PROFITEERING

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 31, 31 October 1919, Page 7

PROFITEERING

PRESIDENT WILSON'S PLAIN SPEAKING

URGES CONGRESS TO PASS LEGISLATION One of the most direct pronouncements on profiteering yet made by a responsible leader is the address delivered by President) Wilson lo the joint session of tho American Congress on August 0 last. President Wilson went before Congress and mado a direct appeal to producers, middlemen, and niereJiants "'.u deal fai r -.'- iy with tin- people," and to every householder and housekeeper.in Mm land to exercise the most thoughtful care and discrimination in marketing and dealing with mere-hauls. .In addition, he reeommended.- specific measures .of legislation with whieii lo deal with the acute problem of the high cost of living.

President Wilson's address contained much plain speaking. "The prices tho people of this country are paying for everything that is necessary for tOiem to use. in order lo iivc," he said, "are not justified by a .shortago in supply, either present or prospective, and are in many cases artificially and deliberately created bv vicious practices which ought immediately to be checked by law. They constitute a burden upon us wliith is the more unbearable because we know that it is wilfully imposed by those vho li.ivo the power, and (that it can, by vigorous public action, be greatly lightened and made to square with the actual conditions af supply and demand. ' Some oi the methods by which iihese prices are produced are already illegal, some of them criminal; but others have not yet been brought under the law. and should be dealt with ad once by legislation.

"With the increase in the prices of the neeesarics of life come demands for increases in wages—demands which are justed if there be no other means of enabling men to live. Upon the increase of wages there follows close an increase in the price of the products wiiose producers have been accorded the increasenot a proportionate increase, for the manufacturer does not content himself with that —but an increase considerably greater than the added wage cost ana for which the added wage cost is oftentimes hardly more than an excuse. The labourers who do not get an increase in pay when they demand it are likely to strike, and the strike only makes matters worse. These are facts and force;; with which wo have become ort'.y too familiar; ■ but we are not justified, because of our familiarity with them, or because of any hasty and shallow conclusion that they are. 'natural' and inevitable, in sitting inactively by and letting them work their fatal results if there.is anything that we can do to cheek, correct, or, reverse them."

The remedies that President Wilson would apply are partly the application of powers, af ready held by the Executive of the United States Government, and partly extensions or additions to these powers. "Foodstuffs," he said, "can be drawn out of storage and sold by legal action. Disregarding tho : surplus slocks in the hands of the Government, thero was a greater supply of foodstuffs in this country on .Tune ) of this year than at the same, date last year. In the combined total of a. number of the most important foods in dry and cold storage the excess is quite 1!) per cent And yet prices have risen." There is antitrust legislation in America which Pre»ident Wilson evidently believes' can be used with some effect in the present circumstances. "I am convinced," he said, "that under the stimulation and temptation of exceptional circumstances combinations of producers and combinations of traders have been formed, for control of supplies and of prices which are .clearly in restraint of trade, and against t'liew prosecutions will bo promptly instituted and actively pushed, which will in all likelihood have n prompt corrective ell'cct. There :s reason to believe that the prices of leather, of coal, of lumber and of textiles have been materially affected by forms of concert and co-opera-tion among the producers and marketers of these aiul other universally necessary commodities."

' But 'while' President' Wilson believes runt; the American Government already possesses powers that can effectively ho used to cheek some phases of profiteerin<:. he finds the existing law inadequate, and recommended Congress to pass additional specific legislation. He urged 'that Congress should pass a law limiting, the time during which goods may ho kept in cold storage, prescribing the method of disposing of them if kept beyond tho. permitted period, and requiring that goods released from' storage should in all cases hear the date of their receipt. . He also recommended that all goods from storngo should liavo plainly marked upon them tho selling or market nrice at which they went into storage. By this means the purchaser would always he able to learn what profits stood between him and the producer or wholesale dealer. "And it docs not seem to me," said President Wilson, "that we can confine to detailed measures' of this kind, if it is indeed our purpose .to assume national control of the processes of distribution. T tako it for granted that that is our purpose- and out duty. Nothing less will suffice. Wo need not hesitate to handle a national question' in a national way. Wo should go beyond the measures I have suggested. We should formulate a law requiring a Federal license for all corporations ongaired in inter-State commerce, and cmlxMlying in the license, or in the conditions under which it is to lie issued, specific regulations designed to secure comparative selling and prevent unconscionable profits."