices that are charged the pub
lie, but 1t seems proper in this connec-
ton to direct attention again to the
following statement of the President on
that subject:
We must make the prices to the
public the same as the prices to the
government. Prices mean the same
thing everywhere now; they mean the
efficiency of the nation, whether it is
the government that pays them or not.
They mean victory or defeat
The war makes enormous drafts upon
many raw materials absolutely necessary
to the Industrial life of the nation and
to the ordinary existence of the people.
But it has resulted in the bidding up of
prices for what is left of many mate
rails of prime necessity in manufacture
to a point obviously out of all relations
to the cost Of production and involving
unconscionable profits on our national
resources and the consequence is that the
cost to the public of all the articles in
the manufacture of which such materials
enter. has reached level never before
known"