The Connecticut labor news., 1922-06-02

A wage that will permit American workers to purchase not only necessl- ties but comforts, and American em- ployers would do much better in pay ing this wage and stabalizing home industry and markets rather than to reach out for foreign markets, is the opinion of Secretary of Labor James J. Davis in an article just published in the Chicago Tribune. His views are so closely allied with those in sisted upon by the A. F. of l.. and organized labor generally that they are mighty interesting. He writes:
 Saving Wage"
 The best feature of the saving wage is that our workers are the great buying public. If they are enriched they are the better buyers, and so are stimulant both to consumption and to production. The manufacturer himself is prosperous. The man who pays good wages is only paying him self good dividends.
 By paying the wages of content ment he has peace in his own indus try, and he promotes peace in every other industry besides. He enlarges funds of purchasing money. He pro 
 swelling the totals of the savings banks Can any sound business man deny these advantages in the saving wage?
 Better Wages Make Buyers.
 As for the benefits to result from this economic advance in the Amer ican workers home, that is subject not for the economist but for the poet. I &1, ~f will benefit because there are more buyers of pianos, the makers of pho nographs, and clothing, and house furnishings, and sanitary supplies, and every other addition to life is cer tain to benefit because there will be more people enabled to buy these things The better wages paid, the stronger is the buying public, not in ofe industry alone, but in them all.
 It has been said that if every China man in the Chinese empire would add one inch to the length of his shirt 1t would absorb all the excess cotton manufactures of the world. But the difficulty here is that the length of the Chinaman's shirt is part of his hereditary customs or habits, just as a few years ago his pigtail was a part of his religion, and he is not going to iengthen his shirt; he IS more like ly to cut 1t off.
 Develop Home Markets.
 Producers of cotton and cotton goods will find 1t much easier to de- velop their absorbent markets at home. If each of the 7,oo7,283 wom- en clerks and wage earners i'll the United States and the wives and daughters of the 23,346,373 men clerS and wage earners in the United States would buy another cotton dress, an other woolen dress, another silk dress, the question of unemployment in the textile industries would be solved.
 In the family budget investigation made by the bureau of labor statis- tics in certain coal mine districts last March it was found that among the coal miners families interviewed there was an average annual dehclt ot SIS; in other words, these coal min ers' families ran in debt last year an average of that amount. Take all of the families interviewed and there was an average annual deficit of $40, due to the lack of steady work throughout the year, not due to wage rate, but to working time or oppor- tunty to produce.
 Now, it is very clear that if the income of the family does not pay the family expense, if the wages earned fail to equal the actual necessary ex-