Bisbee daily review., 1911-09-24
What the Strike E Cost England

every day man is going to realize | what a great strike means before many months are oyer." was the opin- ion expressed recently by a promi- nent business man.
 Tt is going to be brought home to him at every moment of the day. The Daily Mirror has already shown that the strike epidemic will have cost the country from first to last something like 10,000,000 pounds sterling. That has to be paid somehow and by some one. The question is by whom and how, and the answer Is by every one, and in the form of dearer living all round'
 A loss of 10,0O0.0 900 to the country represents an average loss of pound shillings to every family in Great Britain. But to the ordinary every day family" 1t will mean far more than this.
 For a certain proportion of the pop ulation is in a position to escape bear ing its share of the loss altogether Consequently the rest of the nation will have to pay more than it's due proportion to make up the difference.
 The tendency always is for a loss to be passed on from one to another until the man of fixed income who cannot pass it any further has to meet the accumulated losses of all those that went before.
 Passing IL On" And more than this. Each individ- ual in passing on the burden adds little to 1t by way Of profit on his own outlay, insurance against loss of business due to the rise, and charge of difficulties of subdivision.
 If sugar goes up 2s per hundred to the refner, he probably makes the wholesaler pay pounds shillings more a ton for the finished product, and the retailer has to buy it from the wholesaler at an advance of 2 pounds 10 shillings, and the house holder has to give half penny a pound over the customary price. Yet the original rise of 2 shiilings a hundred is under a farthing a pound.
 Already We can get some idea of the directions in which the payment will be made.
 First, there will be a rise in the price of all those commodities, whose production has been checked by the strike. Under this head come:
 Coal and all products of coal; dyes, disinfecfants,, tar, saccharine, coke and possibly gas.
 Cotton, and hence almost all forms of clothing, worsted and many dress materials.
 Leather goods, gloves, boots, sad. dies, luggage
 Iron and steel ware of all kinds, and all manner of articles Of which they form a part.
 Soap, candles, and all by-products in their manufacture, such glycerin, high explosives, etc.
 Alkalis, bleaching powders, soluble glass land hence dry soapl, washing soda.
 Sugar, and. with it, sweets, print CTS ink, blacking.
 Raw Material Dearer
 But, more than this-all the indus tries dependent on the products above having to pay more for their raw ma terial. will have to charge more for their output. Coal, for instance, is a raw material in nearly every industry, and if it goes up in price almost every manufacturer article becomes dearer
 In some cases there is a double and treble effect of this kind. Thus with, say, soap. It goes up on its own ac- count because several soap works had to close down and hence the produc- ton will be short.
 It goes up also because 1t is a pro duct of alkalis, which will have gone up; and, again, because there has been a large waste of fats from which it is made, through the tying up" of ship ments
 This winter, then. will see a gen eral rise in the cost of living all round to make up for the loss of that 10,- 00O,OOG pounds.
 Percentage Figured
 The average total outlay Of Great Britain on the necessaries of life housing, food and clothing-is calcu- lated to be 625, 100000 pounds a year. With the profits and charges that will be added to the 10,000.OO0 pound strike loss. as it is passed down to the man who actually pays it. we may reckon that 1t will grow to 15,00O,0O0 pounds, so that for every shillings a household now spends 1t will have to spend an extra three-ffths of a shilling, or, roughly, 1-4 pence.
 Many householders, manufacturers, tTadesmen and others, will, however, pass their share of the burden on to the wage earners in the form of in creased rises in the price of com modities.
 So the final consumer, the man of fixed income. whether wage or sal ary esrner. who can not pass it on" any further. will have to pay some one else's share as we'll as his own. And he will be lucky if he finds that his weekly expense does not rise more than l shilling for every % shillings he is now spending.