Evening star., 1935-01-06

plaIe-glaSS WINDOW. he repueQ
through his bandages that he could
not remember but it had seemed like
good idea at the time. Uncle Sam
is becoming chronic window jumper.
and the official explanation that it
looked like good idea at the time is
beginning to resound over the land
It is not considered de rigueur, in
literary circles. to beat a dead horse;
and in political circles it is considered
CONNIE IL faut for private persons to
permit government to bury its dead
without comment. But one illustra-
ton should be permissible. A year ago
the N. r. A. was miraculous instru-
| ment of immediate recovery devised by
governmental geniuses of magic un-
derstanding of economic forces. Where
is N. r. A. now? Echo answers,
Where? Never, except in war, has
this Nation ever given so patriotic and
pathetically trustful response to a
governmental appeal. To find coun-
| terpart of the little struggling store
keepers and small employers who at
cruel sacrifice bravely met the in
credible terms of the Presidents re-
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at Napoleon's common soldiers dog
gedly facing the Winter on the Mos
! COW road.
Critics Were Ignored.
Before the N. r. A. campaign was
! we'll started it became obvious that 1t
rested on the shifting sands of econ
| omic error Artificial price-fixing, ar
tificial wage-raising and restriction of
production were Just exactly the
| things that would not cure depression
| When, here and there, a few compe-
tent critics reluctantly but patrioti-
| cally protested the planless. incoher-
ent and MYSTICAL construction of the
codes they were ignored
The one purpose in referring to this
| bit of economic history is to sound
warning. In the present session of
Congress there will be presented a
succession of proposals for further
| tinkering with the economic appara-
| tus. Many of them will be unsound
| in principle and injurious in prac-
| tice. But they will be buttressed by
all sorts of economic arguments and
| appeals to social justice.
The impulse to illustrate again Is
| irresistible. For five years a con-
scienceless crowd of silver owners and
| silver gamblers covered the country
with blanket of propaganda teach
| ing the doctrine that subsidy to that
dangerous and useless monetary ma
| terial would aid China The specta-
Gle Of Senator from the Far West
| shedding tears over the Chinese was
| ludicrous. but it was presented day
| after day in Congress. At intervals
some informed and honest authority,
sometimes from Harvard, sometimes
from Leland Stanford, sometimes
| from Princeton, sometimes from the
Government itself. publicly demon
strated that this propaganda was a
of silver would injure Chinese trade.
injure China and to that extent in
| jure the United States.
"Ignoble Measure" Passed.
Did Congress accept the word of dis
| interested and fearless critics? 1t did
not 1t accepted the word of men with
a financial interest in silver The
| ignoble measure was passed. Within
| less than six months China on bended
knee begs this powerful country to
| relax the strangling pressure on Chi
nese economic life. And it becomes
| the duty of Secretary of State Hull. a
man of character and understanding
| to reply in the name of this great
| country that relief can not be granted.
During this session of Congress
| there is going to be violent. organized
political effort to force this Nation to
jump through another plate-glass
window. This time it is the 30-hour
week. The discussion of the measure
| will be protracted. There will be much
! oratory about social justice. about re-
/ moving the burden of toll from the
| masses, about human life being more
sacred than profits And not one word
of this will have the remotest connec-
ton with the proposal for legal 30
hour week. The thought occurs that
the men in Congress who really have
the Nations welfare at heart might
be interested in very brief and
simple statement of the economic facts
about this proposal.
1t should be said in advance that
| there is no economic issue more COM
plex and obscure than this matter Of
the hours of labor. The trained econo-
mist hesitates to speak categoriCally
about it. 1t is only some Senator or
Representative who knows exactly
what will happen when some major
operation on the delicate industrial
body is performed by Congress. But
scientific analysis, the history of eco
nomic practice and plain common
sense unite to give the economist a
certain opinion about this project of
the 30-hour week.
Three Productive Assets.
Let us start with some very ele-
mentary economics, such as we insist
that our beginning college students
| shall learn before they are permitted
even to hear about applied govern
mental economics. A nation has just
three productive assets. There Is, first.
the land, with its resources in fertility,
minerals and vegetation. There Is,
secondly, the capital equipment which
the nation has created, in the form of
buildings, machines and apparatus of
many kinds. And thirdly, there is
the labor of its people. These three
land, labor and capital-are organized
into gigantic productive enterprise.
Out of the product of this giant COM
bination comes the living of the
people, the returns to labor, to the
owners of capital and to the owners
of land. If the total product is large,
the standard of living is high. Wages
come out of this product. There is
no other source.
The shares of the product that go to
the three partners are determined by
very complex forces. but in general
they are determined by the relative
scarcity of the three factors. If land
Is very scarce and labor is very plenti-
full, as in Ireland, rents are very high,
relatively. In China there is much
land but the number of laborers is
enormous, and the scarcity of capital
makes the total product small. The
Chinese hordes have living standard
that we would consider unfit for ami
mails. In any event, the share of labor
is set by automatic forces of nature
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