Bisbee daily review., 1919-04-04
ENTIRE STEEL PRICE
 LIST REVISION WILL
 FOLLOW CONFERENCE
Row Over Rates May Also Result in Lowering of
 Fuel Costs
(Contlnued fl.om Page onel

fusal of the coal operators to under take price revisions. unless the rail road administration agreed to accept them previously. were answered by Mir. Hines in a statement explaining the policy of the administration in purchasing fuel The statement said:
 An interesting friction appears to eb receiving some currency as to the attitude of the United States railroad administration in purchasing coal. This friction is to the effect that the railroad administration is conducting it's purchases of coal in such a way to force prodHcersi to. sell to it below the cost of production, thus in turn forcing them 1to0 fifcFease their prices to the restfof the community. The assertion of this friction seems to carry with it the suggestion that in order to prevent the railroad admin istration from accomplishing this pur- pose, it is important to find a way to remove all competition in bidding for such government business and instead fix the respective mining dis tricts uniform prices at which all pro- ducers would be willing to sell and at which the railroad would have to buy
 Evil Declared Fictitious
 "The remedy thus suggested for his fictitious evil, would. of course, have the result of giving the coal opera tors the relatively high prices fiexd without any competition, which they could use as absis for selling to the general public, so that the element of competition would fade from the picture and virtually the whole con suming public would be paying prices which in the aggregate would be far in excess of what would be necessary to maintain existing wages and pay sufficient profits.
 While it hardly seems necessary to do so, I wish to give the country the assurance that the railroad ad- ministratiOn has no such unjust and short-sighted purpoes as to force pro- ducers- to sell below cost or impose a burden on the rest of the public. There is no. nstittuion-public or priyate-in the country that has a greater interest in the promotion of prosperity than the railroad admins tratiOn has, because the more the business of the country increases, the more net revenues the railroad admin istration will enjoy. At the same time I believe il would be opposed r6 fhe interest of the general consuming pub lie, as well as of the government, to forego absolutely all benefits of com petition and buy coal for the govern ment at unnecessarily high prices, which, in turn, will immediately be- come the standard prices for all pur chasers Such a course would have a strong tendency to continue to pre- serve, in the present period following the war profits having entirely too strong a resemblance to the extIaor dinary profits which were realized during the war.
 Separate Purchases.
 "As an illustration of the caution which the railroad administration is observing in this matter. it has estab- lished the policy that each railroad shall buy its own coal thus avoiding any greater concentration. of purchas- ing power than existed under private management It has also instructed that in purchasing coal, railroads must make as wide a distribution of the tonnage bought as conditions will per init at the same time confining as far as practicable purchases to producers on the individual roads It has also directed that no railroad should ac- cept any bids which would involve the cutting of the existing scale Of min ing wages. It has further provided that coal prices actually contracted for shall not be secret, but shall be available for the information of any interested coal operators and also for the miners.
 Tt must be remembered that the purchasing immeI.aieIy available of the railroad administration with re- speet to coaf-is by no means as great as is generally ahsumed in dicus- sions on this subjecs- To large ex- tent the railroad administration cur rent supply of coal must be taken on unexpired contracts which were made many months ago and which have yet several months to run. Again, the volume of coal currently consumed by the railroad administration at the present time is decidedly below the normal because in the present read justment period the business handled is below normal further factor which cannot be ignored is that the railroads, like enterprises generally, stored unusually large quantities Of coal last April to be prepared for the eMgencies of a long continued war. To meet the present situation the railroads are using this stored coal with caution so as not to interfere unduly with current coal production, but considerable storage of coal stin
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