Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1932-02-25
TELEPHONE NUMBER NINE las !
THE COALITION TO THE RESCUE
By the late George B. Lockwood

The a~nti-tarrif coalition which has controlled the United
States Senate since the beginning of the Hoover admins
tration, did a significant thing the other day.
The Senate, with some members absent, had passed a
resolution empowering the Tariff Commission to investl-
gate the effect of the action of certain nations in going
off the gold standard, upon the protective value OF ex-
listing tariff rates.
The coalition rallied later and voted down the resolu-
ton.
1t requires no inquiry to understand that when Eng
land, for instance goes off the gold standard, reducing
thereby the value of her currency in which wages are paid,
wages are correspondingly reduced. In the case of Eng
land, this reduction is thirty per cent, of Canada twenty
per cent.
Tariff protection is based upon the difference in pro-
duction costs, chiefly labor costs, at home and abroad.
Consequently when a great industrial nation reduces It's
labor costs thirty per cent, whatever protection exists in
our markets for American industry paying higher wages,
is thereby impaired, or destroyed.
But the Senate coalition has expressed its opposition to
having these facts officially ascertained, and given to the
country. Why? Clearly for the reason that this coalition
objects to the application of the principle Of protecting
American enterprise and labor against that destructive
competition which has procured pauperizng ~cheapness
thru the cheapening of workers.
Yet the platform of both of the major political parties in
the last campaign declaring in favor of giving that meas
ure of protection which refuses unfair advantage in our
markets to those foreign producers who cheaper goods
by c%heapening people.
There is, of course, Just one reasonable explanation of
this opposition Of the Senate coalition to taking action,
which would halt the continued lowering of orr price
levels, already disastrous, below American production
costs, based on higher wage levels.
This is the fact that internationalized industry and fl
nance has invested and loaned so many billions of Am
erican dollars in foreign cheap labor markets, that it fears
inability to make these foreign investments profitable
except thru sales of foreign commodities in our markets,
altho this can only be done thru the displacement of our
production and the lowering Of our price levels to an
Improbable point.
The purpose Of England in going off the gold standard
is clear. 1t was to cheaper production by lowering wag-
es, and thus forge a lower-price weapon for use in our
own and other markets. The duty of American statesmen
is to see to it that this destructive coup fails of its pur-
pose in injury of our competitive production, already de-
moralized thru excessive cheap labor competition. But
here we have a Senate majority so anxious to make this
aggressive foreign attack on our industry effective that
it declines even to permit the Tariff Commission to get
the facts and put them before the American people!
In other words the Senate coalition takes its stand in
favor of forcing American farms and factories to unprof-
liable price levels, inevitably creating further unemploy-
ment and depression, by involving our people in that des-
tructive cycle whereby European capital has produced
bankruptcy through destruction Of mass consuming pow
er by keeping wages stationary, or reducing wages since
before the World War. Thus these nations have not only
killed their own outlets for production, but now attack
our own. Here, between 1914 and 1927, we doubled wages
thus taking care Of the increased output, instead Of keep
ing all the profits of machine and mass production for The
owners Of machines.
All the depression and unemployment in this country
is due to the unequal struggle between these two systems
in which, as in the case of money, the cheaper drives gu
the dearer. That is what is going on in the United State
Aday: our price levels are being fixed thru the INSULT