Evening star., 1941-10-20
Cunudu's War Economy

Oun0ddS S War Economy
Prime Minister Mackenzie Kings
broadcast to the Canadian people
announcing the establishment of
general ceiling on prices, costs and
wages is highly significant. Even
more than Britain, Canada thereby
accepts the grim yet inescapable
logic that in order to wage total
war, war economy is needed
which will evoke every ounce of
efficiency and at the same time avoid
the peril of uncontrolled initiation.
That is a conclusion which the Amer
lean people have not yet faced frank
ly. Thus, our good neighbor to the
north is doing us real service by
setting an example which we may
proftably watch and ponder.
After setting forth the need to pre-
! vent imitation, with all its disastrous
consequences, and to permit the
financing of the war on a sound basis
without a catastrophe depression
afterwards. the Prime Minister put
the matter in a nutshell when he
declared: I'VE have decided to halt
the rise in the price Of all goods or
| services sold in Canada by imposing
general ceiling on prices. BY
ceiling is meant an upper limit above
which prices will not be allowed to
rise. 1t will call for new and COM
plicated administrative machinery.
1t will interfere with established
impose irksome restrictions, and its
success will depend not on the gov
ernment alone but equally on the
willingness of all who are affected
to accept, and to accept cheerfully,
the limitations imposed upon them
as a necessary contribution to Can
adas maximum war effort"
No words could better eXemplify
the spirit as well as the method of a
true democracy girding itself for a
supreme test. There is here a frank
recognition that q democratic gov
eminent functioning normally can
not match the ruthless compul-
sion of totalitarian regime,
which demands blind obedience and
exalts material efficiency above
spiritual values. The sense of equity
that infuseS Canada's war economy
is best seen in the interesting expert
ment known as the cost living
bonus. Under this system, Canadian
workers get temporary supplements
to their regular wages sufficient to
offset rising living costs. Those sup
plements, though paid by their en-
ployers, are calculated by competent
official experts, and may be revised
every three months. The system,
which has been tried out expert
mentally for the past year, and which
has worked well in New Zealand even
longer, evidently is to be extended
to all Canadian industry.
The same underlying idea of
duJ ID w OC dppIlCu W
agriculture, for Premier King states
that, while a ceiling will be placed
on farm prices, total agricultural
income will be supported, where
necessary, by government actions.
In other words, while wages and the
prices of farm products will be sta
hj1izpd tho income Of hOth 1ah and
agriculture will be safeguarded."
This should satisfy the legitimate de-
mands of the agricultural elements
and thereby deter them from using
pressure group tactics to get what
they consider their rights by isolated
action.
If this statesmanlike program is
successful, it will be the best answer
to Germany's scientifically planned
"Wehrwirtschaft" or wartime econ
omy, whereby everything and every
body functions as nicely co-ordi-
mated whole. Deplorable as are its
objectives and ruthless though its
execution may be, there can be no
doubt that the German system works
efficiently and that price rises there
have been negligible In the totali-
tartan war which Nazi Germany has
loosed upon the world, the democra-
cies must find an effective reply-or
eventually suceumb.