New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-12-29

~ wv AV"'HS' III point Oh Nne pOSSlDlll-
ties OF revenues the two methods were
interchangeable.
What Liberty
Bonds Represent
Speaking in the large, then, these
bond isues are the expression and the
measure of how far, in a country not
growing in aggregate wealth and fall
ing off in current income, employers
margins could be widening and en-
pioyer capital and wealth increasing
at the main expense of labor. The
lew bonds represent, therefore, the in
( creased wealth Of some individuals in
a society that in the aggregate has not
! increased either in its production or
Its wealth. For the ultimate cancella-
ton OF these bonds-and the interest
the property incomes and the labor in
comes of Americas future are pledoed
IN terms OF the consumption of goods,
America has already paid dearly for
the war. 1t will in the future still
more grievously suffer through the re.
distribution Of future incomes and
property that must result from the
present redistribution Of income-this
present distributions imposed. not bv
the inevitable facts of war. but bv
these gratituous mutations of currency
through which the war has actually
been IN large part financed. These
: 81
which to make the world safe for de-
mocracy or democracy safe for the
world.
But all these things have ceased or
with the close of the war Will shortly
cease.
What then?
1t has been necessary to make clear
what the war has already meant. in
order to understand what it's closing
Is about to mean. The men survive to
return-some of them, most of them
to peace and to the activities of peace
Will this mean a new disturbance and
a fresh disaster? Essentially not,
surely. America will be excused from
the further maintenance of the SOL
diers and the further support of their
expensive military activities. This is
not new burden, but a release from
an old burden. We do not need the
continuance Of the burden-the eco
homie dissipation Of the cnergy-n
order essentially to prosper. If we
did, we might easily arrange for the
present maintenance of all the soldiers
on expense here at homc-feeding
them, clothing them and housing them.
In place of supplying them with am
munition and armament we could ar
range for daily Fourth Of July cele-
bration, till, by these methods Of waste
and by their continuance, our PROSPER
ity should seem established and endur
ing.
But the real difficulty is that this
great war closes suddenly rather than
gradually. The soldiers flock home:
the war industries shut down. Our
productive organization that has been
subjected to the heavy war demands
now has to be reorganized-a GOOD
thing ultimately, but a perplexing
thing lntermediately. For time these
soldiers may appear to be more of
nuisance at home than they were
burden abroad For time. indeed
but not for long tme-we might
prosper the more through the non-re-
turn OF even those that are left to re-
turn. Good times and bad times are
mainly interpreted from the point Of
view OF business men and their profits.
not of total product and of total well
fare. But, derivatively, general welfare
is liable to suffer when profits are
mcnaced. The returning soldiers will
cease to absorb the products of the
war industries and, for time. will not
have found places in the industries
that must be reestablished many of
which will be still in the early proc
esses of physical reestablishment. As
IN the beginning of the war. there was
the chaos of redistribution into war
organization, so, after the war, there
will be similar friction and perplex-
lty attending the reverse process of re-
distribution into peace organisation
of industry
Until Labor