WINNING THE WORLD'S MARKETS."

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1157, 19 June 1911, Page 9

WINNING THE WORLD'S MARKETS."

. $_. . ADDRESS.BY PROFESSOR MILLS. An address on "Winning the World's Markets Without War" was delivered, beforo a small audience, in the Opera Houso yesterday afternoon by Professor Mills, o"f Milwaukee, U.S.A. The president of the Wellington Trades Council (Mr. W. T. Young) presided. Opening his address, Professor Mills invited his hearers to consider why it was that, while the cost of producing bread and other commodities was being steadily reduced, the prices demanded for them were steadily going up. One half of tho people of the world, said the lecturer, went hungry to bed every night although efficiency in production had advanced in a wonderful degree. A solution of the problem thus set out was not to be found iu the existence either of Free-trade or of a high tariff, for the same state of affairs prevailed in every civilised country in the world. An increase in the production of gold had been cited in explanation, but this would not explain why the. cost of living increased faster than the purchasing power of wages. The roal explanation, the lecturer declared, rested on the fact that labour and all useful. service performed in the world wcro sold in a competitive market, whilo the commodities produced by labour were sold in monopoly markets. 'It was a first necessity of existence that pp.nple should be able to buy and sell, under fair conditions, in a market. Any manipulation of a market l;y which producers were compelled to sell cheaply and buy dearly constituted a capital crime against tha race. From this point Professor Mills elaborated in detail contentions that labour was sold at less than its cost of production, with the result that the aged were left nncared for and that children were unfed; lihile .the produce of. labour was sold at inflated prices for the benefit of a few. The cure for these ills, according to Professor Mills, is to abolish the private ownership of' any enterprise capable of being turned into a monopoly. If this were done, he claimed, all the workers in the world would be enabled to buy all that they produced.

: WAR, ANCIENT AND MODERN. ;Professor Mills had a large and very appreciative audience at the Opera House last'night. Mr. W. T. Young (president of the Trades and Labour Council) was in the chair. : Tho lecturer traversed history in a series of ivitlo generalisations from ■ barbarous warfare to tho struggles of to-day and the Socialist remedy for modern inequalities. Warfare was the inevitable condition of the early world. The people had to choose between starvation and . the enlargement'of their opportunities in the only 'way that was possible with their limited information. In the course of these conquests, the conquerors mndo tho important discovery that a man was ivorth more alive than dead. When they discovered that fact, the ancient con-, .querors made private property of men just as they were, making private property of land. They made these two kinds of property for the samo reason and in the samo way. There never was a slave but he was made so. and kept so by a soldier,' Old society consisted of two camps—the slaves' camp and the soldiers' camp. .The age of war was now past. Men had also learnt how to overoamo famine and pestilence. But what of slavery? There was no man market now. When or.o wanted a man in one's business oue could not buy him as of old. One had to hire him, and perhaps a wages board would have something to say about tho bargain. War had not wholly gone, and business which had io a great extent taken its place was another kind of ivar. In old times the best-armed man was the greatest, because he could get more stuff that didn't belonc to him than anybody else. To-day tho man who owned most railways, steamships, land, and so forth was the greatest because he could got more of what didn't belong to him than anybody else could get by any other means. When public Government enterprise was substituted everywhere for private monopoly, then war, famine, pestilence, • and slavery would cease. (Applause.) Professor Mills will speak in the Municipal Concert Chamber to-night.

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