Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1926-05-11
TRYING TO CATCH UP

~ - ~
"Changing economic relationships
Of wholly new industrial era
This sounds rather ominous. We
get the impression that these words
summarize knotty problems for
which solution must be sought.
A celebrated inventor recently re-
marked that the world would be bet
ter off If given time to catch up with
the inventions it now has before
having many new ones thrust upon
it. There is, however. but one way
for preventing that and it is for the
owners of established inventions to
buy up and keep off the market the
new ones which otherwise might
upset business. and that method
lacks commentator.
Ten years ago, in 1916. the reac-
tons from the war CONFUSION Of in
dustrial Europe were puzzling the
best business minds in this country.
The industrial laborers Of Europe
were fighting, consuming and vast
1AS khCl0 AICik haA
supplied were forced to look else
where. Their own countries were
fast ceasing to be sellers and were
becoming buyers. Industry In
America was presented with oppor-
tunity such as it had never known.
Production was speeded up.
Later we, too. We're swept into the
conflict. With our boys drafted
from the farms and shops how were
we to produce enough to meet the
demands? We all speeded up. We
did meet the demands. excessive
though they We're. 1t was an
possibilities. We await revelation
to show us how the worlds con-
Stunning, capacity may keep up with
our productive power. 1t is become
a very urgent problem.
In 1916 there was established In
this country an organization. the
| purpose of which was to acquire the
facts essential to. knowledge of the
rapidly changing conditions. The
| National Industrial Conference
Board. The decade has been a busy
one for this Board. Apparently it
| finds as much to do as it had when
it began, Notwithstanding it has col
| lected and sifted good deal of data
! in the past ten years.
The tenth annual meeting of the
Board is to be held May Goth. Re-
garding this the president. M. w.
Alexander. who has directed the
activities of the Board since its in
ception has this to say:
The inter relationship of produc-
ton, distribution and consumption is
the problem of today and of the i'm
mediate future, rather than that of
production alone which was the
chief problem during the war and
the following years of readlustment.
Productive efficiency has been
achieved to a high degree, and its
Importance in raising the purchas-
ing power of the people by making
possible high wages and keeping
| down the price level. has been
| ASNN5A tAHSN AZ AeitS SS0hos AhO
cent trend Of events, however. has
brought to the fore the entirely new
problem of sustaining the proper
proportion between the consumption
power of our own people. who after
all are our best market, and our
rapidly growing productive capacity
- with the close of the first dec
ade of the Boards existence, In
dustry already faces entirely new
problems which, while they have tc
do largely with distribution and
consumption, still are inseparably
tied up with production problems
and in the solution of which pro.
ductive efficiency is the Fundamental
factor.
ut is In the light of the re.
search studies of the past decade
that the problems Of less wastefu
distribution, expanding consumption
and of our wholly changed financia
relations with the rest of the world
now impose themselves as concrete
questions which American industr,
must next deal with to insure 1t.
own steady. uninterrupted progress
Such phenomena as the tendenc,
toward direct selling, chain store de-
velopment, the rapid extension Of
installment selling must be examined
as phases OF increasing conSumptlor
power rather Gan as merely new
new forms of competition. in the
view of the Board: and such modern
developments as the increasing diff
fusion of stockownership among EN-
ployees as well as customers, profit
sharing and the adjustment OF
wages to prices, the Board believes
challenge industry to study them as
factors Of increasing consumption
power as much as to consider them
merely as factors in industrial rela.
tons"
1t is an easy guess that the next
annual meeting of this Board will
be a busy one If it finds or ever
gets clues to the solutions sought
1t is to be hoped that they may aid
in the processes of readjustment
which the country is now undergo