Imperial Valley press., 1943-06-02
TWO AND TWO
DON'T MAKE FIVE

Some day, maybe one year from now
and possibly not until 4 dozen years
hence, the people of this country are GO
ing to universally realize the great error
of New Dealism theory and economic
reasoning.
It has persistently tried To have its
cake and eat it. too. 1t tried to increase
employment. without increasing produc-
ton II tried TO increase individual in
come. without increasing the service and
usefulness of the same individual 1t
tried TO train youth for Jobs. but failed
TO stimulate an economy offering more
jobs.
That same old fallacy has been charac-
teristic of the administrations new era
thought, and still is being applied to this
and that in the economic war pattern.
An excellent example of the attempted
application of this unworkable pattern
seems the combined effort to reduce in
flation but to boost it too all in the same
motion.
Price Administrator Prentiss Brown
says the cost of living will be rolled back.
He says things cost too much. Simultan-
eously, the 48-hour week is being extend
ed more and more to the areas where
real production takes place.
The 48-hour week means that more
labor at , time pay must go into each
article produced. Labor costs comprise
the major expense items in anything.
Increase labor costs in production and
up goes the price.
How cost of production can be gen
orally increased and price to consumer
reduced without creating Improbable
operation is a mystery that only the al
legged experts seem to comprehend.
As long as it Is necessary to pay time
III
employers are not going to be eager to
employ on overtime more than is neces-
sary And, as long as workers receive
no time and one-half, they won't be so
eager to work long hours as they might
be.
That makes it appear like a toss up.
If it is necessary to have 48-hour weeks,
and it has been necessary for a long, long
time-let the normal hour wage prevail
for A hours and the overtime rate apply
thereafter. That would BE splitting the
difference between the employers and
the workers point of view and not boost
ing production costs any more than neces
sary Workers make more money; en-
ployers produce more at only slightly
increased costs and there isn't much
stimulus to initiation.
That government hasn't done this long
ago, is due purely and simply to foolish
die-hardism on the question of the 40
hour week There is no place for 40
hour week in wartime and the govern
ment knows it. To confess it, would be
a public acknowledgement that the New
Deal administration has been in error.
And the political party in power just
isn't honest enough to face the truth and
the voting music at election time.
Idealists wonder why hardheaded peo-
pie won't go along with all the ideals,
and the explanation lies in just this very
example Give the hardheads, the reac-
tionaries, the facts-of-life people some
idealism with common sense mixed up
with it. and there'd be plenty more prac-
tical idealists in this country.
Until then, there will continue to be
the idealists with beautiful, lovely "pur-
posns" on one hand, and on the other, the
builders. the real creators, the people who
know that two and two don't make five.
When we have settled with enemy
number one, we will go to the aid of the
gallant Anzacs and Americans in the east
and purge the world there also of human
rattlesnakes which have brought SO much
misery to mankind.-British Undersecre-
tary of War Lord Croft