MONEY AND WORK

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 1, 26 September 1919, Page 10

MONEY AND WORK

THE A.B.C. OF THINGS. (By 'Ernest W. Fetter, the well-known engineer and economist, in the "Daily Mail.")

Seventy million new mouths have opened to receive the world's available food supply. Most of us, playing on the sands on the seashore, have at some time dammed up a little streaul- and produced a pool of water; then, breaking down tho dam. vc have seen our pool rapidly disappear. That is what is going to happen in fond now. For five years the stream of food normally flowing into Germany has been dammed up and we hava hud the benefit. Now the blockade- of .Germany is raised, the food dam will break down, and seventy desperately hungry after their five years' privations, will be in the markets clam.ouring to .buy tho largest possible supply of the world's food. To buy, mark you, not to begj they are prepared to buy and pay for it. on terms infinitely more favourable than we have hitherto been paying, even at profiteering prices. How will they pay—this bankrupt, beaten, and degraded nation? They will pay in the only way one nation can pay another for Roods ,itr receives—that is, by reciprocal work. The man who by his toil glows wheat in America for use in England requires in return some article he needs, produced bv the cciual toil of another man > If we call the first, man A and the second B. A is not going to exchange his eight liours' work at full pressure for eieht hoursrOf B at at. least, if he can help it. A has a system of money reckoned in dollars, and B a system reckoned in pounds, which money is paid out weekly in eacli country in return for work done —that is to say, the money in simply n medium of calculating work value. A's dav's work before the war was worth, say, for tho sake of argument, a (lav's work of li—that is, A would sent B a quantity of wheat representing a day's work in 'return for B's day's output. But now B has reduced his hours and his output, and pretends that his day's work is of the same value as before, and still expects the product of A's day of high pressure in return for the i-esult of his reduced hours a~. low pressure. A is much too shrewd a man to swallow this and consequently ho puts up his price, and demands two -Jays' work from B for his one. ■ But now Germany (C) comes along, urgently needing A's production, ready to secure it at any price. Supposing C savs'lo A, "I will give you the result of two days' work at high pres rare in re---turn for one day of yours"—<i<> you think B will have much chance of securing A's goods? Ami yet that is whit is going to happen; and happen immediately. And there is no remedy for it except to meet Germany's competition on equal terms. The Government is powerless. It cannot compel America or any other country, not even our own Dominions, to send us goods at half the price they cost in work or below the price Germany is ready to pay. No human power can prevent the stream of supply from going to tho customer willing to nay the highest effective price, reckoned in terms of work done, in return for thu goods received.

The danger is upon us, even at our very door. At the test we liave to face a shortago equal to the woist days of the war; at the worst, famine. All sorts of remedies aro being and will l.'O preached, but there is only ono remedy, and that is in the hands of tho people themselves. The call to the people of all classes is "Hack to work'hard work; unrestricted praluction-or perish. : Tho value of a loaf of hreid for-some, years to come is'going to bo tho amount of work a German workman is willing to do to get it. Everyone who know,? the German character knows what this means. r Our position has been brought upon us by the necessity of carrying to a successfill conclusion the heroic contest which wo have waged in'the cause of humanity and freedom; out of which we have just emeriti. We have added a glorious P'i"e"to our history. We ave proud of our blood-and race, and of their achievements, but we have been brought down to the very door of ruin in saving ourselves. And although we. need rest wo are faced with a situation as serious to every ono of us as the war itself. We must eitnc work or die, and the' German competition in work which we have to face is the standard we have to work up to, or Hie shins we aro expecting to bring as food will puss ouv ports and discharge in the ports of our lato enemies. ■ Who'can suggest any other remedy? Conlis-ation of capttnl will not help us. We cannot send our land, homes, factories railways, or mines abroad, and, even 'if we could, it would only be a temporary measure and we should bs left helpless. We can only send the «oods wlfich these produce.' which will only be accepted not on the basis-of the moiiey value which we put upon them, but on the basis of equal work for value' received.