The Washington herald., 1922-12-01
FINANCE
- AND
|RUSINESS
~ d. O. FORBES

living wage" q Saving wage"
q minimum wage" a "starva-
tion wage" and other kinds Of
wages?
It has been said America is a
nation swayed by phrases, by
catchwords, by slogans Most,
IL not all, phrases and catch
words and slogans and proverbs
are half truths, half lies. This
subject of wages is 50 universally
important that we ought to go
down to its fundamentals and
not be content lazily to swallow
or reject superficial phrases.
The only wage that must be
rcs is neither the living wage
nor the starvation wage, neither
the saving wage nor the mimi
mum wage.
The only wage that can be
paid permanently and should
and must be paid permanently,
Is the EARNED wage.
Whether that wage is living
wage or a starvation wage or a
saving wage depends more upon
the workers themselves than on
employers or unions or poll
ticians.
Before money can be distrib-
uted in wages, it must be
earned. Wages can't be paid
out of empty tills or safes.
Wage money can't be drawn out
Of the air by some miracle. Be-
fore cash can be put into pay
envelopes it must first be drawn
In by the payer.
How much can be paid out
Is regulated by how much Is
pulled in.
A company's income is gov
erned largely by its workers
output.
A quart can't be extracted
from a pint
Let US glance at one or two
simple illustrations.
In quite a few concerns
workers establish Christmas
funds. Every week each MEM
Der of the fund contributes a
certain amount. When Christ
mas comes round, the workers
know that how much they will
get out of the fund depends en-
tirely upon how much they had
paid in. II they had paid in
lot, they expect to draw out
lot; if they had paid in only
little, they know they will re-
eeive only a little in retrun.
I used to live in South AZ
rica. Certain territories were
occupied by negroes. They were
q lazy, improvident lot. They
titled only a small patch of
their land. They produced ex-
tremely little. But they were
sensible enough to realize that.
as a result, they would harvest
very little. They didn't fool
themselves that if they planted
only a tiny patch thew would
reap as much as if thev had
planted an acre. In their ele-
mentary way, they we'll knew
that as they sowed, so would
they reap.
And I never heard any of
them complain this was unfair.
used to set type. / re-
eeivved at one time a fixed
wage of 81 a week. But / set
q good deal more than was ex-
pected of me, and my boss was
quite willing to raise my pay
to SIPS a week. He paid me
this additional money because
! earned it.
NV work now is writing. For
writing one column a day l re-
ceived at one time fixed
more. But when / write ad-
ditional articles / naturally
earn more, and, as matter of
fact, receive more. A certain
amount of work brings a GER
tain amount of pay; a larger
amount of work brings a larg-
er amount of pay. This is so
because it is possible to pay me
more for a large amount of
work than it would be to pay
me for a small amount of
work.
Speaking broadly, if the peo-
pie of a nation are indolent.
ignorant, unprogressive, they
reap the fruits of Incidence,
ignorance and backwardness.
Where the people of a ma
tion are industrious, intelli-
gent, progressive, they are
relatively more prosperous.
In the first instance there
isn't very much produced. In
the second instance great
deal is produced. Therefore,
in the one case there is little
to divide. In the second case
f(.optiDued On PaDe 10 ColurOn \