“THE PROFITEER.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2055, 15 November 1919, Page 1

“THE PROFITEER.”

A NEW WORD FROM THE WAR, Wars, especially foreign ones, invariably add forceful words to the language, or give new meanings to old ones. The American Civil War produced a lot of them like “skedaddle,” and gafe a new twist to others like “contraband.” Out of the Boer War came, among others, the word “commandeer,” has been in fairly general use since. Perhaps, the most striking of the new words coined during the recent struggle is “profiteer,” constructed by putting an extra “e” in the old word “proliter,” but with a meaning all its own. This meaning was defined by Sir Auckland Geddes, the President, of the British Board of Trade, in a recent speech in the House of Commons, as follows: — To profiteer is to make unreasonably large profit, all the circumstances of the case being considered, by the sale to one’s fellow-citizens of an article which is one or one of a kind in common use by or for the majority of the population. He added that the introduction of the word into (lie language is really something of a landmark, for it marks an increase in the social consciousness. It shows that people on a large scale, the population as a whole, are realising that action taken by individuals for their own benefit may be against the interests of the population as a whole, and that, indeed, is- the ease with the making of unreasonable profits in connection with articles in common use, or of a kind that is in common use.