The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-04-19

ton and exchange be just and natural.
All revenues for the use of society
should be drawn from the values So
ciety alone creates, and not from pro-
duction and consumption, but as far
as the workingman is concerned, 1t
makes little difference whether he is
under protection or free trade. There
is as much poverty and unemployed
labor in free trade England as there is
in Germany which has protection. If
free trade should result in increasing
international competition, smashing
few trusts and reducing the cost of
some goods, it would be followed by
reduction of wages as close to the mar
gin of subsistence as before.
Government and Municipal Owner
ship.
There is a growing sentiment in ia
vor of the public ownership of the rail-
road and all other public utilities, and
such a change is necessary. For the
immense profits of the corporations
which control these public utilities are
apparent to ALL but / think the bene-
fits of such a change without still
more important change is greatly over
estimated. 1t may be quite true that
if a million and a half railway en-
ployes, and a hundred thousand tele-
graph operators were government en-
ployes under a thoroughly efficient civ
il service system, it would result in
great benefits to them and to the serv-
ice. as it has to the employees of the
postoffice departments under such civil
service regulations. Their wages would
undoubtedly be higher. their hours of
employment less, the conditions of la
Dor better and the certainty of con-
tinuOus employment and advancement
would be greater. With profits elm
mated and determinations abolished,
railway charges could be greatly re-
duced and equalized. The better con-
ditions of the service would also draw
into these employments the best of
men and might result in slightly rails
ing wages in other employments, The
same results would follow to a limited
degree if each municipality owned its
own street railway and lighting and
telephone systems as should be the
case. There is as much reason for a
city owning these as for owning it's
waterworks. No city should turn over
its streets to private corporations for
their profit. Under a wise system of
municipal management the charges for
street car service, lighting and other
public functions now undertaken by
private corporations could be greatly
reduced and the service improved, as
has been proved in hundreds of cases
in the United States and elsewhere.
But suppose, through the govern
ment ownership of railways and other
national utilities, and municipal own
ership of municipal utilities, great
saving should be effected and the cost
of goods considerably reduced. who
would get the benefit? Not the cap
italist as a capitalist, nor the wage
Garner. Competition among the max
ers and sellers of goods would reduce
their profits to the same average re-
turn as before, while competition
among Workingmen for work would re-
duce their wages again to the same
narrow margin above subsistence. Ger
tainly there is as much poverty in
Glasgow as in other places since mu-
nicipal ownership was introduced as
before. Government ownership of rail-
ways in Germany and France and
other European countries has not less
ened poverty nor reduced the number
of the unemployed. And it is not be-
cause these public utilities are not OPP
Grated democratically, for even under
the management of a deSpotic mon
archy profits have been eliminated, and
this is the chief advantage claimed for
government and municipal ownership.
In my article next Sunday / will
touch on the effects of an improved
currency system, and then endeaVor to
point out the fallacy of Karl Marx
that the surplus value created by la
Dor goes to the capitalist.