EXIT PROFITEER.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 8

EXIT PROFITEER.

To the Editor. Sir, —Profitism Is as doomed as ever Kaiserdom was doomed. Prices will “have” to come down. The time has come for the profiteers of this country to take warning, and to mend their ways. They have had a good innings from their own point of view, though a bad« one from ours. They have done themselves more than proud—now they -must acquire humility. If they want to get away with the spoil they have ■ accumulated, they must recognise the fact that the war and the joy rides are over, and that if they don’t quickly cease to be profiteers, some of them may cease to be anything at all. The war was their opportunity, the war involved little hardship for them, it has given them the money-making time of their lives. For over four years they have had us at their mercy—and shown us none. They have bumped up this, that, and other 4 things,, without rhyme or reason,' and for nobody’s benefit but their own. They' have laughed at controllers, and wriggled their way through every official regulation framed to prevent their activities from becoming too preposterous. They have been the real cause of most of the industrial unrest in this country. They have been the real cause of all the strikes, they have driven the workers in demanding and' securing war bqnuses and inflated wages which have not benefited the workers in any way, but have simply added to the spoils of the profiteers.

The war gave these men their opportunity and their excuse. Things are always dear in war time, they said to themselves, why not make them dearer; the general public can’t tell where the unavoidable effect of the war ends and our own little game begins. And all we did was to grin and bear it then. But now! The war is over, and the old stock yarns won’t wash. “Owing to the war” has become an obsolete phrase. The profiteers have been very wily. For months past they have been carefully preparing the way for carrying on of their little game, after the carrying off of the Kaiser. “Things cannot possibly improve for years and years,” they have insisted; “the world shortage will be worse after the war.” Very impressive utterances! But the men who have come back from the battle fields won’t be satisfied with them. It may be true that we never shall get back to the “good old pre-war prices,” but there is no earthly reason why we shouldn’t get back to prices very different from those we are at present having to pay—and that in double quick time, too. The men who have been fighting for ■ this country say that they haven't been fighting in order to perpetuate famine prices for food and absolutely ridiculous prices for clothes. They have not been crushing Prussianism abroad in order to create a permanent profitism at home. Prices will simply have to come down with, a run, or there will be trouble —heaps and heaps of trouble. The shipping firms -who have been charging extraordinary rates for carrying goods across the seas had the U-boats for their excuse, but the U-boats have gone now and the exorbitant rates must go with them. They will no doubt try to go on profiteering, pleading the amount of tonnage that is at the bottom of the sea for their peace-time excuse, but this excuse will not carry the present freightage. The manufacturers who have cried out that they must charge more because of the scarcity and cost of labour will not be able to gull the public much longer with their talk of labour shortage, while as to the cost of labour it is mainly the excessive prices of the profiteers that have made labour sp costly. Let the prices be lowered, and labour will become cheaper, too. We are paying eightpence to-day for a reel of cotton that cost twopence, an insignificant item perhaps, but one that points to a moral, for though our wives have been told “that this is due to the war,” the more observant have noticed that the manufacturers of many commodities have been paying bigger dividends than ever..

We have said little, except to one another. We have been paying the price and trying to look pleasant. Profltism is doomed as ever Kaiserdom was doomed, and unless the profiteers decide for the future to he contented with limited and reasonable profits, the Government will have to step in and control the supply of anything and everything. If the Government arbitrates for men’s wages, then the Government must arbitrate for the price of living, and get to a flat rate of wages and flat rate of living, and thus avoid trouble with the worker. Let the profiteers take warning!—l am, etC ‘ v • AVENUE,'