The morning times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1897, 1895-10-06
SINGLE tax COLUMN.

OlNull Ina UVkUulNs
(The Times Is not responsible for any
of the views advanced in the Single Tax
Column)
Comments by the Editor of the
Single Tax Column.
The working man, as a rule. receives
much less for his labor than the selling
price or tue articles he makes. How much
less, employers persistently refuse to dis
close.
When a Congressional Committee asks
the manager of a corporation for an itemized
account of its income and expenses, the
witness tells the committee that it has no
right 10 pry into other peoples private
affairs; whereupon the committee apollo
gizes and withdraws the question
In some instances II Is very easy to estt-
mate the labor cost" OF an article. Thus,
suppose that the owner of piece of land
gives a contractor all the wood he VIII
remove from 1t. IN return for the benefit
to the farm by being cleared-so the wood
costs the contractor nothing; that the
contra tor hires Iaborer To cut the wood.
paying him dollar a cord: that be hires
another man, with team, to haul 1t to .
nearby village for 10 cents a cord; and
that customers in the village pay the con.
tractor S3.75 a cord. II is easy to see
that the Labor cost of the wood is s1.7b
a cord as his profits.
Ordinarily. however, the laborer works
"by the day." instead OF "by the job;'
the labor cost is divided among number
OF laborers; and the profits are taken q
little here and little there by a large
number Of profiters; which renders il more
difficult TO discover the proportion between
labor cost and profits"
LABORERS GET THE SMALLER SHARE.
Carefulinvestigation by economic experts
aud by labor commissioners of different
States and of the United States shows that,
taking a II the manufactured products OF the
country together, the result is substantially
the same as in the case OF the wood cutter
Just referred to. Somewhat less than half
the price paid by the consumers of products
goes to the laborers engaged in producing
them; somewhat more-than half goes to
others-to owners of the ground occupied
by factories, warehouses, banks. etc, as
rent" to bankers and others investing or
loaning capital, as interest" to man
ayers and officers OF corporations, as sal
aries;' to stockholders, as dividends"
and In other form under the generic name Of
profits
land owner a right to his rent, the capt.
talist to his interest, the stakeholder to
his dividends, the manager to his salary,
the merchant to his profits?"
We are not now talking about right
and wrong; We may come to that here
after. We are now engaged in a purely
mathema teal Investigation. When the
teacher asks Johany, IF you have an apple
and give James five eighths of it, howmany
eighths will you have Left" the answer
win be all the same. so far as mathematics
are concerned, whether James has right
fully earned a part of the apple or not
Another may ask: 'what bearing has
all this upon the question of the single tax?'
The shortest answer to this Will be an
Indirect one. paradoxical as it may SEEM
Permit us to make a DEPRESSION of few
thousand miles. to the shore of Norway.
FISHING IN FREE WATERS.
The western coast of Norway is the
greatest fishing ground in the world: the
southern half for herring, the northern
for Goldfish. Norway is cold, mountainous,
infertile country, with comparatively little
natural wealth; but where the fishing in
custry predomina ties, travellers tell us.
there are no paupers, no idlers, no dis
tress. Any one who is willing to work can
make, buy, or hire a boat 60 out to the
fishing grounds, and at least make living.
The water is free to all, and every one
has right to gather in its product with
out paying any other person tribute for
the privilege.
A few years ago an enterprisipg Russian,
whose ships navigated those northern seas,
observed the heads and other uneatabIGs
portions of fish that had been prepared for
market heaped along the beach for hun
dreds of miles. The thought struck him
that this waste and worthless material
might be converted into fertilizer for the
benefit of Russian farms; and he erected a
phosphate factory on the shore Of the
Loffoden archipelago. The factory ''fur-
uished employment" to several dozen Ia
borers-all but two or three of whom were
Russians. He paid them fair prices at
first: but after awhile. thinking that he
had them at disadvantage. because they
were hundreds of miles from home and
among a strange people, he cut down
their wages.
But he had omitted to take into cunsidera-
ton the fact that among his employees there
were two or three Norwegians. When their
wages were reduced they quietly quit
work and returned to their old business
fishing. They caught fish enough every
day to sell for as much as their comrades
who remained In the fertilizer factory could
earn in two days. They. of course, Informed
their companions of their success, where
upon every Cossack of them quit work,
hired boat, gave one-tenth of the fish he
caught for the use t'rent'D OF It. and
had the remaining Dine-tenths as the rer
ward of his labor.
Tne Capitalist knew tnat II ne sent DaCk
home and brought more Russians they
would speedily follow the example of
their predecessors. There was but one
thing for him to do; that was to go after
his runaway workmen and offer them as |,
much for working In his fertilizer factory |
as they could make by fishing.
It requires no profound sagacity to dis |
Germ that IL some other capitalist had been |
permitted to Town" the waters along |
the shores of Norway and to demand |
rent could be obtained |
for the right of fishing in them-instead of
the wages of factory hands going up to that
Of fishermen. the wages of fishermen would
have gone down to that of factory hands,
and the difference would have gone to en-
Itch the factory owner and the water owner.