Evening star., 1923-02-06

The public has at last discovered
its pre-war purchasing power.
It IL the enormous tax assessment
put upon coal before 1t is mined At
least. that Is the position taken by
the great corporations owning the
anthracite mines. They declare that
coal yet in the ground Is unduly as
sessed when IL is valued at cents
q ton-some of it as high as 8 cents.
Why. at that rate the owners will
have no inducement to keep It in the
ground: It will have TO be dug and
mined and marketed. even at the
suicidal price of SIS a tom. so the
gross profits will be only S17.98 a
ton: after paying the mine owner his
Is valued at cents for taxing pur-
poses. that encourages the owner to
demand that much from mine op-
orators.
&Ex
After all, what constitutes value?
Labor. There fs no value whatever
in anything except what labor has
put into 1t. The cents on coal IN
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labor had not made connections be-
tween the unmined coal and the
market-if labor had not built rail-
roads and coal tipples and coal yards.
There is no value whatever in the
vast coal stores of the ocean bed,
or of the arctics, though the coal be
the purest of carbon. Labor Is the
only measure of value of anything:
If, therefore. we could equalize
Of the high cost Of living. It takes no
moro labor today to produce a pound
of beef than 1t did ten years ago, and
II takes no more labor to plaster
100 square feet of wall than 1t did
ten years ago. II the farmer could
swap his beef for the plasterers s
work he should get as much plas-
of meat as he did ten years ago.
But he cannot get SO much, for, while
meat is higher priced in the retail
market, and possibly a little higher
on the hoof. yet piasterers. some
how, have gotten their prices boosted
out Of all proportion and. instead of
getting S6 or SO a day. they now
get. IN Washington. SIS a day and
in Philadelphia, it is reported. they
have received as high as $33 for
eight hours work.
It is that sort OF inequality that
has mixed things, so that, on the
whole, there Is no high cost OF liv-
ing" as measured by the comparative
commodity ''yardstick," but there is
great unevennesses in the valuations
OF labor. If a mans wages were IS
a day and he wanted to trade his
work for the work Of a man of an
other line Of industry, whose wages
were Sc a day, and then the first man
boosted his wages to SO a day, he
would suffer no injustice when the
second demanded S12. A third party.
who is on a fixed salary, is the only
one who does suffer by that mutual
imitation.
4 = = X
One of the evils Of the modern
tendency (not only IN Congress but in
society generality to divide the peo-
pie into self-seeking "blocs" Is illus
trated by the dispute between the
| two forces in regard to immigration
Nobody questions the desirability OF
| barring undesirable. criminal. de.
praved OF diseased, immigrants, but
labor interests 80 much farther thar
that, and demand that all immigration
| be rigidly restricted. Yet there is nc
| wealth produced except that which
industry creates. Without Industrial
workers all the potential wealth in
earth, sea or air is valueless. No ma
tion is richer than the aggregate
wealth Of production makes It Hence
the more skilled, intelligent, peace
able mechanics we have the faster
will the wealth of the nation grow as
a whole.
X = X Z
William ]. Spencer, secretary
treasurer of the building trades de-
! partment of the Department of Labor
declares that to say that we neet
l more liberal laws to admit more
| qualified labor, is ''preposterous." He
adds: with perhaps two exceptions
| the bricklayers and plasterers. thu
building crafts are now encounterins
| some degree of unemployment"
Building, of course. largely suspend
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