New-York tribune., 1919-02-12

The Cost of Idle Machinery

The Cost of Idle Machinery
The freight movement on our rail
ways now runs above billion ton
miles per day. The sum is so stagger-
ing that no one can visualize it. An
average horse cannot haul ten ton miles
day that is, carry a ton load
distance of ten miles day in and day
out. So to perform the freight service
of the railways alone would require
above a hundred million horses, posi-
bly, nearer two hundred millions in
reality.
Every one can imagine what it would
mean to have any considerable part of
such number of horses idle and, as
the phrase goes, 'eating their heads
Off But we never stop to think that
idle machinery involves almost as great
an economic loss if a corresponding
amount of machinery is standing still
We can visualize the horse as a ebay
motor" and see him doing a certain
amount of work on a certain quantity
of hay and oats. If he is idle, we can
see the hay and oats disappearing in
sheer waste; AMI if the thing be on a
scale vast enough, we can be properly
appalled, 1t is different when we think
of an lnanimate machine. When it stops,
II 1t be for not too long time, there
seems no waste corresponding to that
of the living animal. Nevertheless the
loss to society is, to all intents, the
same
If a certain number of people save
up a billion dollars to buy locomotives
cars and steel rails, all this machinery
and mechanical power must yield a GER
tain result. If they do not, not only these
individuals but the whole community or
nation in which they live are poorer for
the fact. This is more evident in other
lines than in rails. Take the boot and shoe
industry. 1t is now largely the product
of machinery. In this country that rep
resents a very large investment Of capi-
tai. If the boot and shoe machines are
idle, the community is poorer in dou-
BILE sense: 1t will have fewer boots and
shoes to wear, and both the labor that
is employed thereon and the capital in
vested therein will have less income to
spend and, therefore, make a lessened
contribution to the fund or flow from
which the whole community derives it's
~sustenance. 1t follows, therefore, that
when a great strike is declared this not
only decreases the income or living fund
CT the striking employees but of the
whole community as we'll We can see
this clearly enough if we could imagine
the farmers on a strike through the
crop season or planting time, so that
whole years crops were lost The eff
feet would be catastrophe. The nation
would feel itself, and rightly, upon the
verge of bankruptcy. 1t would be
scarcely more disastrous if the railroads
were to stop for sixty days and, like
wise, if there were a stoppage of all
the steel mills and factories of the coun
try for even short period
A man cannot grow rich working onlv
half day; neither can nation. Where
there is great strike everybody is
poorer because Of it. The country has
1850 VI CiiiiSo W use ana enjoy IMAM II
every one was working on full time.
Economic depression a little resembles a
great strike. Because of a maladiust-
ment of business or a lack of confidence
or whatever it may be termed, the
flow of goods and products of the
country is materially decreased. But.
meanwhile, the living needs of hun
dred million souls must be met. If later
the supplies Of goods are found to
be short, then we have to pay much
higher prices for the diminished ouan-
tity. How unintelligent therefore.
that what we call "uncertaintv about
prices" whether they will hold or fall.
should interfere with the production of
goods and even threaten to retard in
dustrial processes. Goods are essential.
Prices represent merely the relation of
one thing to another You cannot eat
them or wear them, and vet thew do
affect the supply of what we eat and
wear, because we have never found y
way to readjust them easily and scientif-
ically, by forethought,