New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-05

that there must be no lowering OF the
standard of living; that no matter how
high prices soer wages must keep pace;
and though the wealth CT the country
is being expended as an insurance TO
protect the homes and lives and liber-
ties of all the people, capitalists, man
ufacturers, professional men and
women and Industrial workers alike,
there is a disinclination Ito put 1t
mildly 10 pay any part of the pre-
MUM. Human nature is the same
whether il be the manufacturer or ship
owner who is making huge profits from
expenditure compulsorily incurred as
ar insurance for national security, or
whether it be the millions of workers
who take their share of the profits
weekly in higher wages. The princi-
pie is exactly the same; it is profteer
ing by those engaged in the privileged
trades. whether as employers or work
men. at the cost of the community.
Thus it was that the state stepped in
and enforced a system of state control
and regulation of profits. Whether the
form which intervention took was the
best which could have been devised is 4
matter of serious question. Instead of
using the power of the state to bring
down prices, it exacted tribute on the
excessive profits to the extent of so
per cent in the case of uncontrolled
works, and of so per cent in the case
of controlled. More recently the ex-
cess profits tax has been levelled up all
around to so per cent Thus the state
became a partner-the predominant
partner-in the making Of excessive
profits. II is, therefore, the biggest
profteer Of them all, az the worker in
the favored trade is individually the
smallest, but the tribute exacted by the
worker makes up in the aggregate to
an equally appalling tax on the cost of
production and the imitation of prices.
Some Trades Severely Hit
"If every one had been sharing in the
purely artificial prosperity produced in
certain trades, possibly the method
adopted by the government in taking
the predominant share of the excessive
profits might have lived through the
duration of the war. But that is not
the case. Certain trades have been Sc
verely hit. Take cotton as an exam
pie. This great staple industry of
Lancashire is to-day suffering from de-
preston, not from any lack Of demand
for its products, but from inability to
secure the raw material of it's manu-
facture with regularity and in suffi-
cient quantity to keep its spindes and
looms employed. A scheme has been
devised by the Cotton Control Board
for tidng the unemployed operatives
over this period by the levying of a
tax on the production of the spindles
and looms which are at work. The
artificial conditions of the favored
trades, with the imitation of prices,
make the construction Of alleviating
artificial methods in the cotton trade
infinitely more difficult. and impose a
certain measure of hardship on all the
workers in the industry alike.
"The coal miners realized their un-
assailable position as masters of the
industrial situation in the early part
of 1915. They refused to permit their
industry to come within the scope of
the munitions act, and Mr.. LLOYD
George accepted the ultimatum. Their
came the demand Of the South Wales
miners to share in the prosperity
which the industry was by that time
enjoying. Enormous profits were be-
ing made by the coal owners; the up
NiIu curve ~ prices VI lOOu Hdu De-
gun, and the men found themselves
bound by an agreement, with a maxi
mum wage clause, in which they had
no share in the prosperity of the in
dustry beyond certain fixed limit.
Prices had gone far beyond that limit.
The men scrapped the agreement and
insisted upon new agreement wish a
fixed mir imum, but without any max
mum.
"The coal field was proclaimed; the
men came out on strike. Mr.. Lloyd
George accompanied Mr.. Runciman to
Cardiff and surrendered at sight. con-
ceding all the demands Of the men.
From that time onward labor in the
mining industry has ordered things
pretty much in its own way. They
have realized, as j. r. Clynes, VI. T.,
put it, that they had governments at
their mercy and could bring state de-
partments TO their knees. When the