, 1921-06-26
I'VE MILLION OILERS.

Great Britain's roll of unemp-oyed including the
miners and cotton operatives now number five mill
lion. A matter of a little over ten per cent of the
population. Because of the excessive number of
strikers the unemployment fund is bankrupt and the
reserve Of a hundred million dollars has also been
exhausted. The fund operates, however, by special
treasury grants, but the government has announced
that a reduction must be made in the dole allotted.
The cost of the strikes amounts to ten million dol
lars weekly to the government, to support these
strikers against the state.
1t is difficult to sympathize with the striking mi
ners for their fight is being waged for the national
izing of the mines, except as one may sympathize with
a group which seems to be fundamentally and almost
perversely in error. 1t would appear that the Brit
ish government has done everything short Of social
izing the mines in order to meet the demands of the
workers and on this issue Lloyd George stands pat.
But with the cotton operatives there is more rea-
son to sympathize, in this country. They are refus-|
ing to accept a rs per cent reduction in wages. al
though it is understood that they IRE willing to COM
promise on a 1914 per cent reduction.
q The naturalization of industry is so foreign to
the concept of the vast majority of Americans. who
have not yet recovered from the bitter experience of
government operation of the railroads, that they can
it ha, for its purpose the mulcting Of the taxpayers to
keep I'D the wages of a particular group, which, if
successful in their demands, would soon become ex-
tortionate|their example to be followed by others,
eventuating in a complete program of socialization
and all the evils which have been SO wildly portrayed
under the Lenine regime in Russia.
On the other hand it has been a fundamental prin-
ciple of the American people, that the laborer is
worthy of his hire. and the cardinal Republican tenet
- NNNSA ~ . "a bcth
on our desire to give our workmen the best possible
wages, to insure which it has been necessary to pro-
tect labor and industry from the competition of prod
ucts derived from the pittance wages of Europe.
There seems to be no good reason why the living
standards Of the cotton operative in Great Britain
should not be quite as good as those of one in this
country, and if they are not it must be because the
employing class are either taking unconscionable prof
its or are laying on the shoulders of their laborers the
burden of the fight to dominate foreign markets.
1t has been frequently stated on good Republican
authority that those importers who base their argu-I
ment on philanthropy could find a far better field
for their activities and do much more to prove their
sincerity if they would devote their propagandizing
energies to Europe in an endeavor to ameliorate the
conditions of the underpaid laborers of those coun-
tries; rather than to attempt to force the American
wage scale to the European leveL. But the importer.
in this country who buffers his argument with broth
erly love is generally the same fellow who is in on the
deal TO exploit the European workman. He is play
ing both ends against the middle-purchasing the
products of starvation wages, marketing. them in this
country, to the detriment of domestic labor and capi-i
tai, and adding to these profits the duty rates which
were Topped off by the free traders