WOOL PROFITEERING.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16046, 10 February 1920, Page 4

WOOL PROFITEERING.

Bespits .the efforts of those in the trade to prove that they have made no more than reasonable profits, it is again evident from further reports of the Profiteering Investigation Committee that the British woollen trade lias fleeced the public as well as the producers in a most wholesale fashion. The committee’s latest report shows spinners’ profits at up to 3000 per cent. The spinners protest that they are not robbers, but something like philanthropists, and produce their own figures, showing a much less profit, only a more matter of 2-10 or 250 per cent. It is not stated whether they claim this as a “reasonable” profit, but certain it is that even 250 per cent, would be regarded aa flagrant profiteering in most other branches of business. Most people will prefer to accept the committee’s figures, which are the result of disinterested inquiry, and these, as an exchange remarked some time ago, show that '‘someone should be hanged.” One passage in the commitee’s latest report, for instance, shows that some spanners made a, net profit which was almost equal to the wool-growers’ gross return. No wonder clothes are dear ! The worst of it is that this sort of thing influences every other branch of trade as well. When clothes go up, it means that the cost of living, not to a small section, but. to everybody, goes up as well. Consequently there is a demand for more wages, not in one trade, but in all trades. And when wages go. up in all trades it means that the, products of all trades increase in price also. There is continued action, re-action, and interaction, till, sooner or later, something is bound to break. And all because a few greedy people could not control their greed in the first place. Wo do not know whether the British Government intends that “someone should bo hanged” over this wool profiteering business. Considering that its own operations in wool, coal, meat, and various other lines have established the British Government as the worst profiteer of the lot, the chances of anyone being punished are, we are afraid, very small. But the people won’t stand this sort of thing for ever.