Evening star., 1938-10-08

G n m b er OF
Commerce, in urging the cooperation
of business men, made also sug-
gestion that anybody who undertakes
to investigate monopoly and restraint
of trade in this country today cannot
avoid an investigation OF current gov
ernmental policies"
Business men have long been wary
.of all Investigations Of a Congress
sional character or by the executive
agencies. Even while cooperating
with the proposed inquiry, they will
be on the alert to detect efforts to
draw piecemeal admissions which will
be used politically against them or IN
the waging of more class warfare in
the economic world.
Business May Gain.
It is perhaps natural for some OF
the politically minded here to feel the
INQUIRY will afford a chance to show
up" the weaknesses Of business, but
1t Is all a question of proportion.
Will not business find more advantages
than disadvantages in the whole pro-
ceeding, especially If full and fair
opportunity is afforded to business to
present its side? Thus, for example,
taking their cue from something Mr..
Parkinson said, some businesses would
be more than anxious to show that
national labor unions inevitably mean
national employer agreements. Indeed,
In the much-discussed British and
Swedish systems of dealing with Or
ganized labor, the fact that both Eng
land and Sweden do not have any
trust laws is often overlooked.
Certainly, II all the American steel
companies could operate under an in
dustry-wide agreement on the labor
problem, with q wage level to cover
the least efficient company and the
most efficient at the same time by
means Of . blanket scale, and with
prices likewise geared to make the
product more or less uniform on the
selling stde, there might be great
cheers from various industrial inter-
ests which now are fighting labor
unions. Such plan, Of course, is not
what Is understood by the American
tradition OF competition, but it illus
trates the trend toward uniformity Of
costs, which various Government-con-
trolled or Observation-Disclosures fac
tors are forcing nowadays in the eco
nonic structure.
. Fixing Leads to Uniformity.
Mr.. Parkinson thus has put his
finger on one of the most important
terms in so-called monopolistic prac-
tices. Take, too, the freight rate
structure Of the country, which Is
fixed by Governmental Commission
without regard to how it helps or
hurts competitive units in industry
and many business people will tell you
that, with freight rates fixed and la
Dor costs fixed uniformly as between
e. competitors, the area within which
there can be any differentiation Of
prices quoted is infnitesinal indeed
For several weeks now, business has
been preparing for the anti-monopoly
inquiry, its legal and economic ex-
perts being engaged in studying all
possible questions and answers. But
there are many companies which have
completely missed the point of the
inquiry. Believing it to be related
solely to monopoly, they have assumed
that, because there was active compe-
'tition in their particular industry,
the National. Economic Committee
wouldn't be interested in them or their
operations. The inquiry, it is to be
noted, however, is the first really
comprehensive study Of American
business and industry since the days
when the War Industries Board de-
veloped for war purposes the first
tntrospective study of American in
dustrial life.
May Open Legislation Paths.
What may come out of it is not
difficult to conjecture. If the facts
point to an uncontrolled economy as
leading to inefficiency, waste, unem-
ployment and undue concentration of
power, legislation to remove such char
acteristics will be enacted to supple
ment, If not blanket, in a new set of
behIuVSS, tilC ChASIlie dI1Il- VI uSG laws.
II the facts demonstrate to the public
opinion of the country generally that
. planned economy under govern
mental control and regulation Is de-
sirable, legislation to that end will be
sought by the radical group.
= It may be, of course, that out of
the inquiry may come a renewed drive
by Senator OMahoney, able chairman
OF the investigating committee, for his
Federal licensing bill. Certainly, as the