The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1877-10-01
REGULATED PRODUCTION.

DR.. Holland, in Scrfbners Magaziue
for October, has a paper on the subject
named above in which hei seeks to show
aremedy Tor the present business stag
nation. He takes the same general view
many times express cd Ia these columns,
namely that our capacity for oonsump-
tion has not kept pace with our ability
toproduce, and that the country,is there
fore easily kept overs stocked with every
article or manufactured goods. He
further shows that with our enlarged,
predueing capacity this statesef affairs
can be and is kept up with only a'small
part of the labor OF The country en-
ployed. SThe remedy WhichrDr. HoIlsnd
suggests will hardly strike the masses
as practical. The plan as intimated in
the title Of the article Is to SO arrange
affairs as to produce only as much as :
is needed.
We hardly see how this will help mat.
ters. If 1t only takes one-half the labor
Of the country to supply the wants, then
only one-half Of it can be employed.
The only change that could be made,
would be, instead OF having one man
idle all the time, TO give two men half
employment. IT the same amount ot,
money be paid to two men instead of
one, the result Is only TO make the man
that has work divide with the one who
has not. Certainly the situation de-
mands Q remedy better than this. We
must push out for new markets for our
manufactured articles and the products
OF our fields, and by supplying out Of
our abundance those people who need
what we have give full employment to
all our labor. DR.. Hollands theory of
the cause and the remedy is summed up
in the following paragraphs:
Snow, for series of years, labor and
capital alike have been in trouble.
Capital has not been able to buy labor,
because il could not sell its product.
Labor has not been able to buy any thing,
because it could not earn anything to
offer in exchange. 1t has seemed like
an irremediabe deadlock. We look for
better times, but they do not come, and
there appears to be no mind SO
gifted with foresight as to be able to pre-
dict the date OF renewed prosperity
Machinery in vast and multiplied organ
izations, and capital in large acoumula-
tions, lie idle, while labor lives from
hand to mouth and waits for something
to do. In the meantime fictitious val
ues have died out, speculation sleeps,
and at what point matters can possibly
begin to improve surpasses conjecture.
Large expectations Of produce may
start consumption again, and so set
capital and labor at work; but nobody
knows anything about 1t.
''Of this one fact, however, all men at
this Time have come to be well aware,
viz, that we have the machinery and
the labor for producing more OF the
ordinary materials required in civilized
life than we can sell. The further fact,
to which we have already alluded, that
''the law of demand and supply" works
clumsily, and often disastrously, when
left TO ITSELF is also pretty definitely ap.
pretended. There would seem, there
fore, to be no alternative policy but that
of regulated production.' That this is
possible in limited spheres has already
been abundantly proved. There is at
this time in Massachusetts society of
papor-makers who are intelIigently and
successfully regulating the produc-
tion OF their mills. They under
stand that if they run their |
mills day and night, as they did when |
business was god, they will produce |
paper in such quantities as TO raise the |
price Of stock and reduce the price of
paper, as well as glut the naarkeh so. Y