The Connecticut labor press., 1920-06-12
WAGES GO UP 40
 CENTS; PRICES
 75 CENTS TO $2 Wartime Profiteering in Bitumin- ous Coal Amounted to Half a Billion Dollars, Says Expert.
 AND STILL AT IT Recent Advance in Wages of 17
 Per Cent. Excuse for
 Further Gouging.
AND STILL AT IT
By NEIL BURKINSHAW.

road brOtherhoodS and unions in sur vey of the bituminous p coal industry submitted to the United States Railroad Labor Board and just made public.
 In support of this charge, Mr. Lauck presented a mass of data consisting of analyses of the income tax returns of coal corporations, cost reports of the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Fuel Administration and the financial statements of the com panies themselves.
 With an average annual production for the three years 1o16-17-18 of near 1y 60O000000 tons and an average ex- cess profit per, ton for the three years of more than 27 cents it is apparent that coal operators gouged the con- sumers for an aggregate of half bll- lion dollars" declared MT. Lauck.
 "In other words, the profteering of the bituminous coal operators was translated into a tax of approximately $25 on each famiy in the United States. And this accounts for an important factor in the high cost of living"
 the coal companies whose financial statements are available for the full period of from 1912 to 1918, MT. Lauck states:
 Of the 17 coal companies whose re- ports have been issued, all but two were engaged solely in the mining of bitu- minous coal. These 17 companies, rep resentative of the entire industry, had aggregate profits of $42,737,000 during the period of 1912-14. These same panies, during the war period 1o16-18 after paying all federal taxes and mak- ing unprecedented deductions for de- p1etion, made total profit of $1Ol,- 074,000, or more than two and one-ha1f times as great as during the pre-war years. Figured in tons of coal pro duced, the net income per ton before the war averaged 21 cents. For the war period the profit was 48.3 cents ton, representing an excess profit of 27.3 cents ton. There Is every reason to believe that the net income per ton, as shown here, Is approximately that for the entire volume of production.
 'The people of this, country paid all the war taxes of the coal operators, paid their contributions to the Red Cross and other wartime welfare organizations, paid huge sums for depletion, and on top of this paid them half billion or more in net profits than they were cap able of earning in similar period dur ing normal tir11es.s -zss.s- =
 The usual contention that increased profits were justified by greatly in creased production does not obtain with respect to this industry, since during the three war years the total output of coal increased only 21 per cent. over the three pre-war years, while profits rose we'll over 100 per cent"
 Mir. Lauck f1atly denied that increased labor costs are in any serious degree responsible for the greatly increased prices of coal.
 ''The increase paid the labor required to produce a ton of coal" MT. Lauck continued, amounted to only 54 cents, while the operators price was advanced $1.13, and the retail price by $2.1o, or more than four times the increase i'll the cots of abor necessary to produce the coal
 Less than one-fourth of the increase i'll the price of coal paid by the con sumer was taken by labor. In 1917, the operators in the central field could have sold their coal for 20 per cent less than they did and still have retained twice as much out of each dollar as they re tained in 1916. And, in 1918 they could have reduced the price 13 per cent. and still had a share twice as large as that which they received in 1916. Authorit- ative federal investigations reveal as utterly false the claim of the big coal interests that labor Is responsible for the unprecedented price increases. AL though the wage increases allowed the bituminouS coal miners as compensa- ton for the increased cost of living were accompanied by an. advance in coal prices, the added cost to the con- sumner was greatly in excess of the ad- ditional production costs caused by the wage increases.
 "The causes for the abnormal1y high coal prices are not to be found in wage increases but rather in the profteering of the coal operators and the whole sale and retail dealers. The increase in retail price of bituminous coal since 1916 has been from three to four times the same period. The distributive share coal industry has increased from 75 to 400 per cent, while the distributive share of labor ias not advanced in any thing like the same degree"
 Turning to the profits of specific companies, MT. Lauck selected the Pittsburgh Coal Company, which was described by the operators at the hear ings last fall before the Presidents Coal Commission as thoroughly representa- tive of the bituminous industry.
 This company" Mir. Lauck's report said, showed average annual earnings for the years 1o12-13-l4 Of approxi- mately $2000000. In 1918, it made a clear profit of $7OOOOOO, while in 1917 the net income was $14,076,852, or seven times the average for the ante bellum period. Average earnings of 9.8 cents per ton in pre-war years rose in 1910 to l7 cents per ton and in 1917 to 76.5 cents per ton, and in 1918 the figure was still as high as 42 cents per ton, or more than four times the pre- war profit. It is interesting to note that l this company actually produced less coal | during the period 1916-17-18 than dur ing the three prewar years, 1o12-13-14 l The total tonnage for the pre-war | period was 61. 1.366, ,472 tons, on which it | made net profits of SC, 122,81O During | the three war years, 1t mined only 54,- 1oz,0O8 tons and made a total profit of 1 s24, ,388, ,183'
 Further evidence of the enormous of bituminous coal operators was adduced by Mr. Lauck in citations from the tax return reports of the treasury department
 These figures" he declared, show hat at least 3o2 coal operators through put the United States earned profits in 1 excess of Is per cent. in 1917, their maximum earnings on capital stock -anging in 10 instances as high as 1000 : per cent. Moreover, 334 of these com D