Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1917-07-07
Government Hurting Business

LOW disturbing and even disastrous to
business in the South the construction
OF cantonments for the new armies may be-
come already is reflected in the labor situa-
tion here. The adoption by the government
OF the vicious cost-plus-percentage plan OF
paying. for the work is having it's effect
the effect anticipated by every thoughtful and
patriotic man conversant with building opera
tons on a large scale, and predicted in
terms by The Times Dispatch at the time
bids were under consideration.
Nobody would desire to deprive labor of
any increased compensation to which 1t is
entitled and which business can stand but
unnatural and unhealthy increases, which
cannot be permanent. and which are based
on standards wholly artificial. an actual
menace to the whole community.
1t is to the advantage of the contractors
on these environments to do their work on
as expensive a scale possible, for their
profit is represented by 10 per cent of the
cost of labor and materials. If they. pay
s42 thousand feet for lumber, instead Of
S25. their profit on that transaction Is in
creased from $3.50 to $4.20. II they pay
workman Sc day instead of 81, their
profit from that individuals daily toll is
jumped from 40 cents to 60 cents.
OF course, the government pays it all, and
every taxpayer-every ultimate consumer
OF the necessities of life-will help to supply
the deficit Not one of us will escape or
can escape. Under such conditions the heavy
hand of taxation must be laid on every in
dustry and on every person who owns
dollars worth of property
That Is for the nation, but the sections in
which these environments are under construc-
ton will pay an additional and more serious
penalty for governmental lack of vision In
Richmond work on important enterprises is
abandoned that workers may fee to the new
Eldoradoes at Petersburg or Quantico. Some
OF these works are in progress under con-
tracts made long before the outbreak of the
war and predicated on the then current rate
OF wages Contractors who have expected to
pay So or 81 a day cannot afford to pay s6
or 81. unless they are willing to face bank
ruptcy or enormous losses.
There other serious and menacfns
products of the cost-plus- percentage plan.
THE result of this government work, under
this extraordinary system of pay" says the
Richmond Chamber of Commerce, sis en-
tirely to disorganize all of the producing
businesses of the South, to paralyze the pro-
duction of food crops aud the cotton crop,
to prevent the maintenance of the transporta-
ton lines and service, and generally to
create condition which would be ruinous
to every interest"
This is not exaggerated statement Of
the facts and of the deductions logically to
pe made therefrom. The departments
plunged into this morass with their eyes
open, for they were warned in advance, by
this newspaper and by many experts. of
what they might expect. Unless something
Is done by exerting pressure contractors
or otherwise, to repair the blunder that was
committed considerable sections of the coun-
try will find themselves in that financial and
industrial depression which the nation has
been urged to make every effort to avoid
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