Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1918-09-26
A British War Manufacturing
Bungle.
From the London Spectator.

!. house of commons select committee
Investigating WAY contracts and financial
support of them. has filed a report on
has come to be known as 1.-THE Dope
Scandal" 1t is the finding of the COM
mittee on the relations between the gov
m and the British (.ellulose &
Chemical Manufacturing Company.
Long lists of the names of the share
holders-son1e OF them men we'll known
In public lifc-who ave found the value
of each original sixpenny share which
they held inflated to over Ella, are being
published. The Implication is that all the
shareholders ave necessarily been en-
gagged in a very shady transaction. in a
kind OF ''profiteering' that amounts to
imposition on the public. We have always
thought that a good deal of nonsense is
talked about 'profitesring." and the
No doubt some OF the Originators of the
company took advantage of the almost
incredible slackness, weakness, or TN
businesslike Methods Of those nominally
responsible for financial control: but,
after all, it is the practice Of manufac-
turing companies to make as much money
as they, car. That is largely what they
exist for, and their shareholders would
have a very poor opinion Of directors who
were not quick to make use of all the
commercial opportunities that presented
themselves. The cellulogc which is sup
piled by the company becomes. hen it
is applied to the wings, win screen, and
other parts of afrplanes. what Is called
dope" The result of the transactions
between the government and the ompany
is that the company has q monopoly for
tho supply of cellulose, and What it sup
plies, as the select committee points out,
has hitherto not even been good cellulose.
It is surely q critical fact that in the
vital matter of building airplanes we
should be dependent for an essential in
gredient upon a single company. Where
should we be if for any cause this COM
pany were unable to deliver the goods?
The only way which the select committee
can see out of the tangle is for the gov
forthwith to buy out the British
Cellulose & Chemical Manufacturing
Company. Much as We dislike state
ownership. we agree that this is the best
solution. For the situation at present is
that the company, by. contracts and
arrangements made with the government,
is so heavily subsidized and secured in it's
position on every side that no private
company could hope to compete with 1t.
The government, therefore. shoul expro-
pri:ste the company as the quickest and
surest means of setting up that competi-
ton in the supply of %cellulose which
should never nave been prevented.
1T is impossible to check the different
stages of the gradual decline of finan-
cial control into fiasco. and to say at
any particular point that there disaster
occurred. The government by one act
after another in a long succession got
themselves more deeply INTO the tolls.
The manufacture of celluiose is a key
industry. and in the first plnce the direct
interest of the government In the produc-
ton OF an essential ingredient was right
and proper. In July, 1915. the war office
invited tenders, but only n firm ten
dered. the Cellonite Company. The well
known company. the Usines du Rhone. in