Evening star., 1922-10-30
A Living Wage.

neutrality-suspicious. the greatest OF
I'll national problems t"iAy-is
touched upon by the Railroad Labor
Board in its decision refusing ~ ap-
ply .'the living wage" theory i'll de
termining a wage scale for main
tenance of way employees. Two great
economic facts are recognized by the
heard as basis for its decision. One
is that people cannot consume more
lhan they produce, and the ether IS
that one group of a people cannot get
more than It's preportionate share uf
production without robbing others Of
their just proportion.
Economic law, operating as whole,
Is Just, however cruelty unjust 1t may
be in individual instances. An eco
nomic law has decreed that the re-
wards for a mans labor shall be meas
ured by the contribution his labor
makes TO the common veal. y railway
maintenance Of way eInploye is
minor contributor to the productive
capacity Of the natiOn. In the very
nature of things il is inevitable that
lis share in the enjoyment OF nattona!
production should be minor. To set
,lp arbitrarily a standard Of living for
him and 10 sustain il by an increase
uf wages Of from 80 To 100 per cent
would have meant simply that otners
would have had to get along with less
than their share of production in
order that the railroad section hands
might have more.
Ii il were possible to increase stand
ards of living merely by increasing
wages in terms of dollars and cents
he problem would be simplicity itself.
0ut unhappily it is not. In Germany
and Austria today men are paid for d
GAYS work almost as much. i'll terms
or money. as they earned in year
before the war. but the Germaps and
have Il hard time buying food suf-
ficient to sustain life. The same
fundamental laws which operate in
Germany and Austria operate in the
United States. II the maintenance of
way men had been granted the wages
lney asked, and all other wages had
been held stationary, the maintenance
of way men would have benefited un-
fairly at the expense of other workers.
II the requested scale had been grant
ed, and then ali other wages readjust-
cd on a basis OF equity. the main
tenance of way men would have found
that they had arrived just at the
point from which they started.
There are only two ways by which
standards of living can be increased
with fairness TO all. One is to increase
production, each man, according to
his talents, creating more of the nee
essaries and comforts of life TO go
into the common pool. The other is
TO eliminate waste in distribution, and
with it eliminate the unnecessarily
large number of economic parasites
who consume and do not produce. If
] per cent or per cent or 10 per
cent OF those now engaged unneces-
sarily in distribution could he taken
from their profitless tasks and put to
work at producing, the total national
production would be increased by
Just that much, and the share avail
able for each individual producer
would be increased accordingly. BY
either Of these methods, or by the two
of them combined. national production
can be increased and standards of
living raised. There is no other way
And that is why the problem brought
10 the front by the Railroad Labor
Board is. perhaps, the greatest of all
rational problems at this time 1t il
one to stir and inspire constructive
craftsmanship and ought to keep the
"best minds busy.