"I Am Glad"

Two years ago the Federal Trade Commission ordered Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to stop selling its tires to Sears, Roebuck & Co. at net prices lower than those accorded to other purchasers--a practice which had enabled Sears to undersell its competitors. When the Robinson-Patman Anti-Price Discrimination Act presently was passed, Goodyear abandoned the practice. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the F. T. C. order on the ground that the controversy no longer existed.

Last year another potent Governmental bureau, the Treasury Department, was mightily annoyed to discover that the 14 companies seeking its $2,800,000 tire & tube contracts offered practically identical bids. Threatening to investigate the possibility of collusion,* the Treasury gave a $1,000,000 contract to Sears, Roebuck, which had not bid but whose retail prices were lower even though it bought its tires wholesale from one of the original bidders (TIME, Oct. 11).

Last week came the third set in this tennis match of opposing price policies: In Washington on the same day 1) the F. T. C. appealed to the Supreme Court to continue in effect its original order to Goodyear as a preventive to further price discrimination and 2) Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau beamed at the discovery that the bids for a new $1,500,000 Government tire&tube contract differed widely. Said he: "I am glad to see signs of competition in the tire bids, and I hope the practice will be extended to other merchandise purchased by the Government." Then, implying that price collusion is the everyday state of affairs in the U. S., the owlish Cabinet officer declared: "I also would like to see this policy extended to consumers generally."

* In classic collusions the bidders agree which concern shall get the bid, and everyone else studiously overbids it.

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