Evening star., 1939-01-01
World Shifts Foster
New Domestic Peace
BIZ Ouen L. Scott.

OlVluC GIlC IdUlOll ulGO WdAAA1AS AdSUAOAAo'
Mr.. Roosevelt is maneuvering to call
of his battle with business. The ap-
pointment Of Harry Hopkins to the job
of Secretary Of Commerce is part OF that
maneuver. Business, on its part, obvi-
ously Is maneuvering to accept part OF
the New Deal and to end the continual
pickering Of recent years.
The President and his party oppo-
nents headed by the Vice President, John
N. Garner, are seeking basis Of COM
position among themselves to avoid any
more wide-open breaks. Even John L.
Lewis, in this new period Of recovery, is
showing disposition to tread lightly
and to speak softly in making new de-
mands for labor. What had looked like
an irreconcilable division between Or
ganized labor and organized employers
now appears much less irreconcilable.
Why the sudden emphasis on recon-
ciliationP Isn't this countrys whole eco
nomic and political setup based upon a
clash Of forces? What can be accom-
plished by reconciliation that cannot be
accomplished through conflict?
In the past Government and business
could argue, Government could founder
and workers and employers could fight
out their differences without seriously
affecting the Nation as whole Then
the adjustments that maintained some
thing of balance within the economic
system were automatic in their opera
tions.
When one set Of prices got too badly
out of line with other prices, competition
forced an adjustment. When depression
came, prices and wages, under the force
Of competition, tended to give way until
balance again could be restored. If one
nation sought to maintain an artificial
tions, the workings Of fairly free gold
standard applied checks and balances.
If surpluses Of capital and Of goods tend
ed to pile up, backward lands offered an
outlet for those surpluses removing
strains.
Now all Of that is changed.
Industry long ago showed tendency
to sustain prices at the expense Of pro-
duction and OF employment. Workers
now are organized and fight to main
tain hourly wage rates in good times and
bad. Government lends a hand by keep
ing surplus workers of the market
through employment on w. P. A. projects
at high hourly wages. Farmers are or
ganized, through Government, to sustain
agricultural prices.
Out in the world the gold standard no
longer exists to help maintain balance.
Nations manipulate their currencies for
special advantage; they utilize barter
and control the flow of exchange in fight
Ing other nations for markets and In
controlling their own purchases OF for
eign goods.
The nations with controlled economies
are out to take advantage of those ma
tions that continue to depend upon the
automatic play OF forces to effect their
controls. Their internal conflicts are re-
pressed Prices are controlled. Wages
are controlled. The use Of capital is con-
trolled. Competition and internal con-
flict are replaced by overall direction.
And through direction, the totalitarian
nations have been making important
gains at the expense Of those other ma
tions that continue to let internal con-
f1ict operate to determine the outcome
Of disputes.
Reconciliation now is being pressed by
Government in this country as means
OF gaining advantages that nations with
controlled economies gain through fore
ing the different groups in the popula-
ton to accept adjustments.
The present problem, as the Govern
ment's own economists see it, is to find
some basis for adjusting group demands
to level that will permit such a free
exchange of labor and manufactured
goods and raw materials that every one
can prosper and have work.
Industry, according to this view, must
become reconciled to several things.
One Of the things industry is expected
to accept is collective bargaining with
labor, and big strides have been made in
that direction. Another is the support
through taxation of system of old-age
and unemployment insurance. Still a
third is Government jobs for those who
are not supported by industry itself. =
Reconciliation would call for employ
ers to accept these and other policies.
It would call for employers to recognize
that recovery must depend upon large
volume of production, which depends, in
turn, upon price level and a wage
level that allow an expanding volume OF
distribution This implies that MANAGERS
of industry will restrain desire to get
rich quick through price rises at the
first signs of demand.
~ Il
Labor, according to the Government
view, likewise must become reconciled to
a number of things.
Workers thus will be expected to be-
come reconciled to some check on the
use of their strike weapon. They will
need, If reconciliation Is to bring about
the adjustments that assure recovery, to
exercise restraint in asking for hourly
wage increases at the first sign of in
creased production. A wave Of wage de-
mands and of strikes in 1887 did much
to upset the business improvement then
under way. Organized labor, too, will
need to permit the Government to train
large numbers of young people in special
skills to supplement the dwindling ranks
Of the Nations skilled workers.