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.
We could not wisely or reasonably do less than pay such prices. They
are necessary for the maintenance and development of industry; and
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
acceptance 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 to be 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 labor in these tragical months, when the liberty of
free men everywhere and of industry itself trembles in the balance,
but it would be absurd to discuss them as a motive for helping to
serve and save our country.
Patriotism leaves profits out of the question. In these days of our
supreme trial, when we are sending hundreds of thousands of our young
men across the seas to serve a great cause, no true man who stays
behind to work for them and sustain them by his labor will ask
himself what he is personally going to make out of that labor.
No true patriot will permit himself to take toll of their heroism in
money or seek to grow rich by the shedding of their blood. He will
give as freely and with as unstinted self-sacrifice as they. When
they are giving their lives, will he not at least give his money?
I hear it insisted that more than a just price, more than a price
that will sustain our industries, must be paid; that it is necessary
to pay very liberal and unusual profits in order to "stimulate
production," that nothing but pecuniary rewards will do--rewards paid
in money, not in the mere liberation of the world.