The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-03-01
MAKING LABOR THE GOAT.

All the employees of an obscure
railroad line in Arkansas, numbering
$50, have quit work in protest against
a proposed reduction in wages. The
company is reported to be filling the
places of the strikers. In view of the
fact that hundreds of thousands of
railroad men have been laid off since
September I, 1920, this should not be
difficult.
1t is not surprising that railroad
workers should resist a reduction in
wages. While much is heard regard
ing declining prices, the cost of living
has not been perceptibly reduced and
the roads are collecting the highest
rates in recent years.
In political circles the opinion per-
sists that railroad rates and wages
may be controlled in accordance with
the ethical ideas Of political regula-
tors, irrespective of outside economic
conditions. This assumption, avowed
or tacit, is as harmful in times of fall
ing prices as it is in times of rising
prices. General readjustment cannot
come without railroad readjustment.
Neither railroad rates nor railroad
wages can be treated as a thing apart.
Nothing could illustrate more strik-
ingly the change that has come over
business in the last year than the fig
ures of idle cars. These amounted on
February to 3o7,373, the largest to-
tual shortage of approximately $780,
900 a year ago. At that time, and
many times during the war, the in
adequacy of railroad equipment al
most strangled production; it held
back finished goods from their mar
kets. and prevented factories and mills
from receiving their coal supplies or
raw materials.
The present surplus is not the result
of an increased number Of cars. 1t Is
simply due to the falling off in rail-
road traffic. This falling off is ow-
ing partly to the decline in business,
partly to the voluntary holding back
OF goods from market. But it may be
asked whether it is not also partly tho
effect of freight rates that, under the
changed conditions. may be too high,
Many railroad men themselves are
now of this opinion. In order that
rates may be lowered, and the rail-
roads survive, expenses must be low
cred. The greatest of these is wages.
But wage earners cannot be expect
ed to bear the brunt Of railroad econ
omies without corresponding oppor-
tunities to obtain cheaper living.
Business cannot start again upon a
new level until prices and wages gen
orally have reached a common level.
The longer the readjustment of the
wages and prices that have been out
of line is deferred, the longer the re-
vival is deferred.
The relation of the price of one ar
ticle to the price of another is not de-
termined by accident. When students
Of coal is out of line with the price of
cotton, they do not make this asser-
ton simply because they have been
accustomed to a different relation in
the past. They mean that the ratios
of the prices of coal and cotton, or Of
coffee and gasoline, or CT all commod-
tiles together, must in the long run
correspond with the ratios of their
respective costs of production.
Special conditions of demand and
supply in each industry may for short
periods make prices depart from these
ratios; but for just as long as they do,
production will be unbalanced, and re-
adjustment must continue. In those
industries in which profits are too
low, production will diminish, throw
ing men out OF work; in those in
which profits are abnormally high,
production will tend to increase; but
it will be a long period, involving
great deal of suffering to individuals,
before the men thrown out of work in
one industry are reabsorbed in an
other. What applies between differ
ent industries. applies between differ
ent stages OF the same industry-be-
tween the respective profits earned
by wholesalers and retailers, for ex-
ample. 1t would be far better for the
revival of industry if the present re-
adjustment could be made by every
one simultaneously. Dragging it out
can only put off the day of real re-
| vival.
|
From a constructive standpoint III @