VIEWED BY AMERICA

Hokitika Guardian, 29 October 1921, Page 4

VIE WED BY AMERICA

J.ABOH’S SHARK OK 'CUE PRODUCT. .Much of the trouble which is now being experienced over wage adjustments results fr. ... the ■ crkless met hods win.-It prevailed in Governmental ex pend,!. ires during the war. Governmental expenditures dominated the industrial situation. and they were met) in the mam bv the use of credit. There was no pretense in governmental finance of making ends meet, hut private business cannot he carried on in that way. Th<’ present trouble results in P snt also from the vague talk that was*, common in war time and is common now. to tho effect that a radical change was taking pla-e in industrial relations and that the wage-earning class in tuo future would have a much larger share of the industrial predict- than m the 'distribution DKPKNDKNT on PRODUCTION. This declaration doubtless has represented a kindly wish or hope that the position of the wage-earning class would ho improved, but those who utter it seldom have any definite idea about Imw the wish may lie realized. They expect, somebody else to realize it. The" fact is that the distribution of current production takes‘place accord, •jn.f to natural economic laws and those laws are the same now ns they were before the war. The production and distribution of wealth are not unchangeable: they are changing continually, hut in accordance with economic lav. Tn Russia an attempt lias been made to increase the distribution of wealth without regard to economic; law. or tlie facts of human nature, with the result that industry lias been paralysed, production lias come almost to a standstill, and the nation hits beep reduced to beggary. The fallacies that are responsible for the tragedy in Russia permeate all of the theories which pro|H>se to improve thof condition of the masses by a mere redistribution of the present industrial product. The fundamental fallacy in all of them is that of laying the emphasis upon distribution instead of upon production.