St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-11-01
OvERPRoDUCTION.
An Interesting Discussion of Vital
Questions.

The following communication, which APP
peared in John Swnton's paper OF Oct. 20,
is from the pen of j. S. Rankin of Mime
apolis. Mr.. Rankin is an intelligent and
conservative thinker who has worked over
twenty years at compositor's case and
who has made the relations of capital and
labor the study of his life. His views can
be regarded as those of man who is earnest
iii his effort to aid in the improvement of
the condition of the working classes, and
whose fifty years of observation and study
certainly entitle him to respectful hearing:
To the Editor of the Globe;
notice by your paper that Dom Piatt
vigorously indorSeS the old, exploded but
once more fashionable no-glut theory. He
goes so far as to say. ''If all labor on earth
were suddenly suspended. mankind would
starve to death in six days." The reason
given for this assestion is: ''Such is our
hard struggle for subsistence on earth that
we can accumulate only a few days pro-
malls of the possibility of overproduction
cut the ground away from under the feet of
all who advocate eight hours day or less,
l beg leave to make brief reply.
Out West there is a good deal of selfish
rejoicing just now over the fact that the
wheat crop is short, and therefore good
times may be expected as the result. Our
leading journals take this view of it, and,
as think, with justice. Our extra hun
dreds of millions of bushels have been as
millstones weighing down the markets and
producing poverty among the larger half OF
our producers-the farmers. When they
suffer, all suffer.
Our great lumber men are organizing to
cut less lumber. They cry out overpro-
ductlon. l see, also, that hundreds of
mills in various parts of the country are
closed because stocks are too large.
The reply that will be made is: ''This is
because the masses have not the means to
purchase. If their incomes were suffi-
cient they would use up the surplus in a
week, and never leave more than few
days provisions ahead of them" AT least
so says Dom Piatt.
l take it for granted that the great ma
jority of my readers will reject this idea,
that the struggle for subsistence" is so
favorable circumstances, to leave us on the
ragged edge of despair all the time.
admit that there is undercOnsumption
But what causes underconsumption? Low
wages What is the cause of low wages?
Overproduction. What creates too much
of everything? Over work-ten hours a
day.
The proof of this proposition is not diff
cult. Don Piatt, speaking about the ''sim-
plest principles of political economy" ex-
claims ''How few know or consider them"
Among these simplest principles he places
the following: ''In the law of demand and
supply, each man ought to be entitled to
enough return for labor to clothe feed and
shelter himself and family" l beg leave to
assure Mr.. Piatt that for more than forty
years [ have aJtentively considered this sub
ject and, as one result / am prepared to
assert that the law of demand and supply"
knows no such word as Ought" 1t says:
''Buy where you can buy the cheapest-sen
where you can sell the dearest. If you can
get shirts made at cents apiece, you are
fool to pay 6; and if you can sell them at a
hundred per cent. profit, you are ninny if
you take less.' But it never uses the word
fought" nor the idea contained in it. 1t
repudiates all moral obligations; it knows no
God
But the law of supply and demand does
say, emphatically, always and everywhere,
that if things are plenty they must sell
cheap; if scarce, prices will be high. 1t
says that labor is peculiarly subject to the
action of this law. Now, according to Mr..
Piatt, the demand for labor is urgent. Not
enough ON hand for six days." Why, then,
does not labor rise? Why are the incomes
Of the working classes so contracted that
they can hardly buy food enough to enable
them to work with vigor and the best effect?
Why?
profess to be well acquainted with some
of the simplest principles of political
economy" and therefore venture to say,
positively, and, if you please to consider it
so, dogmatically that if we, the workers, are
such fools as to throw into market ten
hours daily of bodily toll, we must suffer
the consequences Of our own folly. Ten
hours day, aided by machinery, will fill
our warehouses in six months to the garretS;
will crowd our country stores to overflow
ing; will make our barns, granarieS and
elevators burst with their accumulated
riches enough for years, not days"
and will deprive millions of
honest workmen of the means of paying
for the good things provided by their own
toll. 1t will be said to them: I'VE have
produced too much. and now We must go
unfed, unclothed; We have produced enough
for months or years ahead, and now your
labor is not in demand"
The old political economists used to cry
out: Keep capital ahead of population;
do not let population crowd on the heels
of capital. or there will be starvation"
They, therefore, consistently demanded
long hours of labor, no holidays and no
Sabbaths. DR.. Chalmers and Sismondi,
with great ability, opposed this view.
Sismondi, in particular. urged the
necessity of encouraging every
thing which forces upon men employments
not Industrial" He says: There will be
time enough left to produce more than
there is the means of consuming"
But, If you wish to know how effectually
this old, misleading and most vicious cry
has been demolished, read Capital and La
Dor, by Frederick B. Hawley, published by
Appleton & Co.
If that old cry, echoed by modern friends
of labor, is good one, then there is no
hope. But if overproduction be possible
and common, then plenty may be obtained
with ease and certainty.
But over work will not give the products
of labor to the industrious, honest and
needy producers. On the contrary, it will
rob them of the fruits of their toll. Too
much labor thrown into market will de-
press wages. just as too much wheat on
hand has kept the price of that staple COM
modify down. This is the ''law of supply
and demand" and perhaps my denial of the
use of the word fought" in this connec-
ton, should be retracted If men do not
think enough of themselves to rebel, in
heart and by appropriate action, against
this slavlsh destiny of ill-paid, unceasing
toll, they should suffer. II the laboring
classes loved books. music. art, OF some
thing of that nature, they would rebel, and
could easily find peaceable, effective means
of emancipating themselves from lives of
bondage and poverty.
Five hours of daily labor is enough to fill
the land with all good things, and also give
to every man job. This would prevent
cnt- thrnat cnmnatitior Tho nanca of III o,1r