AMERICA'S VITAL HOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1920, Page 10

AMERICA'S VITAL HOUR.

FORTUNES MADE FROM FOOD.

RAIDS, RIOTS, AND SHOOTING. [A striking picture of industrial unrest in America, is presented by Sir .John Foster Fraser, who is travelling the States, in a dispatch received in England in mid-November. The mood of both sides he describes as ugly. "The I.W.W. crowd, the Bolsheviks, the Syndicalists, the champions of the proletariat, and the foes of capitalism are a defiant class. I would like to think that goodwill will settle tiie existing bitterness, but my fears are greater than my hopes."] Wages are phenomenal. The American working man is better paid than his compeer in any European country. Yet there are over a thousand strikes 111 the United States involving millions of men. ■lokes are made about strikers driving in their automobiles to meetings to protest against being starved. But whosoever is the fault, the increase in wages does not balance the lowered purchasing power of the dollar.

An investigation has been going on here in Washington to discover a "health and decency" budget for Government clerks. Cutting the man down to one new suit of clothes a year, a hat every two years, a top coat every three years; allowing the woman to have an annual summer hat, but her winter hat to last two years, the woman to have 110 assistance in housekeeping, the calculated "rock-bottom minimum" for a family of five is 2.202.47 dollars, or allowing for variance in currency about £SOO a year in English money. £5 WEEKLY INADEQUATE. Twenty-two per cent, of the families received les-s than £240 a year, which is "wholly inadequate to permit of the purchase of sufficient food for a family of average size." leaving about 32 per cent, of the families in the income group of £240 to £3OO, where the food necessary for an average family "would be subjected to serious curtailment." There are 6,000,000 underfed children in the United States. The cost of clothing is such that, whilst families of limited income can have sufficient to keep warm, it is certain, says the Government report, "that decency and health cannot be maintained." Concurrent with this comes the report of a departmental investigation, revealing that the great packing"houses of Chicago work together, monopolise the control of all foodstuffs, that there is a holding up of supplies to hoist prices, with the result, as an instance, whilst there is a grave shortage of sugar, "there is any amount" to bo purchased by those willing to pay Is 2d (.28 ports) a lb. The lowest tram fare is 2Jd, and only yesterday I was in a Pennsylvania town and paid a minimum fare of 4d (8 cents) to be carried two hundred yards. There are fierce agitations, worked by strikes, to get wages to keep pace with costs. A dollar an hour is not at all an unusual price in skilled trades. THE PERNICIOUS I.W.W.

Only a small section of industrial America is organised. The American Federation of Labor is a staid, respectable body of trade unionists. With the polyglot population here there are considerable sections of the workers who believe the A.F.L. is much too slow. The power of the I.W.W, is more pernicious than strong. Syndicalism has many adherents. The Russian Soviet has made a strong appeal to millions of workers. Colossal fortunes easily made by individuals stir avarice. So there are processions: with the red flag, there are riotings and shootings. Raids by the military unearth sinister plots with the ultimate object of overthrowing the Government and establishing a Soviet in America. Ardent rebels, impatient for a change, repudiate the moderating influence of She American Federation of Labor and its chief, Mr. Samuel Gompers. There are innumerable unauthorised strikes, throwing the steel industry out of gear, tying up the port traffic of New York, stopping the publication of magazines. So Lhe public Jives in a constant state of tension, never knowing what fresh crisis, will be upon them to-morrow. Tlie people I am in the habit of meeting insist that the American worker is the most happily situated worker in the world. A point is always made that the disturbances are caused, not by genuine Americans, but by the alien scum which of recent years has poured into the United States, who do not speak English, have not acquired the American spirit, and have brought with them wicked Bolshevik principles. It is perfectly true that most of the law-breakers during the ateel strike bore names that have not an Anglo-Saxon flavor. I regret, however, to be rather forced to suspect that tiie evils of the alien have been accentuated to make it, appear that they are. the cause of all the grievous disturbances, and not the real Americans. We have had these things so long in England, and have got so used to them, that it comes as a sharp surprise to the Briton that not only is there no legal recognition of trade unions in America, but I think I am right, in saying the majority of the American public, as distinct from the industrial classes, are strenuously opposed to permitting collective bargaining, on the ground that it is un-Americaa,

It has to be borne in mind that, the jountry over, apart from particular industries, a very small minority of the American laboring classes belong to trade unions. The objection to collective bargaining is that it would place in the hands of a minority the right to speak for all Labor, and it would seriously interfere —here is where the argument about unAmericanism comes in—with the sacred right of the individual to dispose of hia labor as lie thinks well. TROOPS MAY BE USED. The American "Man in the Street," thoroughly disgusted, is in favor of strenuous measures. The usual talk is "now is the time to have this thing settled once for all." There is a measure before Congress making strikes unlawful, and ilie Labor leaders declare that if it, becomes law the workers will ignore it. There is a movement, for the deportation of refractory aliens and the wholesale imprisonment of men who would turn the world upside down. If things get worse troops will undoubtedly bo used to wpfk the mines and the railways, or, at any rate, to protect those who are willing to work. Shooting is not at all an unusual thing in industrial disputes in the United States. The American public is in favor of shooting the men who are preaching red revolution. There is also a belief in many quarters there should bo conscription of labor.