ECONOMIC CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 137, 8 December 1930, Page 19

ECONOMIC CRISIS

DISTRIBUTION BLAMED

CHAItf STORK'S AID

Edward A. Pilene, it Boston economist and business man, told an industrial conference at Lehigh University, that an antiquated system of distributiug goods produced by natural scientific factories has caused the ivorld's present economic depression, says tho "Christian Scienco Monitor." Tho chain store, ho said, is the 'first halting step" iv the direction of natural Scientific distribution, but buying goods in tho avcrago retail store, he assorted, is frequently like paying 2000 dollars for an automobile ■whoso production cost is less than half that sum. "We even have movements to tax tho chain stores out of existence," he said. "Yet, the chain store is the first attempt in retailing to achieve mass distribution in harmony with tho development of mass production. At a t'hno when th 6 world needs a (natural) scientific system of distribution so that mass production may function, distribution is not only refusing to take the step, but frantic efforts are being made to mobilise- public sentiment against tho move. "The chain, stores, of course, ate but a halting step. ( Ultimately wo must conio to mass distribution upon a. scale which we have scarcely dreamed of. All along the line there must be such an elimination of waslo that the masses everywhere shall be able to buy iv abundance in proportion as (natural) science teaches us how to pro'ducc abundantly. "This itself would eliminate Unemployment. The euro for unemployment is through the lessening of work, not through any system, which nlakcs unnecessary work necessary. With such economy, prices can be lowered and with a (natural) scientific outlook behind such economies, prices will bo lowered, and with tho lowering ot prices, more people will be able to buy more things, which will necessitate more production and more employment." Mr. Pilene advocated wider standardisation in tho interest of economy, "Standardisation, as far as it has been developed," ho said, ''has not tended to standardise life. It is iv our tradition that life is standardised— in our fear of facing the facts—and in SO far as do face tho facts and act fearlessly upon them, human lives are libfirataed to go thoir different ways. But we fire constantly undoing with traditional hands the things which ouv (natural) scientific hands arc finding to do. "We are erecting tariff barriers throughout tho world to make mass distribution impossible at tho very time when it is most necessary. We arc lowering wages in many cases when we ought to be raising them, and we, in our literature and drama and even in our pulpits are crying Out against tho 'materialism' of thia machine age, when what is most needed is to perceive the machine for what it really is—the instrument which man under (natural) science is at last raising up to solve the overstrain of tho struggle for existence, and liberate him to pursue his cultural and spiritual aspirations."