tz BEATE Pays A pivivenD land that the peace-time export trade in armaments brings valuable addition tour foreign exchange resources. Tuo eter scion of ine i the abso of ett s0 raed atin the monsfctre nd cole of armaments. Inno thr seton of irs ase monopole combination and “price rigging” greeent reached such can adsanced tage of drop. ‘At home, all the most vital materials im the manufacture of arms and munitions—iron and steel, non-ferrous metals and chemicale—are controlled by water-tight monopolist groups which are able to “regulate” output and “Wabile™ prices at whatever level is found to yield them the greatest maygins of profi. Abroad, as we have already shown in preceding chapters the international armament eactels have evolved aver the years the most thorough-going arrangements forthe division of world markets and the sharing of profits Private combination, not Brlate competing, isthe oubtandng fete of the Bisedy "That monopolj-captalism can sell armaments to the State ‘more cheaply than the State could mancfrcture the same armaments itself is demonstrably untrue. We have not yet had fan oficial inquiry into the relative charges for armaments made by private eoncems and \Governmient-owned factories daring the wars but some idea ofthe discrepancy ean be gained fiom past inquiries made in Britain and America, Thus, it was shown in the Murray Report of 2007 that the average. prices charged for rifles during the period 1885-1904 by the Royal Ordnance factory at Enfield and by the BS.A, Co. were as fallow Enfield BSA, £9 94 a 43% Similar Sgures for other articles were: Siord bayonets, Enfield Private firms ye tnd 18 54. Cacaly ord, Enfield Private firms 1g 8. £1 a8. 9h Aw Eso To pivinens as In 1907, Dr. Gilbert Slater, acting om behalf of the Woalivcl Joine Conference on Discharges from the Arsenal, published in Me Times the following table of comparative prices = 2 ee ieee po acts Bie Bd ees 5 aoe igen Porpedies a8 During the Jast war, the proftering of the armament fi svar checked in three ways—firs, by a system of enstings and Tventigation; second, by the etablhment of competing national factories; and thin by the Excess Profits Duty. In a speech tubich Mr. Lloyd George delivered in the House of Commons in ‘August, 919, shea surveying the work ofthe Ministry of Muni- tions, he revealed that the huge suin of £440,000,000 had een wved by these means, He began by refering to the original rofiteering” price changed by the armament firms for a shell “The 18-pounder, when the Ministry was stared, cost fat, 6d. a shell. A system of costing and investigation was jatroduced, and national factories were set up which checked the prices, and shel for which the War Office, atthe time the Minitry was formed paid ans. Gd. was reduced to 138, Od. When you have 85,000,000 shells, that saved £35;000,000 ‘There was a reduction in the price of all other shells, and, there wnt a reduction in the Lewis gun. When we took them fn hand they cost £165, and we redued then to £95 each There ‘was a saving of 14,000,000 and, through the ccstng sytem (and the checking of the national factories we stu, before the end of the war there was a saving of 440,000,000." ‘And in 1996 US, Senate Committee reported that the cost of Imuilding cruisers in Goverament-owned yards was $2,116,808 Tower than in private yards in 1927 and 81,843,693 lower 1929. Italo found that in r933 the Government-yard estimate