The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-09-08
THE HIGH COST OF LoAFlNo.

The Scientific American thinks that it is
high cost of loafng that should be considered along
with the other problems of the day and urges in
creased production the means best designed to
restore the equilibrium of the country.
We are confronted by a condition, this
publication, not a theory. Prices high, and show
upward trend When prices RISE wages must fol-
low when wages up, prices must keep pace.
The wage-earner demands that prices drop while
wages remain stationary continue go up;
the employer of labor has about given hope
OF declining wages, but insists that prices rise
while stay put. And between the two mill
stones, right in the dead center of the vicious
Gle, some millions of salaried workers who call
upon heaven to witness that whatever happens they
must pay.
To the demand for a solution of this puzzling
mess there many answers We not going
to invade the field of the economist venture
opinion upon the thousand and panaceas that
have been put forward. for not at home in
that field. But there is proposition which
be supported without any knowledge of the mys-
teries OF economies that is mathematical in
its simplicity direct in its bearing clearly with
in our field.
II we hire a boy to pick blueberries at 81 a
day and he picks ten quarts. the cost is 1Oc per
quart. If he doubles his output he the
BE- II he knocks off in the middle of the day to
go swimming, and at quitting time with only five
quarts the cost goes up to zoe quart: and If he
himself comes around the next day buy blueber-
res. he kick at the price based on this figure
but he must pay it.
All this is plain enough. There is no reason
why the application of the principle in fields
should not be equally plain. If linotype operator
or a lathe hand carpenter a railroad repair
anybody else in the world Ioafs on his lob
and thereby cuts down his production, he auto
matically increases the per unit of his product
II he Is working for the government he may not
thereby increase its price the consumer-which
means himself and everybody else: but even the
government, while it doesn't have to earn its keep
mas 10 meet its deficits so he at least raises
his own and everybody else's
In uncertain terms Mr.. Wilson pointed out
TO the railroad that remedy for high prices
is not decreased production. His remarks had to
do with production decreased through organized
refusal to work at all; they Just as applicable
70 individual refusal to work work full time and
to work effectively. The world faces shortage of
every manufactured article and at the same time
shortage of labor 1t is perhaps natural. that
there ere more jobs than men, for the worker to
relax his efforts understandable that he should
feel that he need not hustle and is not GO
ing TO hustle But there will be lower prices
until he gets rid OF that feeling
The law or supply and demand Is still doing
business at the old stand-even in Russia where
1t was officially abolished. If demand exceeds the
supply. prices must rise until demand drops to a
level with supply The only way you can possibly
make 100 pairs of shoes around among 200 pros
pective buyers is to put the price where half the
buyers can't reach it, On the other hand IL supply
exceeds demand, prices must fall they attract
new buyers to swell the demand.
IL the world short of sugar and shoes steel
and wool and copper automobiles and ships and
houses, coal and wheat, the remedy does not lie in
producing less of these things This is plain the
point or absurdity when thus put down black and
white; in practice. where 1t can be obscured by a.
hundred considerations which really have nothing to
do with the matter, IL may not always so plain.
III is always true, however, and always unacceptable
There Is Just way to force prices down under
present condions-that is for all pitch in and
produce much OF everything that at the same
time prices can and must so down. Cut the cost
and boost the supply, and prices must drop. But
long go cutting the supply and boosting
the cost by loafng on our jobs, prices hold their
upward course.
GERMANY STARTS SOMETHING.