New Britain herald., 1919-08-19
COMMUNICATED.
THE SAVING MARGIN.

CTS does little toward preventing un-
 rest and the spread of revolutionary doctrines. So long as, through one
 agency or another, all the increase is
 taken from them.
 Normal human nature is so consti-
 tuted, doubtless for a wise purpose.
 that it cannot be content or happy if
 no progress is being made toward
 some wished-for goal.
 Let man get the feeling that, de- spite his most strenuous endeayors. he is losing ground financially or only
 just keeping his head above water
 and he is bound to become discon-
 tented. Let that condition prevail among a great mass of the people for
 any continued length of time and we
 have fertile soil, fit for the propaga- tion and growth of all sorts of ideas that may offer possible remedy l What man is there who can feel content when he looks back and sees the constant steady labor of years go for naught. Every penny earned spent for rent, clothing, fuel. and food. Then comes the. war and men pinch, scrimp and save, they work harder than ever. By stern self de- nlal a little something is saved in thrift stamps or bonds. Then the men
 who, handle our commodities get in their handiWork and those who labor
 for salaries or wages see all they have saved slipping away from them through the exhorbitant cost of the
 needs of life. They see themselv getting back to the old condition of living from hand to mouth. They also see hat the men who distribute the things they must have were never
 more prosperous than at the present time-they further note that the mill lionaire and multi -millionaries have doubled in number during the war ! period.
 Preaching to the people that their l present trouble results from the "cost l of high living" as one of our legisla- l tors recently said, in speech in con- | gress, will not remedy the matter. A standard of living has been set up | by the American people fully within l their means if they are permitted l free command of those means. That 1 standard cannot be changed without i bringing about a lower level of civili-
 zation. I do not think any wise per- i son desires this. i The eternal pinching and saving of l every penny possible begets the nar- l rowsoutlook of miser and simply l leads into blind alley. This nation l has not reached it's present standing l in the world through any such pro- l cess. B.. The burning question today is this: How can the people be assured sav- 1 ing margin over and above their nec-
 essary expenses? Questions like these l can never be settled until the cause ] of the trouble is found and removed, | I wi nl1t of dispute, that, it is just as much to l the interest of the employers of labor l to have it settled right as it is to the
 laborcrs themselves. It can be no l pleasure to the employer to feel that | he is sitting on volcano which may l at any moment burst forth in an l overwhelming, hlooG-hriiging de- l struction to all within reach. There must be some stop to the everlasting round of increased wages followed or 1 preceded by increased prices. Some l how a margin of difference must be l left to the worker so that while living up to the American standard he will 1 still be able to save something out of 1 what he earns. Therein lies peace, 1 contentment happiness and progress. l The other way leads to discontent, ] constant turmt il and ultimate ruin to | all concerned
 Now we have the producer at one
 end of our economic system, the con- ! sumer at the other. When we find l is out of all proportion to the cost of production what is more reasonable l than to feel that somewhere between ] these extremes lies the cause of our l present rrouble, and we find 1t in the 1 large number of profits charged by | those who handle the goods we need. l Having found the cause, let us seek for a remedy. It would seem that in our economic | course we have outlived the need of | certain agencies, which, in our period | of development had their use. There l fore what more sensible plan could | we pursue than to eliminate this needless drain oa our economic sys- ] tenn
 There are three recognized inter- | mediates between the producer and the consumer, the wholesaler, the jobber and the retailer, sometimes there are more. Be they three or
 many such and every handler must havoa profit or all transactions. That all these services should be required in order that Joe Jackson may get the grain Peter Jones raises or the fruit John Smith grows does not look reasonable. AS q matter of fact, when calmly considered, is there not a great deal of uncesessary machinery and time wasted through this, pro- cess? And often, instead of faciltat- ing the exchange of commodities from producer to consumer do they not hamper and restrict that ex- change? And can it be doubted that these various divisions of distribution are combined in a close relationship in restraint of trade? Or to put it in plain language are they not or