New-York tribune., 1918-02-18

prices have overtakcn the first and strong
est unions wages, that union can demand
another increase, and get the advantage
again.
Here we come to another principle The
union puts the premium upon strength
Weakness is penalzed. Improvdencc
and strength! Thrift and weakness! The
world has been controlled by those values
since archaic time.
1T is proved at this point that rise in
money wages increases the wage earner's
immediate command over goods at the ex-
pense of the weak and the thrifty--the
weak. who by reason of their weakness are
last in line for wage increases, and the
thrifty, whose impulse is rather to save
than to spend, and who are, therefore, the
last to buy on a rising market
There is one other way in which rise
IN money wages increases the wage earn
er's Immediate command over goods. That
IS when the rise in prices caused by the
rise IN wages is SO great that the few
VINO 1--we upon accumulated wealth Begin
to consume less and waste less. This is
the small end of the matter; for if you
took all that the rich consume and waste
and divided it among the poor it would
spread very thin. But even if it were
very great concern to make the rich do
with less, the most uninteligent and
Wasteful way to accomplish it that you
can imagine would be to raise wages until
prices were so high that the rich would
nave to economize. In doing that you
enormously penalize weakness and thrift
and dangerously add to the strength of
the strong. There are other and better
means of regulating the distribution of
goods and controlling the appetites of the
rich.
We come now to the finality The wage
earner's command over goods-that is,
his power to buy the things he wants to
case be permanently increased by rise
in money wages. The benefit will be local,
immediate and temporary only.
Money wages are not real wages
Real wages are the things you buy with
the money. That is to say, real wages are
goods
Therefore, wages really can rise only by
reason of an increase in the production of
goods People have to produce what they
consume. They cannot consume more than
they produce, no matter how much money
Is printed to pay high wages with.
The production of goods can be in
creased only by the application of labor to
materials in a more efficient manner.
When labor becomes discontented and
quarrelsome and begins to strike for more
pay the processes of production are re-
tarded; and although the strikers may get
more money and be Immediately better off. !
the time and labor that have been mean !
while lost represent a deficit Of goods, and,
therefore, inevitably loss of real wages
to the weak. who stand somewhere further
down the line and cannot understand |
what is happening to them.
To settle a labor dispute by raising
wages and letting it rest there is to allay
the symptom without touching the dis
ease. 1t is the easiest way. 1t is a very
dangerous way. Real wages are not in
creased, except temporarily in one place |
at time, and then only at the expense Of
thrift, weakness, helplessness and igno-
rance in other places.
1t is remarkable that so little attention
has ever been paid to the fact that such a
great and general rise in money wages as
has taken place in the lastth years, the
increase going always first to the strong
est groups at the top, entails terrific hard !
ship upon the poor below. Nothing could
be imagined more rapidly to create a vo-
lent Bolsheviki than long continued rise
in wages engineered on the caste plan o.
organized labor-strongest come first.
The government is meeting the present
labor crisis in the easiest and most dan
gerous way. 1t advocates or directs rails
ing money wages ON any irresistible de-
mand. 1t is in position to 90 on doing
this for an indeterminate time, and to any
length, for it can print the money in which
wages are paid. Indirectly and unawares
it is creating its own Bolsheviki.