The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-10
STILL PUZZLED.

January 19, on us eullOl Idl pdSC approvingly says:
 "A Kansas editor has summed up briefly and pointedly, at least one important phase Of the problem of the high cost of living. The edi- tor was shown picture of woman wearing $25,000 coat. He said There is no such thing as $25,- 900 coat any more than there is a fifty cent hair cut. They just charge that price for it ''.
 There is no point to this: there is confusion. Doubtless what the Kansas editor meant to say was that there were no $25,000 values in that coat as there were no fifty cent values in a hair cut Still as the price is there, and as it is the price that is charged which We have to pay. there is nothing mythical ill that al all
 Price is the expression of values in terms of gold It may very well be that a coat may be worth S25,- 600 and more. It may be made ot furs or cloth which are worth that: that in order to obtain those furs and to secure that cloth the labor employed would be tantamount to the labor employed to extract $25, GOO and then some.
 rr-t. nr-5 so rare. and so much socially neces- sary labor power must be diverted from productive endeavor to secure it that it could easily be worth the sum mentioned.
 If the Kansan editor meant to say that the juggling among owners of the supply in relation to the de- mand caused the high price. he might have gone far towards hold ing q tenable position. But in the main. the situation is to be explain ed by the very simple fact what we sec operating in the world of high prices is for the most part the law or supply and demand
 Consider the situation and the rest is easy In Europe the major ity of workers have been diverted from fruitful fields of production to labor which is non-productive. The majority of the workers in Europe are engaged mainly in promoting War, not in producing food, clothing and other necessaries of life They are engaged in making munitions, ships of war, explosives, shells, can non and other implements of de struct!on essentially useless for aay thing else to human beings. But these workers, whether they are en- gagged in productive labor or are in such non-productive ways of life as soldiers, sailors or intuition workers. must be fed, clothed, shod and sheltered and that must come from the labor of the productive workers Manifestly European pro- ductive labor with it's limited field cannot do this and has to draw upon other nations to make up its needs.
 Even in times of peace Great Britain and other countries could not feed and clothe it's population in non-prcduetive pursuits, when such non-productive pursuits were only to be directly subsidiary to- wards the production of the neces- ! sites of human life. But because ! in times of peace being subsidiary l thereto, the labor product of the machine shop, the ship yard, the | factory can exchange for the food l that is in a surplus in other nations, 1 which have need of the other pro- ducts, the exchange produces . nor 1 nal condition. The nations of Europe had through | this process of exchange accumulat- l ed a quantity of wealth in, the | form of gold. This gold was pro duced in a proportion to the costs of living at the time of it's being 1 mined. It represented a definite | labor value then which has not in- creased in the meanwhile. With | this accumulation the European nations now enter the markets ot America to buy certain products oi non-productive labor such as can non, explosives and shells of all kinds. and certain products of pro-