Jaures Tells Why Living Cost is Growing.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 76, 23 August 1912, Page 1

Jaures Tells Why Living Cost is Growing.

By PAUL PIERRE RICNAUX.

Jean Jaures, leader of the French Socialists, deep thinker, eloquent orator, professor of philosophy, deputy from Paris, the John Bums of Paris, but with the literary polish of a Morley or Balfour, was -asked to_ give Biis views on that great economic problem of the day—the high cost of living. In reply, and speaking in a corridor of the French House of Deputies, he made this profound and original statement: "You ask mc to describe the causes of the high cost of living and to present a remedy. Let mc begin by asking you this: "What can be the organic crime of a country whose natural resources are the richest, but whose bread is the dearest ? "France should have a national organisation to buy up her wheat and similar food products. Then the cost of living could not be raised as it is now. Such a national organisation would give us efficacious stability of the prices of foodstuffs. If we can organise the country for national defence, why cannot the nation give us an organisation which will end starvation prices forever? "Already the more far-seeing nations are organising certain branches of productiou on a national basis. Sweden is organising her state mines so as to preserve their coveted minerals; Germany is creating a national potash industry." Calls the Cause Daeper Than Tariff. "The high cost of living has made life intolerable. The state must step in and save the citizens. "The capitalists have brought about disorder, have upset the equilibrium of life, have starved the producer, have precipitated a crisis in society. "A high tariff does not explain the high cost of living; it aggravates it, but does not account for it. "We- find life dear even in free trade countries. The organic crime which is the unholy cause of the high cost of living is deeper than the tariff. Indeed, there are many causes of the high cost

Frenchman Would Nation Control Breadstuffs.

of living. First, capitalism has developed out of all proportion the industrial products which are not immediately necessary to the needs of life. talism has done this to almost the entire abandonment of agricultural production, which has been allowed to languish and die. j "The thing most striking in the present condition of the economic world is the sharp disproportion which exists between agricultural products on this planet. "Why is this? Because capitalists seeking huge dividends turn more and more toward industrial products. Here it got rapid returns. Capita! Gains s>y Present Methods. "On t<he other hand, agriculture does not admit of such rapid financial eurprises. "Time halts in the world of agriculture, but not in that of industry. In the latter man can communicate the impetus of his own impatience to the wheel of production, but in agricultural production man must work in league with the movement of the seasons and their inevitable cycle. "So capital disposes of the surplus ! accumulations in over-developing industrial production to the neglect of its necessary basis and foundation — namely, agricultural production. "This subversion of agricultural and commercial equilibrium is accentuated by the fact that the greater part of the public fortune is held by a small majority of privileged people. Poverty Against Frenzy of Luxury. "What difference does the high cost of living make to those aristocrats of riches who determine the application of our economic forces? To these people the cost of the necessaries of life is as nothing. "So a frenzy of luxury exists side by side with the most aggravated evils of poverty. Another cause, of the high cost of living is the concentration of the once rural population in our cities, but this

follows necessarily from the cause I have just mentioned. "But the third and most crushing cause of the high cost of living is the tremendous outlay of resources to maintain an armed peace. "This strikes directly at agricultural production. In France millions of men are withdrawn from productive labor; 1,600,000,000 dollars are taken yearly by armed peace from agricultural and industrial development. "The more a nation prepares for ww the more energy and capital does it take from agriculture. Nations must Control their EreadstufTs. "I repeat that to discuss the question of tariff versus free trade is only tinkering at the question of the high cost of living. The nations must take their breadstuff's in hand. If the crisis in the high cost of living continues in France such a national organisation as I propose must be formed and France will blaze the world's way as usual. "Here it is vastly important to millions of peasant proprietors that the price of wheat remain normal and remunerative. Here millions of workingmen have a vital interest that prices should be reasonable. "They will not determine a stable and immutable price, but will stimulate technical progress by a series of measures to meet each situation. "These thoughts indicate the merest outline of methodical actions of agricultural progress in the interest of consumers and producers alike."