The Connecticut labor news., 1921-03-25
By H. B. BROUGHAM.

WJ OfHIuEtOH OJ OW TtdutTS.J
 By H. B. BROUGHAM.
 There are few persons today who will not admit that the scheme for the pro- ductiOn and distribution of goods which prevails over most of the world is far from perfect
 Present economic conditions III Amer ica are in themselves an eloquent com mentary on the faults of our business machinery Only few months ago the cry of every manufacturer echoed by the press with almost complete unanlm ity was for the worker to produce, pro- duce, and again produce.
 Today the worker learns to his dis may that in many cases he has produced himself out of a job Warehouses are filled with unstable goods; and while Europe is hungry and destitute, Amer ican labor suffers from unemployment and privation in the midst of plenty.
 Even one who believes that the present order of things is the best that IS prac ticable, will hardly maintain that 1t IS. ideally perfect when 1t breaks down so absurd1y as this. Though 1t is by no means necessary, of course, for the critic of the existing order of things to fly to the opposite pole and embrace the doctrines of socialism, communism, or guild socialism.
 Voices are being raised here and there by critics who believe that our economic machinery, while it should not be scrap ped, urgently needs overhauling. Of these "mddle-grolmd" critics, in my judgment the most important at present are Major C. H. Douglas and A. R. Orage, joint authors of the Douglas Orage plan.
 Outline of the Plan
 This plan, as yet little known in America, has made a profound impress sion in England as I learned in the course of a visit from which 1 have recently returned made for the purpose of studying the plan at close range.
 In a nutshell, the Doug1as-Orage dustry and the buyers of their products at retail jointly, fountainheads of credit and owners of industry through a pro- posed series of gigantic capital-labor financial mergers in clothing, in fuel, i'll housing, in foodstuffS, and all basic pro- duction.
 Our financial leaders, Douglas and Orage hold, have been going it blind. Their prophecies during six years of war and unsettled peace have been astray. They have led us to the edge of the morass. But neither they nor we fall, on the one hand, into the ditch of na- tionalism or bureaucracy, nor into that other ditch of BolsheVism and violence. So these new British prophets believe and assert.
 After the armistice the financial lead CTS of all countries cried, "Produce, pro- duce, producer Now there is "over- production" With abundance every where for domestic consumption and ex- port, Douglas and Orage assert 1t is our crazy credit machine which makes 1t impossible for the goods already made and making to be distributed.
 Millions Out of Work.
 As a consequence, here, as in Eng land, millions of men are thrown out of work. The wages of millions more have been cut, are being cut, and the men are regularly laid off. Restricted credits have resulted i'll bankrupt farmers and shutdown factories.
 Fathers of families face with quiet desperation their daily problem of pay ing for goods to eat, to wear, for heat ing and shelter.
 The railway executives meet to re- duce the working week to five days, thus scaling down the wages of one tenth of the nations toilers. Traffic on the great transportation highways has slowed up one-third, fair testimony to the country's slowed-up production.
 A garment manufacturer asks: If 1t was difficult for employees to- pay the prices asked while they were working and earning good money, how much more difficult is it for them to purchase their needs when tehy are out of jobs ?"
 Finally Mr. Gary, leading figure in the worlds greatest industry, sums up the situation:
 "I have heard of cases where lower prices have been fixed by retailers than the prices they have paid to the whole salers. This must be done in all lines before we may expect good business. Producers and wholesalers recognize conditions and submit to reductions in selling prices. A large percentage of worl1nen are disposed to reconcile them selves to the new conditions and are proposing reductions in their wages"
 Orage Repudiates Own Plan
 Before detailing the Douglas -Orage plan of capita1-labor-consum credit control, word about its authors is needed.
 Orage is founder of British Guild Socialism, the originator of the move ment for standardization and labor con- trol of industries, which last year swept llltO us lldHl lHe pOWtTIuI Ir1ple du1- ance" of British labor unions
 But just then Orage disowned the offspring of his brain, proclaimed instead new plan, not his own.
 His friends with amazement ehard him denounce naturalization as futile, and shown to be so by the experience of the war. He rcpudiated his own pro- posed "cOmmittee control by workers" as too cumbersome and he defended the existing administrative scheme of one man control i'll business.
 Colner of the word ''profteer," which he contributed to the language through his weekly, the New Age of London, Orage now declares that everybody may and should gather profits out of busi- ness. It is no wonder that his erstWhile followers look on him as a renegade
 Called Epochal Economic Dis
 covery
 The cause of his defection lay in his meeting with Major C. H. Douglas, en- gineer, assistant superintendent during the war of the Royal Air Craft factory
 Major Douglas had been for 10 years chief engineer of the British Westing- house Company; for three years more he had served as chief engineer of the Westinghouse Company in India. He had been engaged in engineering projects