The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-02-07

i oreslght. It does mean that it is
 rot to pAan" the industrial life
 { America and impose the plan
 md enforce it. It is the coercion
 md centrahzation that distinguish
 a planned economy" from a free.
 'orehanded, and at certain vital
 pots a managed economy.
 Mr. Millss third point deals with
 The spending program and the monetary manipulation. He prsfes- ses not to believe in either of them, but he accepts them since we arc definitely committed to them. l -hould certainly not wish to quar-
 ,el with his statement that the
 pending program resolves itself into a race between business re- covery and the expansion of the national credit" That is the heart of the budget problem, and it is clearly recognized in the budget program. Nevertheless, it cannot be emphasized too much, for it is cas- fly forgotted, and the pressure to spend beyond the limits set by the President will be great.
 But when MT. Mills seeks to dis miss the whole monetary program as mere manipulation" and says that we should have stayed on the gold standard. and that we should not have a managed currency, l cannot follow him at all For one thing. We have had a managed cur rency ever since the war, and think MT. Mills knows it. MT Mills is entitled to object to the way the currency is being managed but hardly to the fact that it is being managed. For another, is it pos sible that at this late date he is not aware that the international gold standard collapsed in 1881, and that nations attempting to ad- here to the wreckage subject them selves to intolerable burdens and miseries? Let him look at France, which with gallantry worthy of 6 better cause, is prostrating her in dustries, bleeding herself white, and imperilling her constitution in the effort to deflate herself to com pensate for the exorbitant value of gold. The record is more eloquent than any theory. There is relief and recovery in virtually every country which has got loose from the wreck of the gold standard, and there is tension, trouble and despair in the countries which have not.
 So I do not think the cause of sound money compels us to be loyal to an international standard which was set up badly between 1925 and 1928 and collapsed three years later.
 P
 Finally, MT. Mills comes forward with a proposal to modify the Re- publican practices of recent years and reduce the tariff. My guess is that here MT Mills will soon find closer to the Administra- ton than to his own party For in spite of the economic nationalism talked about in Washington last spring, it is almost certain that this Administration will be forced and perhaps gladly, into a policy of tariff reductions to help agri- culture and the efficient indus tries.
 I do not believe that these com ments, which deal with the most parts of the speech, really do justice to MT. Mills. They do not deal, for example, with his more detailed discussion of various matters, like the MIRA, all of which seems to me eminently fair There is not space in these col umns for that. The reader must remember that the tendency of all debate is to distort by emphasizing the points of disagreement at the expense of the points of agree ment, and he must make his own discounts.