Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1922-11-17


 Wellesley Hills, Mass. November II, 1922. Thomas Edison has submitted to the staff engineers of The Babson Institute his plan for stabilizing bus iness and breaking the backbone of the High Cost of Living. He has authorized the following popular de- scription of his theory.
 With characteristic audacity, he goes to the heart of economic life. He proposes to afford the ordinary con- sumner cheaper commodities, to fur nish the producer with ready capital and security and to eliminate such parasites as unnecessary middlemen and dishonest speculators-by estab- fishing the government as the coun- try's great Middleman and by making ordinary commodities as we'll as gold the basis of currency
 The Government on the Job
 Sometime ago, at the suggestion of Henry Ford and others, Edison de- voted himself to study the causes of economic unrest. His solution of this naomentous problem is now under the scrutiny of the ablest economists and business experts at Wellesley.
 His plan is simple and startling. He would have the government list some forty basic commodities, such as cotton, corn, copper, coal, wheat, flax, iron, and then taking the prices of the last twenty-five years as a basis, establish an average price for each. This price he would have determined in terms of gold and called a unit or a dollar.
 He would have the government take over or establish great warehouses and storage plants. When the pro- ducer is ready to market his product he brings it to the agent at the gov ernment warehouse, who gives him a certificate covering his whole deposit and at the same time pays him half of the value of the deposit, as com puted on the 25-year basis, in cash. The government then stores the pro- duct.
 When the dealer wants wheat, coal, cotton, or any other commodity he buys the producers certificate on the market; he presents it at warehouse, pays the government back the money advanced, and takes the product away.
 The government-fixed average price safeguards the producer from the ravages of dishonest speculation. The half-value payment he receives from the government affords him a ready capital. The certificate he receives is put on the market subject to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. But the certificate does not depend on the gold in Treasury vaults but on the commodity ia the warehouse. In one sense the Edison plan is a re- turn to the ancient system of barter as far as the complexity of modern life will allow.
 How the Farmers Would Find It.
 Unit money in the Edison plan is not money in the popular conception that is, metal money or money with metal basis. The day when metal fur nished the most exclusively practical basis for medium of exchange as well as measure of value has, ac- cording to Edison, gone by. His money would still be determined sin terms of gold. But instead of gold in Treasury vaults being its only basis, you would have wheat in the Government bins, coal in the Govern ment pits, rice in storage, cotton in the warehouses, etc.
 "All articles deposited in the ware house." said Edison, "bear the same ratio when loan of unit money is made, only one kind of unit money is issued together with the deposit certificate.
 Suppose a farmer puts in the warehouse 1000 bushels of wheat graded by the Government as No. l l Red. The average price for 25 years of this grade, including high war prices is, say $1.00 per bushel. The farmer is given $500 in unit money he then can hold his wheat by means of his certificate until he thinks the price is satisfactory and thus be in dependent of the spectators who now set the price ahead months before the crop is reaped. This certificate is bought on the exchange, at market price now, say $1.15 for No. Red. The farmer would get $650-as the wheat is higher thah the 25 year av- craze. If, on the other hand, it was selling at 96 cents he would only get $460.
 But the unit money would not vary. It would always be the same, because wheat would not be likely to be sold over a period of one year for 59 cents. In other words, the certifi- cate or equity would have to be