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Show u Renegotiation " Might Touch You ! Under no other circumstances is !the fine spirit of neighborly cooperation co-operation shown to better advantage ;in a rural community than in the lease of fire or other calamity. This friendly spirit is not based upon per-isonal per-isonal interest, but upon the deep 'sympathy that just naturally arises lin case of disaster. Of course, there lis a personal interest if the fire threatens our own property, but we like to think this unity of spirit in our rural life is typical of America. There is this same community of interest between industry, labor and agriculture, although sympathy for each other's troubles seldom comes to the surface. Every farmer knows that his best market for the produce of his farm is our local domestic market. He depends upon this domestic market to consume over 90 per cent of what 'Our American farms produce each year. If anything happens to his domestic market, like the depression and loss of employment in the early thirties, agriculture is at once affected. af-fected. On the other hand, if anything any-thing happens to the buying power of agriculture, industry is hurt just as badly. Right now congress is considering , the renegotiation of all government contracts. The law was passed on 'April 28, 1942. Some people are urging that these new renegotiation bureaus should examine contracts made long before the law was passed. Take the case of a contract made in 1940. The work has been done and paid for; taxes have been paid to the government on the profits, if any; labor has been paid and the money balance distributed either in repairs to plant or perhaps paid in dividends to stockholders. Danger of Retroactive Measures. Suppose that same thing happened to our local store, or even to our farmers themselves. Suppose the prices we received for our crops, or the conservation payments by the government' for 1941 or 1940 were suddenly to be "renegotiated." Every Ev-ery farmer has either fed out or sold his crop, purchased new machinery ma-chinery or perhaps painted the barn, or bought a new dress for his wife. If, under a retroactive law, he were suddenly put up against the threat of renegotiation, all of his credit, and perhaps even his investment would ' be disturbed. No one wants unfair profits or excessive ex-cessive dividends out of war contracts. con-tracts. Investigation has shown that .over 95 per cent of industry and business made no excessive profits out of the war. Certainly no farmers farm-ers have received excessive prices for farm crops. Now Is the Time for Unity We want to get on with this war. We must have unity. Unity is based upon mutual confidence in our government gov-ernment and in each other. We are all looking forward to a return of peace after the war has been won. We will then want to resume our domestic markets, replace worn-out farm machinery and resume our normal trade relationships. Industry Indus-try and business will need all of their American ingenuity and ;strength to provide jobs which, in turn, furnish our domestic market after the war. True, renegotiation at present is applied only to industry and contracts con-tracts with the government. But we all recognize the good old American principle that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If business contracts can be renegotiated re-negotiated under a law passed long after the business contracts were made, how about the sanctity of our own contracts? Just now the fire seems far from our own neighborhood, but if we look closely, our domestic markets, both now and after the war, are involved. We can well take time off to show a little neighborly spirit and help put out the fire. |