New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-09-15
Government Price Fixing for All?


Government regulation of food prices
and of the coal industry was not under
taken without serious misgivings and serl-
Gus opposition on the part of many citl-
zens. Yet. having been undertaken, the
policy may lead straight to the course
recommended by committee of the Cham
Der of Commerce of the United States, on
which referendum of members is to be
held-the regulation Of prices Of all
articles having Importance in basic indus
tries, as well as in war.
This committee, composed of eminent
business men, bankers and lawyers, urges
that authority to control prices should be
extended to raw materials and finished
products and should govern the prices the
public pays as well as those the govern
ment pays. Such authority should be ad-
ministered, the committee thinks, by a
small board appointed by the President.
With that board there should be some
agency having authority to distribute
available supplies to purchasers whose
needs most directly concern the public wei
fare-a kind of priority board''-and
each leading industry should create a COM
mittee to represent it in conference with
the agencies controlling prices and dis
tribution.
/ What this means, of course, is the reali-
cation of the committee that the fixing by
government agency of prices for such
basic articles as foods, feeds and fuel must
affect practically every product Of indus
try. The fixing of a price for coal must
inevitably affect the output Of the coal
MINES This in turn must affect the price
and supply Of articles manufactured by
the use of coal. These articles in turn
enter into the manufacture of other ar
| ticles of commerce or manufacture. The
! fixing of prices for certain basic articles is
| like tossing a stone into a pond. The
waves resulting spread eventually to the
shores.
Business cannot be conducted success
fully with certain elements fixed and
others variable. Every concern must be
able to ascertain its costs with reasonable
certainty and be sure of its sources of sup
ply in order that it may fix its prices and
know its margin of profit. Otherwise its
output is leap in the dark. 1t must
either take a chance of losses which may
prove disastrous or set prices which,
figured on a margin of profit large enough
to meet every contingency, may in effect
vctimize its customers.
The victimization of customers-of con-
sumers-is a thing which it has become
the policy of the government to prevent.
The Chamber of Commerce itself has gone
on record several times in opposition to
profit interest in war. Profteering
whether by design or the course of circum-
stances, is deplored by every person with
grain of vision and idealism. in and out
of government. Yet the logic of the exist
! ing situation seems to be driving business
men into corner. They are all purchasers
of materials, the supply and prices of
which vary according to government re-
quirements and the output of basic
articles the prices of which are fixed by
government action. They cannot run their
establishments on day-to-day basis.
Must they profiteer in order to be sure Of
running at all?
Having given much study to this prob
lem, the committee Of the Chamber of
Commerce recommends that the tail go
with the hide-that the government, hav-
ing embarked on the policy of price fixing,
carry it through to the end. That would be
long road-longer, indeed, than the CON-
mittee's suggestion contemplates, for it
would be hard to stop short of regulating
labor costs. The Importance OF the ques-
| ton on which the vote is to be taken can