Emil Lederer: Discussion Contribution on the Potash Industry (1921)

This recorded commission speaking turn concerns the evidence needed to assess production costs in the potash industry. Lederer introduces supplementary questions intended to advance the discussion, then distinguishes three inquiries that aggregate expenditure figures cannot answer. His central claim is methodological: increases in individual expenses must be related to output, changes in the composition of costs, and differences between works before they can establish an accurate picture of industrial conditions.

Lederer begins with a table presented the previous day. He acknowledges its usefulness and the substantial growth it records across expenditure categories, but identifies a missing denominator:

Es geht aus dieser Tabelle, soweit ich sie bisher verstanden habe, leider die Höhe der Produktion nicht hervor, so daß uns also die Möglichkeit nicht gegeben ist, diese Selbstkosten auf die Einheit zu reduzieren.

English translation: Unfortunately, insofar as I have understood it so far, this table does not indicate the volume of production, so that we are unable to calculate these production costs per unit.

The qualification matters: Lederer does not dismiss the table or claim that its figures are wrong. He asks that the expert’s works supply production data so that total expenditure can be converted into unit costs. The distinction prevents rising aggregate expenses from being treated as sufficient evidence of rising costs for each unit produced.

His first inquiry concerns the development of individual cost components over time. Taking wages in 1913 as an index of 100, he asks for comparable figures for 1916–1920. The second concerns the changing shares of those components within total production costs. These are different questions: a component’s increase does not by itself establish how its relative importance has changed. Written responses apparently show considerable variation between works, with stable proportions in some and pronounced fluctuations in others.

The third inquiry makes comparison between works explicit. Lederer asks how the component costs of a works regarded by the industry as operating favourably compare with those of one regarded as operating unfavourably. He thus uses the industry’s own assessments to frame a request for differentiated evidence, without supplying an explanation for the disparities in advance.

The contribution ends by insisting that these inquiries remain analytically distinct:

Ich glaube, daß wir diese drei Fragen etwas auseinanderhalten müssen, und daß wir uns jedenfalls nicht darauf beschränken können, uns nur die Steigerung der einzelnen Faktoren, also z. B. der Löhne, der Kohle usw. vorführen zu lassen, weil sich daraus noch nicht ein genaues Bild der Sachlage ergeben kann.

English translation: I believe that we must keep these three questions somewhat separate, and that we certainly cannot confine ourselves to being shown only the increase in individual factors, such as wages, coal, and so on, because that alone cannot yet yield an accurate picture of the situation.

The intervention’s significance lies in this discipline of comparison. It offers no settled verdict on potash production costs; instead, it specifies what evidence a defensible verdict would require, moving from expenditure totals toward unit costs, cost structure, and variation between works.