Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1920 — SUPERVISION OF WOOL IS ENDED [ARTICLE]

SUPERVISION OF WOOL IS ENDED

Four or Five Steps Necessary to Finish Work of War Industries Board. SETTIE WITH 3,865 DEALERS Report! Must Be Audited, Analyzed and Excess Profits Determined and Disbursed —Refunds in Many Cases Will Be Small. Washington.—The department of agriculture is winding up the affairs tof the domestic wool section of the war industries board. This work involves four distinct steps, and it seems probable that a fifth will be necessary. The first step is to secure, on forms furnished by the department sworn reports from the 3,686 country dealers and the 179 distributing dealers to whom the war industries board issued permits to deal in wool of the 1918 clip. The second Involves the auditing of these reports in detail to determine whether the methods pursued and the profits made are in accordance with the regulations. The third is the collection of excess profits from those persons or firms whose reports,, after auditing, show that such excess profits were made. As rapidly as they iare received by the department, all remittances for excess profits are being deposited as a special fund in the treasury of the United States. Disbursing Excess Profits. The fourth is a careful analysis of each report which shows excess profits With a View to working out the fairest possible method of distributing such profits. After this is done, the department proposes to disburse the excess profits by check of its own disbursing officer drawn on the treasury of the United States.

The fifth step will be an audit, in the field, of the books and records of dealers whose reports for any reason seem to make this course advisable. The first division of the work has been very nearly completed. A relatively small number of approved deallers have failed to make reports, and It Is believed that the transactions of many of these were so small as to be practically negligible. It has been discovered that several hundred wool dealers carried .on their business as usual during 1918 without obtaining permits. As the names of these dealers have been ascertained they have been Required to furnish reports similar in respect to those rejqutred from permit holders and to pay over their excess profits whenever It lappears that they have made more than the' regulations allowed. In other words, they are not allowed to derive any advantage from having operated in Ignorance or violation of the regulations. The discovery of many of these unauthorized dealers was impossible until the reports of the 179 dealers in distributing centers were audited, since the entire wool clip of the country eventually passed through their books either as purchases or consignments. The j second division of the work, that of auditing the reports received, is progressing rapidly as the force available will permit, and the collection of excess profits proceeds as the" audit of each separate case is completed. As rapidly as excess profits are re-

ceived from any dqaler they are apportioned to the individual growers to the extent to which their identity is disclosed, but the actual payments are being withheld until the collection of excess profits is more nearlycompleted, in order that practically all the growers may receive their checks at approximately the same time. The reports of many country dealers show no excess profits. Relatively small amounts of excess were made by most of the others, and the refunds to individual growers in many cases will be very small. In other words, the refunds will amount in the aggregate to several cents per pound upon all the wool which the dealer handled. “The greater part of all excess profits,” according to a report of the department, "appears to have accumulated in the hands of certain distributing center dealers who purchased largely through direct agencies in producing sections. Many of the distributing center dealers, who handled wools on consignment only and whose profits were necessarily limited to the commissions paid by the government, appear to have no excess. In the discussion of this subject In press, the fact that nearly two-thlrds of the wool clip of the country Is so-called territory wool from the Western and Pacific coast states, which was handled almost exclusively on consignments, and therefore furnished on opportunity for the accumulation of excess profits, has, to some extent at least, been overlooked.”