“A JUST PRICE MUST BE PAID.”
A just price must-, of course, be paid for everything' the Government buys. By- a just price I mean a price which will sustain the industries concerned in a high state of efficiency, provide a living' for those who conduct them,-enable them to pay good wages, and make possible the expansions of their enterprises which will from time to time become necessary as the stupendous undertakings of this great war develop. Wo could not wisely or reasonably do less than pay such prices. They are necessary for the maintenance and development of industry, are necessary, for the great task we have in hand. But I trust that we shall not surround the matter with a mist of sentiment. Facts are our masters now. We ought not to put the accepiauee of such prices on the ground of patriotism. .Patriotism has nothing' to do with profits in a case like this. Patriotism and profits ought never in the present circumstances he mentioned together. It is perfectly proper to discuss profits as a matter of business, with a view to maintaining the integrity of capital and the efficiency of labour in these tragical months when the liberty of free men everywhere, and of industry itself, trembles in the balance, hut it would be absurd to discuss them as a motive for helping to serve and save our country. ■ • I know, and you know, what response to I hi:- great challenge of: duty r i i of opportunity the juft-itou •will .‘V ■ \.ui. and 1..--!'what j j'CSp. s. •■ ;• i wsio x&C iT'-yaid. who bo mc re('sjsmd 11 ! iic -ai;ril of those who I ... aiai, :a *tueir lives lor us | mi bhvuy debts far away, may safo- : iy W, left to he dealt with hy opinion and the law —for the law must, of course, command those tilings. I am dealing with the matter thus publicly and frankly, not because I have any doubt or fear as to the result, hut only in order that in all our thinking and in all our dealings with one another we may move in a perfectly clear air of mutual understanding. And there is something more (hat we must add to our thinking. The public is now as much part of the Government as are the army and navy themselves; the whole people in all their activities arc now mobilised and in service for the accomplishment of the nation’s task in this war; it is in such circumstance.-- impossible just Iy to distinguish between industrial purchases made by the Government and industries, and it is just as much our duty to sustain the imhistrios of the country, aii the iii'.ln.Trie- that contribute in its life, as it is to sustain our forces in I lie Held and on the sea,. Wo must make the prices to the public the same as (he prices to the Government. Prices mean the same thing everywhere now. They mean the efficiency or Ihe inefficiency of the nation, whether it is the Government that pays them or not. They mean victory or defeat. They mean that America will win her place once for all among the foremost free nations of the world, or that she. will sink to defeat and heroine a second-rate power alike in thought mid action. This is a. day of her reckoning, and every man amongst us must personally face that reckoning along with her. —President Wilson's Appeal to the Business ’Men.
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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1737, 6 October 1917, Page 4
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580“A JUST PRICE MUST BE PAID.” Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1737, 6 October 1917, Page 4
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