The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1919-08-30
HIGH COST IT HAS GOT
OF LIVING! 5 DO 9 . NJ :
By CHESTER M. WRIGHT

M. WRIGHT --
fishers to reduce their living standards to meet
the Increased production COST
Morrison said further:
If the printer had received increases based
upon the $50 week standard for day work in
1914, comparative to the increased living cost
OF 1873 per cent, he would have to now receive
$3.50 a. week to maintain the same living stan.
dard.''
Morrison pointed out that the award, giving
the men $4650 week, still left them about SID
per week in the hole.
the printers in this case had been given a
raise OF $40 week most folks would have gasped
at the audacity Of the proceeding. But they
would have been merely getting restoration of
the 1914 standard of iving
It is not shown by any figures thus far pro-
duced that wages have advanced ABOVE the
cost of living. In the absence of such figures the
contention that the high cost of living is due to
higher labor cost is false on its face.
The Merchants Association of New York City
gets part way to the truth in report issued by
special committee after careful investigation.
Says this report:
1.-The inevitable result of imitation is a decrease
"H1GHER WAGES HAVE NOT YIELDED A
CORRESPONDENCE HIGHER REAL RE-
TURN TO LABOR. The policy of the manufac-
turer has been to increase the price of his product
sufficiently to cover the increased labor cost In
asnauch this policy has been general the result
has been an increase in price of all products and
hence an increase in the cost of living, with the
further result that workers have demanded addi-
tional wage increases to offset the continued in
aeod IF 1ixyin rIo,eo of
stopping this alternating increase in wages and
cost Of living, except by increasing efficiency Of
production or by decreased profit per unit in pro-
duction or both. This means that the manufac-
turer must eventually make his profit through an
increased volume of business with less profit per
unit Of product, and must keep production cost
low in the face of rising wages, by more efficient
machinery, improved methods Of management,
and especially by the cooperation and earnest
efforts of employees
The fact seems to be that it is the policy to
raise prices sufficiently to more than compensate
for any increase in wages.
And in case after case prices are raised WITH
OUT ANY INCREASE IN WAGES. Prices are
raised because 1.-THE traffic will bear the raise
That is where unadulterated, unlicensed and
rnprincipled prodteering enters. And it is the
profteer whose spurs now goad the nation.
The New York merchants will not find the
answer in the report of their special committee
not all Of the answer, at any rate. One simple
reason is that workers will not join in q whole
hearted effort to bring production to its highest
point if the purpose is to be merely greater
flood of loot to those burglars whose more polite
name is profteers and who like to designate
themselves as merchants or traders.
Higher wages have not yielded correspond
ingly higher return to labor, says the New York
report, and that is truth indisputable
Lectures on the iniquity Of unrest will not elm.
mate an unrest that is caused by prodteering.
Tracts and sermons will not make up for q
reduced standard Of living caused by a dollar
worth 80 CENTS
Pious gentlemen who shudder because they
hear rumblings among working people will not
stop those rumblings by increasing profits.
And the most menacing phase of the whole
situation is that justified unrest offers to the fa-
natic agitator fruitful field for his work of
spreading unreason., The anti-democrat finds his
nefarious cause helped by whatever Of Injustice
he may find in democracy. n: r.
Persons who have the welfare of the nation at
heart will do well to ponder on these matters in
these exceedingly troublous times.