The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1933-08-05
Checking Up on Prices

In q commemorate e11OrL 10 CO.
operate with the national recovery
administration, Mayor cambridge
has named a committee to investigate
unwarranted increases in commodity
prices to the consumer.
The employer who signs a code Is
expected to raise prices to alb
sorb whatever additional costs the
code imposes, but he must raise them
no further. The administration is de-
termined that there shall be no goug-
ing Of the consumer, and that the re-
employment agreements shall not be
used as an excuse for profiteering.
To this end the mayors committee
will carry on its investigation, and
will presumably report, to the proper
authorities, whatever suspicious 1t
may come to entertain.
In this way the patriotic impulses OF
the code-signers are to be subjected
to a little unofficial checking up. Sec
rotary Wallace's suggestion that local
committees be named to keep a
weather eye on price increases would
seem to indicate that patriotism,
which was to determine the success
or failure OF the administrations CAM
paign, will not be trusted too far. The
administration, as q matter of fact,
mas decided to issue weekly lists of
fair prices for the necessities Of life,
50 that any code-signer who feels his
patriotism slipping may have them to
refer to.
These lists may make the work OF
the mayors committee easier, but
even so it will be difficult enough
The task Of determining what price
increases are warranted by the code
and what are not is obviously one
that cannot be reduced to rigid form
ula. So much depends, in the last
analysis, on the special circumstances
which condition the individual case
The extra costs which the code i'm.
poses. it is fairly safe to assume, viii
be the same for no two employers
yet each employer is permitted to alb.
serb them, and in the process Of alb
sorption he may have to revise any
number Of prices. To say that Grocer
Jones is profiteering when he add
Two cents to the price Of q cake o.
soap, and Grocer Brown is not wher
he adds only one Is well enough, bu
much depends, Of course, on the in
creased costs Of the code to each an<
how he is distributing them among
the hundreds Of items on his shelves
The administratio has set itself al
excellent goal when it seeks to sus
pend all prices at q level Of absolute
fairness. There is such q thing q
ruinous price-cutting, and there i
such q thing as price-gouging, and
is between this Scylla and Charybdi
that the recovery administration /
carefully picking its way. We hope
OF course, that the mayors committe
will contribute It's small share to tn
administrations success. Possibl
the mere existence Of committee Q
price vigilantes will have restrainin
effect on some who would otherwis
attempt to take advantage of tn
codes and make them an excuse 70
profiteering. But the notion that
local committee, or the government a
Washington, can draw fine pric
line between reasonableness and un
reasonabeness for a hundred, thou
sand, or several million industrial an
business establishments is one tina
does not seem to have a great deal t
foundation 1t. The administration
. however, is making a sincere an
earnest effort to do that very thin,
and it will not do to assume, becaus
OF the inherent difficulties, that til
job can never be accomplished.