New-York tribune., 1918-07-05
Thy Neighbor's Profit

Federal Trade Commissions report 10
the United States Senate on the subject
Of war profiteering. 1t solves nothing
and but adds to the confusion of thought
which is already almost hopeless. Ade-
quately to comment upon it would re-
quire book, which nobody has the time
either to write or read.
No attempt is made to discriminate
properly between the kind of profit max
ing which is inevitable from the manner
in which the government finances the
war and fixes prices and the sordld,
immoral profiteering for which penalties
of the utmost severity should be imposed.
Wherein it is unfair the report be-
comes a text and refuge for all those
radicals and disaffectionists who are
obstructing the war on the pretence of
denouncing capitalism.
Wherein it is unfair it will be used,
we suppose, in the further defence of
Rose Pastor Stokes.
Wherein it is unfair it will be adopted
by the Socialists, who in war time are
moving for a six-hour work day and
calling for it at once, on the ground
LnaC CQe country lS UlIllli4S AAIO SOdIO1SiiA
and that it will be harder to extort con-
cessions from the socialzed state than
from capital.
Wherein it is unfair it will be dis
torted into justification of the wicked
est and most sinister thing that has been
written since the war began-namely,
this, by Arthur Brisbane in the Hearst
papers last Monday.
Here is real war news from the Fed
cral Trade Commission. Men, too rich
already, have been robbing the country
adroitly. T.. We have a million men,
and shall have two or three million, cut
ting the throats of Prussians, because
those Prussians make the world unsafe
for democracy. When those men come
home and find what has been done in
their absence they apt to make life
disagreeable and unsafe for the eminent
Red Cross, Y. NJ. c. A, Wall Street
thieves that have been making hay while
the war lasted and robbing democracy"
Does the Federal Trade Commission
wish its report to be made the text for
such an incitement as this to anarchy
and assassination?
Now, you say: "But wherein is the
report unfair? Prove that"
One of the commissions "outstanding
revelations" is "the heavy profit made
by the low cost concern under govern
mental fixed price for the whole coun-
try" Well, that is the fault of the gov
eminent, if fault it be, and if the Trade
Commission has no remedy to propose
it has no right to characterize the results
Of the governments method as Sprofit-
eering."
ga low cost concern" is one that
produces commodity at a lower cost
than its competitor The profit is ac-
cordingly greater. The commission at
tacks, for instance, the profits Of the
low cost coal producers.
Let us take the case of coal
The government undertakes to fix a.
price for coal. The price must be high
enough to guarantee maximum produc-
ton. That is to say, it must be price
that will enable all the mines to oper-
ate-high cost and low cost alike-be-
cause the primary consideration is not
the money cost of coal, but coal enough
for all essential purposes. One mine,
let US say, produces coal at cost Of so
cents ton; another produces it at
cost of $1.90 a ton. The figures are
for purposes of illustration only If you
make the price 81 ton, the mine that
can produce it for 80 cents will make
profit Of 10 cents, but the mine that
produces it at a cost of $1.90 a ton will
lose 80 cents a ton. Therefore, t.
will shut up What is to be done? We
need all the coal that can be mined, no
matter what it costs. The disparities of
production costs are facts which cannot
be altered. Some of them are owing to
inefficiency, some to the accident Of
development and some of them to Prov
idence, who, for reasons unknown to
us, made some coal much more accessible
to man than other coal
So the government, let us say, fixes
price of 50 a ton. That keeps all the
mines going, but the one whose cost is
80 cents ton smakes profit of $1.1O,
which is too much, and one whose cost
is $1.30 per ton makes profit of only
10 cents a ton, which is very little in
deed.
Now what is to be done about the
exorbitant profit of the low cost man
under price dccreed by The govern
ment: Why, obviously, it ought to be
taxed away from him. BY laying a
graduated war profits tax inversely to