The Connecticut labor news., 1923-09-22

Real wages are never raised by strikes.
 Turning again to Russia-not because
 Russia is particularly interesting, but merely because there one finds every known form of economic idiocy-one discovers that the pay of the Russian or so a day-out of which he can get small section of a square meal. That is the sort of pay raising which is land and to some extent here at home. They do not take into account that it IS purchasing power alone which mat ters
 It is hard to think in terms of pur- chasing power, for we have been brought up to think in terms of money; yet to get anywhere in raising the whole scale of living we have to think only in pur- chasing power. This is true not only of the workman. but also of the farmer Few farmers take their own living into account at all. They will usually count as profit only the difference between each income and outgo and quite neglect that part of their own living which they gain from the farm, as well as the rent of their farmhouse, the garage, and other items which the city dweIler has to pay for directly out of pocket.
 We know that in the manufacture of most articles the item of waste ex- ceeds the net production. This waste IS of various kinds-the waste of mate rial, misapplied human effort, dup1ica- tion, improper design and material, of idle plant and equipment. All these and many more are essentially the wastes of management or of organiza- tion. In addition to them, we have the wates on the part of the worker of l., uct
 In distribution we have another enor- nous waste, which burdens every com modity There are the actual wastes of too much handling, of too much competition and of speculation.
 In every steD of all our commodi- ties whether industrial or agricultural, there is waste-all a charge upon pro- duction. The amount of production determines wages, profits, and prices. As we cut out waste we add to the fund of production; this increment, coming from nowhere, permits something to be addeL to wages, something to profits, and something to be taken off prices and this in turn further increases the buying power of wages and profits. How far the process can be carried out no one knows. 1 know that 1t can be carried out far enough to give the minimum purchasing power that we have been talking about.
 It IS not a process of leveling; man Of ability must continue to earn a far greater purchasing power than the man without ability
 Considering the process as a gradual one and not an affair of overnight proc lamation, does 1t seem impossible? Stop1 and think what has already happened here in America Only a little while ago the best this country could do was to support few Indians. They found trouble in keeping alive. One tribe was always raiding another's hunting e beease o bav G 0f dneau Rus edd food.
 This is exactly the same country that those Indians nearly starved in. Moth ! ine of material nature has been added to it. We have simply applied labor what was already here-using the word labor" not as meaning more manual exertion, but also as including selent1- hc research and management. All our wealth was created out of the country itself-it did not drop on us from, an- other planet Shall we say that we have now reached the limit? That nothing more can be located? We have prac- tica11y nothing worth while to-day which did not come to us out of the realm of impossibility. Whenever we have set ourselves problems like the big hip, the automobile, or the airplane, we have made swift progress. We have never before set ourselves the problem of mak- ing the production of the country the effecient servant of all the people of the country Let us now set ourselves that problem We shall not be long in be- oir,ipo the solution