Golden Age, October 29, 1919

Download: PDF — Golden Age, October 29, 1919

Golden Age

Vol. I New York, Wednesday, October 29, 1919 No. 3

LABOR and

SIXTY CENTS AN HOUR

IN various sections of the country a wage of sixty cents an hour for unskilled labor is looked for. This looks like a small fortune, compared with the fifteen or twenty cents an hour that was the ruling figure only a few years ago.

This increase in wages represents more than a rise due solely to high cost of living. The unskilled labor has * multiplied three or four times where living costs have doubled. The laborer is better off than before because his day’s pay will buy him more.

In the wheat belt in the 1919 harvest season as high as a dollar an hour was paid for farm help, and in some actions there were three jobs to every competent man. ; The extra rise in the labor wage is due to the current scarcity trf. labor. This class of workers has been recmit-. ed largely from immigration, but the war cut down im-• migration to a fraction of its former figure, and the outgoing stream of laborers made the net immigration very small, a situation now aggravated by the great exodus of foreigners returning to their European homes.

The wage of common labor has responded in part to the scarcity of labor. The law of supply and demand at last enables the day laborer to come into his own.

Some employment experts declare that the country is facing a serious labor shortage, owing to the home-visits of the thousands who have been over here longer than usual, and to the revival of business. The estimate is made that by next New Year the country will be short of common labor to the extent of a million and a half workers. What this may do to the price by hour that a laborer can command may be estimated by the wage experts but even higher than sixty cents may reasonably be looked for.

- Labor’s wage is considered the basic w?gc of all 1 industry. For example, where common labor gets a - given wage, the wage of skilled labor will be roughly speaking a certain number of times that of the ccmmon

ECONOMICS

labor. This is because common labor constitutes a high percentage of production costs in the basic industries. Any increase in the labor wage adds materially to the cost of doing business. With labor getting more money and the living cost rising to match, there must be looked for demands for increases in the wages of skilled workers who cannot be expected to acquiesce in any retrograde in the purchase power of the day's pay.

Where the top in wages may be, no one ventures to predict; but, with all the apparent rise the worker is not happy, as he sees the cost-of-living figures always a little beyond his own buying capacity.

The retailers have been lining their pockets during this carnival of high prices. Instead of the 5c profit that they should be making on a pound of log of lamb some meat dealers have been making 10c; instead uf clearing 7c on Iamb chops they have been clearing 25c, and the same with veal. Cantaloupes costing the retailer 6c have been retailing at 18c to 25c and tomatoes costing him 5c a pound have been selling at 30c per pound. The wholesalers and jobbers have all participated too. Another contributory cause is reckless buying ou the part of many.

A House subcommittee investigating War Department expenditures has discovered that almost 400,000,000 cans of vegetables, salmon and pork and beans were withheld from the market at the request of the canners until after the present canning season, but The total value of this is only about $1 per head, for the popiJation of the United States, and not enough to affect the situation materially.

But no matter what may be the cause, according to the Children’s Burrau connected with the United States Department of Labor 6,0u0,000 American children n*e actually at this moment underfed and the New York City Board of Health finds numerous poor families that have been obliged to give up meat, butter and eggs. Efforts to locate the trouble persist.

A MILLION HOMES NEEDED

OH several years the American people have been “doubling up” two or more families in houses made over into apartments or tenements. The country is short $4,000,000,000 worth of houses and there is an annual need of $3,000,000,000 for building purposes, two thirds of which is for homes.

In New York there is an almost total stoppage of work on new houses. Prices and labor are so high that those desiring to build are waiting until they can put up apartments or houses which will not depreciate a quarter in value when the tide of prices has receded.

Some of the percentages of increase in the wholesale prices of building materials since July 1915 according to the American Contractor, are as follows, average 119; lime 118: cement 99 ; brick 170; sand 150 ; gravel 123; crushed stone 106; linseed oil 240; white lead 86; structural steel 86; hemlock 78; yellow pine timber 87; yellow pine 127; spruce timber 71; window glass 136; plate glass 113.

The percentage increase of wages has been about one-third that of materials, as follows from July 1915 to July 1919; carpenters, shop work 50; carpenters, outride 30; brick layers 20; cement masons 30; composition roofers 50; electrical workers 25; engineers, hoisting 17; marble workers 18; metallic lathers 13; painters 50; plasterers 30; plumbers 27; roofers and sheet metal workers 20; slate and tile roofers 18; steam fitters 27; stone cutters 50; stone masons 35; stone setters 17; tile layers 30; wood workers 53; hod carriers 69.

An, important incident of these figures is that building workers, with a thirty-nine per cent wage increase and facing a one-hundred per cent cost of living increase, are not getting a fair share of the goods for their day's work. This condition is attributable to slack business, and is likely to be remedied when building increases.. With an increased demand for skilled labor the workers may be expected to apply pressure through strikes to increase their wages to correspond with the advanced cost of living. The practical result to the builder of homes will be that the labor-cost increase should ultimately be in keeping with the 119 per cent increase in material prices.

Further price increases may be looked for in lumber, which may rise from its present average increase of only eighty per cent to a higher figure, and there is a scarcity of some materials. This is the burden under which the home builder of 1920 staggers. It accounts for the fact that in New York the number of apartment houses, tenements and houses has dropped from hundreds five years ago to practically nothing the first half of this year.

A temporary favorable feature is that building should not only not be cheaper, but should cost more. For a time at least, the discouraged home builder may not expect to find himself in a falling market. For those taking immediate advantage of present prices and wage scales the law of supply and demand is operating favorably and they may be able, for a while, to sell their buildings at a profit. With population increasing two to three per cent a year and the number of homes not increasing by any such rate, there should be a rising price for home properties.

These conditions are the result partly of the abolition during the war of the economic law of competition. In its place was built up a beneficent system of cooperation whereby each party concerned was assured a fair percentage of profit. The cost-plus-a-per-cent system discouraged competition and enabled unscrupulous contractors to put at work unheard-of numbers of men who worked more or less as they pleased and produced buildings of unprecedented cost ,

There are numberless houses built under pre-war conditions, and almost as good as new houses, which the home seeker can buy for less than anything of equal quality the builder of today can offer. As long as this class of buildings is in the market there is no reason why an economical home seeker should buy a new house.

Under existing conditions there is a constantly widening margin of the population approaching the homeless state. Scarcity of houses, high* rents and extortionate landlords are driving thousands to the point. where they find it difficult to. avoid having no roof over their heads. They require homes, but the homes are scarcely to be had at a figure which their daily wage will afford. With building at a standstill, or progressing on high-cost lines what are these unfortunate, poor to do ?

Certainly they may look forward with anticipation to the Golden Age when it shall not be true that the men that build houses build them for other people to live in and they themselves go homeless. Bather the promise is made that soon “they shall long enjoy the work of their hands”—Isaiah G5:21-22.

WILL FOOD ADMINISTRATION BE REVIVED?

HEY HAD TO revive the Food Administration in England and we may have to do so in this country.

There is talk now of placing warehouse owners and cold storage men and wholesalers and large retailers under license. We had them under license during the war. There is talk of enforcing regulations against hoarding. We did it during the war. There is talk of * laying down rules governing the profit which is fair. We did that during the war. There is talk of cutting the' cost of living by using a zone system for shipnfents of' live stock and fruits. This was done during the war.

Who wm benefited, then, by the abolition of the Food Administration? Who raised the cost of living since it was abolished, and who suffered as a result? If the Food Administration was a good thing to help the people save during the war, would it not be a good thing to help save the people now ?

There is a hint in Joseph’s experiences in Egypt that in times of world scarcity one of the most useful offices of the Government is to see that the people’s food supply is cared for, so that they may not come to want. Joseph’s whole purpose in buying and storing the food, and doling it out as needed was "To save much people alive?*—Gem 41:1-57; 47:13-26; 50:20.

IS THERE LEATHER SHORTAGE?

IT IS hard to get at the truth of some of the statements that appear in the daily press. We can not be sure that some of the things that look plausible were not fixed up on purpose to make them look so. But it does appear reasonable that there is really somewhat of a shortage in leather. Leather is a by-product of cattle raising. Cattle are not raised or slaughtered for their hides merely. The hides result naturally from the sale of beef, and the sales of beef per capita are much less than they used to be, because the people cannot afford to eat much meat at the prices which have recently prevailed.

During the Great War the number of European cattle was greatly reduced and it will be a long time before the leather stocks in those countries will be as great as it once was. There are large stocks of leather at porta in South America, India, China and Siberia, but the shipping of the world is not yet sufficient to transport it.

There has been talk that shoes are selling in Europe for $20 to $25 per pair, but thousands of shoes were recently advertised for export at prices ranging from $1.80 to $5.75 per pair, or about one tenth the alleged European prices. Somebody must be getting the difference and it looks as if somebody is getting too much. There are quite a good many people in the United States today who can not understand why shoes that cost $6.75 at the factory should cost the consumer $12. The retail shoe men claim that they are making less money than formerly because of the loss of business due to high prices. ' ’

The Golden Rule, Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you even so to them” (Matt. 7:12), is a rule of business none too often followed, but is nevertheless the acme of wisdom as well as justice, and in the Golden Age will be enforced upon all by the unseen spiritual powers that will then be in control. The Golden Rule does not spread lies and half-truths in the effort to maintain fictitious prices. .

THE DEMANDS OF LABOR

HE demands of labor to a voice In the management of the businesses with which they are connected are of a nature that will not be set aside. Labor has been moving steadily forward in its attempts to secure a larger share of the profits of industry ever since the inauguration of the factory system, which began in England in the year 1800.

At that time it was a criminal act for workmen even to meet in an attempt to improve their wages and condition of labor, and for more than fifty years the employing class in Great Britain, through its control of legislation, was able to attach to trade unions the taint of lawlessness. The workmen felt this injustice.long before the employers admitted it and made their indignation felt at various times in acts of violence in which thousands of dollars worth of property was destroyed.

The workmen were not alone in their resort to violence. More than one employer has been guilty of resorting to violence by hiring ruffians armed with rifles to act as strikebreakers. This practice has now been almost entirely given up, as the experience of many years has shown that collective bargaining has come to stay, and there is no more reason why workers should not organize than there is why bankers, manufacturers, publishers, etc., should be forbidden to do so.

The high cost of living is made higher still by every strike, for it is the people, the whole people, that in the end must pay for every interruption of the business of producing and distributing the necessaries of life. Every, intelligent workman knows this and every intelligent workman wants steady employment. To be sure he wants the best wages he can get, but he can not really want the impossible and must not have the unreasonable. He will be satisfied, and must be satisfied, with a reasonable share in the profits, but wants his own representatives on the board of directors to make sure that figures are not juggled. With less he will not be content

In these times, with labor realizing its importance in the defence of the country and the niaintainence of the country, instead of an employer trying to regulate wages by imposing his will upon his employes, the best way for him to maintain a permanent labor supply is to sit around the council table with representatives of his men and endeavor to work out the problem on a basis that is just to all concerned.

No one can accurately compute the value of another’s labor. We all know that it is to the interest of the country, to employers and employes alike, that the largest production should be obtained with a given amount of labor, having due regard to the health, safety, rest, recreation and improvement of the workers. These being safeguarded, the larger the amount that is produced the more there is to divide.

The time was when a Pharaoh could say to a people that he acknowledged was mightier than his own people (Ex. 1:9), “Go ycs get you straw where you can find it: yet not ought of your work shall be diminished” (Ex. 5:11) and he expected and for a time received implicit obedience. But now the workers know their strength better than they once did, and the modern Pharaoh knows better than to send out a foreman to his men with such a message as Pharaoh of Egypt sent to the Israelites. The nearer approach of master and workmen to the common level is a happy augury of the actual dawning of a better age.

SALVAGING BROKEN RICE GRAINS

HE 1918 crop of rice in Louisiana, Toxas, Arkansas and the Carolinas was 38,000,000 bushels.

Ordinarily some 2,350,000 bushels of this would have been converted into beer. The part thus used is made up to the tiniest particles of milled rice, broken pieces of less than one-third of a grain in size. America is not a large rice-using nation and a problem now presents itself as to the best use to make of these broken rice-grains. They can be made into rice-flakes which look and taste like corn flakes, or they can be puffed and made into puffed rice even though the grains arc broken. Rice flour can also be used as a part substitute for wheat flour in baking but at the prevailing price of 12c per lb., or S24.00 per bbl. could not be considered a very good investment.

In America scarcely six pounds of rice per capita is consumed in a year ; whereas the per capita consumption in foreign countries is as follows; in Japan each man, woman and child consumes 147 pounds of rice a year; in China 158 pounds; in Russia 11 pounds; in England 27 pounds; in France 34 pounds; in Italy 101 pounds, and in Germany 93 pounds.

It is a favorable sign when we see men considering what to do with such apparently small items of human food as broken rice grains. Anybody can waste: it requires no brains to do that. But to make the wisest and best use of the fragments of human time, effort, food, etc., so that the largest and best results can be obtained for humanity, this requires thought. Wc hare an illustration of the Divine view of the value of human food in the command of our Lord, after he had miraculously fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two little fishes, to gather up the broken fragments of loaves and fi&hes so that nothing be lost.—John 6:12.

WE MUST LEND OR HUNGER

UH GREATEST and most natural market outside the United States is Europe. Europe is like a good customer who has been burned out and requires crolit.

She needs food, coal, raw materials and machinery until she can get on her feet, and meantime, as she has neither gold nor the goods with which to make immediate payment, this country must loan and keep on loaning. It is estimated that to pull through the next year Italy will need loans from us of $500,000,000, France about $400,000,000 and Belgium will need about $200,000,000.

But why cannot we refuse to sell to Europe except for cash, and if she cannot pay cash why cannot we let her go hungry? We can, but if we let her go hungry then we go hungry too. It works out in this way. Ours is a great agricultural country. We raise more food than we can cat. When we can sell this surplus food at good prices our farmers are prosperous. When the farmers are prosperous everybody is prosperous, be-. cause the farmer is a good customer, and spends his money freely when he has any to spend. When Europe ceases to need our food exports the prices here will fall, the farmer class will lose its purchasing power and we will all feel the pinch. Hence it is important that we lend to Europe if we would eat.

It is true' of the body politic, as it is true of the Body of Christ, that “We are members one of another”. (Eph. 4:25) More and more we are led to see that the command to “Love one another; not os Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother” (I John 3:11,12) is not only good from an ethical standpoint, but it is actually good statesmanship, and a statesmanship that will be more and more valued as we progress farther and farther into the Golden Age.

OCEAN GIANTS

IT IS PROPOSED to build two 1,000-foot steamships to run between this country and European ports.

Thousand-foot ships are big ones, but they do not represent the progress of which humanity might be thought capable. No one knows what was the size of other contemplated boats, but Noah’s ark some 4,389 years ago, made a good start with a length of 450 feet, a breadth of 75 feet and a height of 45 feet. The comforts of the ark were negligible and would not have satisfied the modern tourist trade, but they sufficed for the load of animals and people that took the trip from “the world that was” to ‘‘this present evil world.” The ark, too, was scientifically designed, for its dimensions are said by a marine expert to be those suited for maximum carrying capacity. .

SOCIAL and EDUCATIONAL

YOUTHS OF 131 AND 144 YEARS

IT SEEMS ODD to read of John Shell, the Leslie

County, Kentucky, mountaineer, who recently celebrated his 131st birthday by riding in an automobile. He was born before the French Revolution. It seems odd, too, to read of Zorro, the 144-year-old Turk, still working as a day-laborer in Constantinople, along with his grandson and his grandson’s grandson. He was born before the American Revolution and was over a hundred years old when General Grant was elected President the second time. We are not used to such things, but the world was once used to far greater age than that of either Shell or Zorro. The average ages of eight of the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah was 929 years (Gen. 5:5-31; 9:29), and despite the Flood, and the consequent unfavorable effect upon human longevity, the average ages of the sixteen patriarchs from Shem to; Moses was 251 years.—Gen. 11:10-32; 25:8; 47:28; Ex. 6:16-20; Deut. 34:7.

With the return of Edenic conditions in the earth we are assured that “As a child shall one die at an hundred years old” (Isa. 65:20) but the sinner, who makes no pr^rcsa towards perfection under full light and opportunity, will be cut off in death as soon as a final decision in his case has been reached. Won’t it seem strange when such men as Zorro are counted as children and when finally death ceases altogether?—1 Cor. 15:26.

A FAIR CHANCE FOR BABIES

WE ALL WANT the babies to have a fair chance, but the stubborn fact persists that unless the income of the home is sufficient they do not have that chance and can not have it. Professor Ogburn of Columbia University made a study of 4,000 families in 18 cities and recently gave some of his conclusions at a wage hearing in Chicago. It appears that investigations made prior to 1914 showed that where the family income was $550 a year the deaths among the infants were 267 per 1,000, but there were less than a third as many when the income was $1,250 a year, and it - was not until the income reached $2,500 that the death rate dropped to its lowest point. This shows the direct * bearing that incomes have upon child welfare.

During the Great War the War Labor Board of Massachusetts decided, that $28 per week was a fair living wage for two parents and three children. This is $1,456 per year. Professor Ogburn's studies coincided with the War Board’s estimates. He believed, that $1,385 per year wu necessary for bare subsistence of a family of five in October, 1918, and that an income of $1,550 is now necessary. The average annual expense of such a family for entertainment Prof. Ogburn found to be $5.03 for movies, $1.09 for concerts, 85c for newspapers, $1.65 for postage and 30c for magazines. The head of this average family buys a new straw hat every other year and a new soft hat every third year.

Won't it be nice when there is absolutely plenty in the earth for everybody? The Psalmist speaks of such a time of the Lord’s promised kingdom, the time of the Golden Age, when he saysx “There shall be an abundance (Heb. pusawl of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lel> anon la forest!; and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” “He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy.”— Psa. 72:16,4.

COLLEGE PROFESSOR SORROWS

COLLEGE PROFESSORS have been hard hit by the high cost of living, and they know it Nobody ever became a teacher because of the money there was in it, but there have been advantages in a social way, and lengthy periods of rest, and daily association with bright active, inquiring minds that have made many men of high ideals look to teaching as a line of work in which they could be happy, not only because of the good they could do but because of some compensating advantages.

But when men have to reduce their clotjiing allowances to the lowest notch, and their wives have to do their own work, and they have to practically give up books, music, travel, and even life insurance, at a time when more is expected of them than ever before, it is following, as a matter of course, that young men are avoiding the work of teaching and many of the older teachers are leaving to enter other lines of business. Many colleges have suffered greatly within the past year or two because the members of their faculties have gone to other lines of work where they could make salaries several times as large,

“The laborer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7) and if we want education for the rising generation we must pay for the work done, or it will be done by incompetents. The demand for justice to the teachers is right in line with the policy of the coming age.

TWO MILLION NEW GARDENERS

A HAPPY, enthusiastic, successful and healthy army of two million gardeners has been added to the nature-lovers of our country; 400,000 in the states from Maine to Maryland; 250,000 in the states from Virginia to Mississippi; 600,000 in the states from Ohio to North Dakota and 500,000 in the states from Kentucky to New Mexico. That was the enrollment in the United States School Garden Army for 1919, It was all an outgrowth of the Great War, but it was a grand step in the right direction. It is bringing forward a new generation that will appreciate and love Mother Earth and the fresh air and the plants, as the past generation has not done. And it will be a healthier generation, and a far happier one.

It has good backing too. It has come to stay, for it has been made a part of the required school work in many of the curricula and the garden army director has become a part of the official family of the State Department of Education in some states, and will probably be made so in all states.. The work is starting right. The motto has been, “A garden for every child— every child in a garden”, and courses in gardening have been started in the normal schools, so that the children may have the right kind of teachers. In Ohio the legislature set aside $1,500 in prizes to be awarded to the young gardeners, and they never appropiated $1,500 to a more worthy purpose. In New Hampshire 7 per cent of the entire population of the state is enrolled in the Garden Army.

This movement is an important part of the work of the Golden Age. Our original inheritance in the garden of Eden is to be restored, and it will be restored in part by the efforts of men to subdue the earth, as was contemplated in God’s original purpose. (Gen. 1:28) The- ultimate effect will be that "the desolate land shall be tilled whereas it lay desolate in the right of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like Ihc garden of Eden.” —Ezekiel 3G:35.

THE SOCIAL UNIT PLAN

IFTEEN THOUSAND people, in a section of Cincinnati, have proved that by working together they can virtually remove poverty, crime and disease from their midst. They have done it now for three years. Neighborhood administrations are formed which make it their business to see to it that every person in a particular block is adequately provided with work, food, medical attention and recreation. The theory is that when every block in every city is thus looked after, want crime and pestilence will be things of the past.

The theory is a good one and has the support of able men. We wish it well and interpret it as one of the harbingers of the better era.

GAMBLING FOR A SICK MAN'S BLANKETS

HRISTENDOM is sick; every financier knows it;

yet the financial news from Wall Street shows no

indications of a let-up in the gambling spirit. When the master minds of the country are grappling with the railroad problem it does not read well that the stocks of equipment companies have advanced and “Are enjoying good earnings, with the prospect of an increase in domestic business when the railroads are returned to private operation.” It looks too much as though some people were too sure of their present and future profits. •

With the common people of the country greatly agitated over the price of shoes it does not read well that “While hide and leather markets reflected agitation against high prices, the stock moved forward in the belief that even at decreased price levels the company will continue to make large profits.” It looks too much as though there is somebody that has had more to do with cries of leather shortage and demands for higher prices than is right.

With the great mass of people in New York that haf had to give up the use of meat, butter, eggs and milk, it does not read well that “The local traction shares displayed a more buoyant tone on reports that fare increases would be allowed” and “Buying of this issue was predicated on the belief that higher fares will be granted to the traction companies.” It looks too much as though some people were interested in seeing higher fares whose interest is not entirely unselfish.

Gambling is always interesting. There was the time, you remember, when eleven of the apostles cast lots to see which of the two men they had picked out for the twelfth apostle should be accepted of the Lord as such. (Acts 1:15-26) But this was before the Holy Spirit had come at Pentecost. Afterward, long afterward, they all learned that the Lord had chosen the Apostle Paul to that high honor, and to him was granted “Visions and revelations of the Lord” (2 Cor. 12:14) which he was privileged to communicate to the eleven who had been with the Lord from the first.—Gal. 1:1124; 2:1-21. .

BETTER TIMES COMING

ETTER TIMES are coming. It can be stated confidently and scripturally that present conditions of world-wide unrest are but precursors or forerunners of the Golden Age.

MANUFACTURING and MINING

MOTOR TRUCKS FOR OIL TRADE

IT HAS BEEN demonstrated that a 1 1-2 ton truck will replace not less than two 2-horse-drawn wagons, and a large truck will displace from six to nine horses and two or three horse-drawn wagons and effect a considerable saving in labor. A 2 1-2 ton truck is usually operated by one man, while a larger truck usually has a helper.

• Within a radius of less than ten miles teams are , usually most economical to operate, if kept busy all the.'time, but it is easier to obtain help to operate trucks than it is to drive teams. The truck has the . advantage of being able to perform the work more satisfactorily in the heat of summer and in the intense cpld of the winter season.

For long hauls and full loads the motor truck has the advantage of the horse in economy and in every other way, particularly because of its greater speed-A truck can handle goods within a radius of 60 miles more economically than they can be shipped by rail. This is because the goods do not have to be prepared fi^rcsretnlly for shipment and because of the fewer __handlings that are required. When goods are loaded on motor trucks they are delivered direct to the destination. Where a milage of 60 or 65 miles per day is covered the, most economical size of truck is a 2 1-2 ton truck, whereas in larger centers, where the mileage is 35 to 40 miles per day a 3 1-2 ton truck is the most economical.

Another advantage of the motor truck is that it cuts down the number of hours a man has to work because it shortens the time necessary to make deliveries. It is very seldom that an old employe who has driven a team for a number of years and is broken in on a motor truck wishes to jgo back to the old style of vehicle. He finds the truck an interesting study and takes more interest in it and better care of it than he would the horses. It has proved in most instances that the old time horse-driver, who is broken in and carefully instructed, makes a much better motor truck driver than a professional chauffeur.

. It is not uncommon now to see trucks carrying from - 4,000 to 5,000 pounds making their way over the desert

'^4 regions in the far west, where roads are entirely absent, * for distances of fifty to- sixty miles.

Special trucks are now made for the oil industry. The requirements encountered by trucks in the oil fields- of West Virginia and western Pennsylvania have proven the necessity of these special designs. Most of

the loads consist of long parts, such as standard lengths of piping and derrick material. These overhang at the rear of the truck, and owing to the extremely poor roads which must be traversed in the mountains, the overhung load sways violently and sets up severe rocking strains in the body as well as in all parts of the rear of the truck. Tlxe average body will not stand up under these conditions. .

The work of oil drilling requires the moving about of much heavy equipment, which has been done heretofore slowly and clumsily by three or four teams of horses. The roads in oil regions generally beggar description. Not infrequently the best oil deposits are in locations which are almost inaccessible. Jobs that formerly required half a day are now done by motor trucks in an hour. Drilling rigs, boilers, pumps, lumber are moved by trucks quickly and with ease, that can be handled by horses only slowly and with difficulty.

When a new field is opened up the same difficulty is always encountered in getting machinery and supplies of all kinds from the nearest railroad to the point where the equipment is to be used. If there are any roads in the section at the start they soon become so cut up with the heavy traffic and so slippery and greasy os to be almost impassable. Under conditions such as these, tractors of the caterpillar type haul loads through to destination which can hardly be moved by any other means. Horses can not be worked when the mud gets as deep as their gamble joints, and this not infrequently happens in the oil fields. ■ - *

In Detroit recently, in a test, a truck in whieh tho power is applied to every wheel ascended the Court House stairs, step by step, with 22 men aboard. This truck will run in mud so deep that the axle housings drag, and will go down and out of cellars and through sand, almost anywhere.

Creeping tractors, patterned after the “tanks” used in the Great War, are designed as power auxilliaries to do what trucks were not designed for. These tractors will haul loads over roads where a motor truck would not be able to turn a wheel. They are used to pull motor trucks over the worst of roads, and for moving boilers, drilling rigs and casing to new locations; for building and maintaining roads; for pulling trees and stumps and oil casings. '

For certain kinds of work where it is desired to discharge the load on either tide of a vehicle, gravity dump bodies ore provided which require no power to operate. These discharge the load and return to an upright position by gravity,, afterwards lucking automatically. The hopper is V-shaped, with perfectly straight sides, which allows the material to completely clear the body when it assumes the dump position.

Constructors, ship builders, quarries, steel and iron manufacturers—all of those industries sending out the most gigantic loads and requiring the most exacting schedules of time on their production—are coming more and more to use motor trucks. Tank cars are specially designed for the transfer of liquid loads and are now to be seen everywhere. Tank cars are built with compartments, connected with cross pipes in the rear which allow any one of the compartments, or all of them if desired to be opened into the main pipe leading to the pump or faucets for filling cans at the rear. Motor driven pumps empty or fill these tanks in ten minutes time.

The operation of several hundred motor truck vehicles over a period of one year shows the following percentages of cost:

GaMUne____________—..................................S23.21

Depreciation .........-.................... -..., 31.76

Repair* _____________________________________________________

Tire*_____________-_____________________________________________

Gorage ..................................................

latent, Taxes, License, Inanrance_____,

Lubrication........................................._............... L

The ‘‘swift beasts”(Heb. kirkaroth, swaying furnaces) of Isa. 66:20 refer specifically to locomotives, but as automobiles are also, after a fashion, swaying furnaces, they are probably included in the expression. In a little while the Prophet Isaiah will be back here on the earth and we will ask him, or you can, whether automobiles and motor trucks are included in that expression or not.

WORKERS BUY A STEEL PLANT

LL WHO wish well to their fellow;men will wish well to the Aetna Iron and Steel Company, a cor

poration made up of former workers of the great steel plant at Gary, Indiana. These men* have purchased the old Aetna guncotton plant, near Gary, at a cost of $400,000. To succeed they will need to have among their numbers skilled salesmen and office workers ay well as _ actual steel makers. They will need to have an executive head and to obey him. They will need to be reasonable in their wage demands, and all to work together for the * good of the business. They will need to study economy in every way, and will probably need the services of some good financier.

If they make a success of their venture, their experiences will not differ greatly from their experiences in the past, except that at dividend time they hare a chance at greater profits than heretofore. There is no doubt, too, that they face the possibility of losing all they put into the venture. Business success generally follows a long period of aelf-reatraint on the part of somebody, and self-restraint is a character builder. “He that ruleth his own spirit (is better] than he that taketh a city ” (Proverbs 16:32) There are some who will not wish these workers well in their new venture, but we are not of that class. We hope that they will make* a great success of their double role of employer and employee and receive an adequate return for the investments in money, skill and self-restraint that they put into the business.

THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL

O EXTRACT the metal from any ore the ore is melted by intense heat and by adding to it lime, which unites with the impurities of the ore to form a liquid slag which floats upon the molten metal. The metal is then drawn off from the bottom of the furnace, after which it needs to be refined. Coke is used to provide the fuel for melting the ore and in order to provide sufficient air for the combustion enormous quantities are pumped in through great stoves where the air is first heated to over 1,000 degrees. These stoves of which there are three or four to each furnace, are large cylinders filled with a checker work of fire brick.

Pig iron always contains impurities, among which are sulphur and phosphorous, and both of these are objectionable and need to be reduced by burning away. Sulphur in too great quantities causes steel when heated to bend or break. Phosphorous in too great quantities causes steel when cold to be brittle. For the burning out of these impurities oil has the advantage of providing a heat which can be easily regulated.

If Tubfll-cain, “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron” (Genesis 4:22), were to visit a modern blast-furnace plant he would surely be astonished at the gigantic scale on which we do things nowadays, even though the principles are the same as he taught five thousand years ago, but all these improvements are necessary to the manufacture of the machinery and tools that will be needed to do the drudgery of the world in the Golden Age on whose threshold we stand.

SECURITY OF POSITION

ABOR feels that a long period of service for a concern should give as much security of position as that universally accorded to lawyers, physicians, bankers and others who have grown old in the service of their clients.

FINANCE, COMMERCE and TRANSPORTATION

TOO MUCH MONEY

WHEN “free - silver” theories of currency were rejected in 1896, America saved itself from a web like what the people are now entangled in. Silver would have been put on the free coinage basis like gold which, if taken to the mint is, without charge, run through the processes necessary to turn it into gold coin.

Free coinage of gold had not unduly increased the volume of currency, because gold had been scarce. But if producers had been permitted to have silver coined free, the production of silver would have become so great that the quantity of money would have been noticeably increased.

Some might say this would have given the common people and the business men more money to handle, and there would have been an increase in the volume of business, for if any business man needed money for his business he could get all he needed. There is some truth in this; but there is more truth in the fact that business men do not need much more money, because they do business, not with money itself but with credits advanced by the banks; when a business man obtains a loan from a bank, he merely leaves the amount on ■_ deposit, and draws checks against it, and usually does not use much cash.

If the volume of money were increased, most of it would be deposited by the people in the banks, where it would become the basis for further loans to business men. On account of the fact that business men do not draw out money, but use checks, a bank loans more credits than the amount of the money, so that the cash in the banks may become the basis of credits ten to twenty times the amount of the cash.

' A moderate increase in money in banks serves for very large increases in credit loans to business men. Safe and sane business increases slowly, because based on the slowly increasing consuming power of the people, and a large increase in the volume of money, such as would fjiave resulted from “free silver,” would not result in corresponding increase of legitimate business, but an * “inflation” of credits.

A condition exists today like that from inflation of •ilver, but the inflation now is from an unprecedented increase in the amount of gold. Not only has the volume of gold increased but that of other forms of currency. The amount of money in the United States was 93,350,000,000 in 1913. In January, 1914, it had risen, to meet the needs of trade, to $3,447,000,000, or about 3 per cent increase; in January 1915, to $3,545,000,000, another increase of about 3 per cent. In January, 1916, it was $3,909,000,000, or about 10 per cent more; the inflation of currency due to the war had begun to be felt. In January, 1918. it was $5,120,000,000, another increase of about 15 per cent. At the present time the amount has jumped t<? in round numbers $7,563,000,000 or an increase in two years of 50 per cent, an advance in volume of currency wholly unrelated to any increase in the volume of business, or more exactly in the amount of goods produced.

This has an effect of vital importance to the people. While the people save a little, they spend practically all that they earn, the saving usually being a comparatively negligible factor. If their income is raised, they continue to save a trifle but usually spend practically all they earn. If there is no increase in the amount of goods produced, the people will simply spend more money for the same goods, a process which assumes the tangible form of a higher cost of living, now the burden of half the headlines in the newspapers.

Roughly speaking the increase in the cost of living has corresponded with the increase in the volume of currency. From January, 1914, to January 1915, the average wholesale prices of all commodities increased 3 per cent. The next year it increased 19 per cent. From 1916 to 1917 it increased 26 per cent and from 1917 to 1918 it showed an increase of 32 per cent, and since then has made a further large advance.

The volume of currency and the cost of living increase or decrease together. Until the volume of currency is lessened there Is little hope of a material reduction in prices. In an era of high prices and corresponding discontent, the mental attitude of the workers reduces the volume of production, as agitation takes the place of efficiency, and men think about grievances rather than work. If the volume of goods, money and credits does not change, prices remain unchanged.

The outlook is for no particular contraction of the currency. If the gold now in the banks were to return to circulation among the people it would reduce the volume of money in banks which is being used as a basis for loans and credits to business men. But the people are trained to consider gold as for the banks, and they do not even try to get it into circulation. It is easier to use paper money and checks than coin, and universal experience is that a people trained to the more, convenient currency do not readily turn back to metal currency for daily use.

The chance i* remote of a reduction in gold by its flow to other countries. The aituatidh is reverted that used to prevail as regards payment of gold to Europe, for interest, ocean freight, tourists, laborers’ home remittances, and trade balances. To a measureable extent the United States has become a creditor nation, which turns the gold stream toward our shores. Europe needs material for reconstruction and will pay America for it with gold. Europe’s exports to America are ihr smaller than before, which creates a trade balance favorable to this country, with the amount of the balance payable in gold here.

If the banks could reduce the enormous volume of loans to business men, there would be less credit-dollars in circulation, and a contraction of the sums available for business purposes would ensue, and with less money going to the people to pay for goods with, prices and wages will fall. But there is little prospect of a change; the new Liberty Bonds are remarkably good security for hank loans, and there can be no diminishing in their volume until they are redeemed. Paper money may not be expected to decrease in volume for the Federal Reserve notes and bank notes show an increasing tendency toward expansion. '

That there is no prospect of a decrease in the currency, but rather an increase, is evident. To get people that have money to refrain from spending practically all they get is to expect a change in human nature. There is going to Ik? plenty of money in circulation, plenty to pay. for things with, and on this basis prices should continue high, if indeed they do not rise, after the palliatives applied have run their course of partial and temporary efficiency.

FROM FARM TO HOME

HERE ARE too many middlemen between the farm and the home, and the great problem of the day is

how to get rid of them or at least some of them. An investigation showed that there were eight to ten mid- dlemen between the New York fanner and the ultimate ‘ consumer in the city. All of these middlemen have demanded profits, no matter what happened to the farmer, so that it has not infrequently happened that the farmer, rather than receive for his fruit less than the freight charges, has allowed it to rot upon the ground. And it does not seem right for the farmer to receive but six to ten cents per quart for his milk while the consumer ten miles away pays from sixteen to twenty cents.

We find ourselves wondering whether it may not be possible that the motor truck will solve this problem. and possibly the Government may have a hand in it. The Government did so many things for us during the war that we get to thinking about its powers of organization and imagine things it might find A way to do to help us with our unsolved problem.

One of the principal items in the marketing of food is its transportation, The Government sells the transportation, practically all of it; perhaps it could be persuaded to buy and sell the food itself, or certain kinds of it. Wouldn’t it be a great idea in this country, as it is in Europe, to place your order with the postman for butter, eggs, bread, potatoes, etc., and have it come direct by the next parcel post ? Seems easy; doesn’t it ?

We shut our eyes and imagine a time when the people of a great district, acting through the government or some great cooperative association, will organize regular motor-truck services radiating from industrial centers for fifty or a hundred miles and thus effectively bring the food from the farm to the individual consumer. It would seem that it would not take a great deal more time to learn to grade, classify and price all kinds of farm produce than it does to figure* parcel post rates, and the same kind of people that were glad a little while ago to buy the Government's surplus bacon would probably learn easily to appreciate the privilege of buying its fresh vegetables. The details of the job would be a task for a Solon, but it seems worth a trial. A ware house would be a necessity, but it is nothing new for. the Government to have warehouses. It had many warehouses during the war.

This pressing problem we may be sure is one to which the Lord will give attention when he begins the work of straightening out the earth’s tangled affairs. ‘ "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof” (1 Cor.10: 26) and we may be sure he will see to it that adequate arrangements are made for distributing its bounties among his countless happy subjects who will find here their heart’s desire. “The desire of all nations shall , come.”—Haggai 2:7.

A TRUE STANDARD OF VALUE

OLD IS THE world’s present standard of value, because it is about the only thing of value in time of war that can be exchanged for necessities by the nations at war. With the passing away of wars, a better and truer standard of value seems possible.

The real basis of value is that which supports human life, not that which can be used to destroy it. What is needed in the way of money is a certificate which is good anywhere in the world for the same aggregate quantity of flour, butter, beef, bacon, beans, sugar, clothing and fuel. Is the combined intelligence of the world equal to the production of such a coin or basis of exchange ?

If we had such a standard of value a salaried man would know the value of what he had earned; now it • changes from day to day. A man who made a contract would know the value of the contract; now he can tell . little about it. A person with a savings account would know the value of the account; as matters now stand a person who has been saving money the past six years has been defrauding himself, because he can actually buy Iqps now, with principal and interest included, than he could have bought with the principal alone when he first began to save.

It would be a step forward if all the Governments of the world would take all the gold in existence and melt it into one vast statue dedicated to human folly, and issue in its stead commodity certificates based upon the composite basket of goods which we are all working to create, and in which the whole world is concerned. It would not be as easy to do a thing of this kind as it sounds. It would require the power of* the <rKing of kings” to bring about such a great reformation, but there is scriptural reason to believe, however, that there will come a time when money as we now know it will cease to exist, the “Mammon of unrighteousness” /"(Luke 16:9) having been superseded by some medium of - exchange better suited to the conditions that are to come.

BUSINESS ITEMS

A STRIKING feature of the financial field is the five hundred applications for charters for national' banks and requests for increases of capital of existing banks. This is regarded as an indication of widespread prosperity.

Great Britain, in order1 to hold its own in foreign trade, has begun the education of hundreds with a view - to developing them into experts in that field of work. The most severe competition Icqown is expected both from Germany and the United States.

The packing industry has been invaded by a combi* nation known as “The Allied Packers”, and composed of seven large packing concerns. A little more competition in this field should work out well for the people.

The necessity of taking a more human interest in ' employes has led the American Woolen Company to take out insurance policies in favor of its employes. The blanket insurance policy covers 35,000 employes and amounts at $1,200 each to some forty million dollars.

FOREIGN TRADE BLOCKED

IT WAS expected that with, the end of war foreign countries might be unable to pay for needed goods with gold and that this might cause trade to languish,

but a somewhat unexpected factor is having a not less serious effect on the salq of American products in European markets. *

This is the decline of foreign exchange. When Europe is buying our goods and not selling us hers there exists an oversupply of foreign exchange, which falls in price as the demand for it decreases. It takes more units of foreign money to equal a given number of units of American money, and this has reached a point where the difference tends to wipe out the profits the foreigners might make on the sale of the goods they buy from America, Foreign buyers cannot afford to do business at a loss and they drop their orders to the lowest possible figure. The condition of foreign exchange is a bar to business and the foreign trade of this country is much smaller than was expected. This affects the profits of exporters, the output of manufacturers and the profits on the operation of ships, to say nothing of the effect on transportation lines bringing the goods to American ports.

The problem of foreign exchange is engaging the best financial minds, and hard work is being done to work out a solution that will open w?de the doors to foreign trade.

COOPERATION GROWS APACE

HAT THE economic body thrives best where its members maintain an attitude, not of domination or competition but of cooperation, is demonstrated by many prosperous groups of cooperative peoples.

A few nations are distinguished for the extent to which cooperation is a factor in the daily life of the common people. Cooperative Russia, with some 2,000,* 000 members in such organizations, is one of the leaders, but the premier place belongs to Great Britain. There the cooperative system already embraces 3,500,000 persons, in over 2,500 societies engaged in the production and distribution of goods.

The British cooperative system is a power financially, rivalling some of the largest corporations of the United States. The total capital is about $375,000,000 and the total trade is over $1,000,000,000 annually, yielding a profit of nearly $100,000,000 a year.

The members benefit by the usual cooperative-store plan whereby the members trading at the store receive back the profits on their trade at the close of the year. This according to the figures above amounts, with the factory profits added, to nearly ten per cent, or the equivalent of more than a month’s trade a year for nothing. Such a system ought to be of interest to Americans as part of the campaign for the reduction of the cost of living. .

The members during the war were able to get lower prices than others, even on articles for which the government set the price, because the annual dividend amounted to a reduction in price. Government restrictions hampered the full success of the cooperative system, by making it difficult to obtain the necessary supplies for manufacturing purposes, and for distribution through the cooperative stores. The work was impaired by the fact that thousands of the member's were called into the army. Membership in the cooperative societies helped the soldiers because the societies made up to the soldiers the difference between their regular wages and their pay while in the army, several million dollars being disbursed in this way.

The cooperative societies, while officered by common workmen, are a living demonstration of the fact that the common people require no tutors, but are competent to manage their own affairs. The great system begun decades ago in the decision of a few workers in a humble cottage to join together in making purchases and has been prudent and efficient. The wise management which raised the united cooperative societies to the position of the largest trade unit in Great Britain is now reaching out for extensions and improvements in many directions.

One of the developments is the purchase of large coal properties in Yorkshire whereby many of the cooperators can add coal to the list of articles on which they are able to save. This is in addition to,a coal mine owned by the society in the neighborhood of Newcastle.

Large sums have been expended for farms and factories. The society' paid during the war $573,480 to extend its factories. It paid $3,049,650 for new factories and workshops. In farms and other lands it invested $3,333,960. The grand total of investment for land and factories, in war time, when progress should be slow, was nearly $7,000,000. The amazing area of farms held by the cooperative societies is some 33,000 acres, in Tjm-castershire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire.

If the enterprise were in America, one would never hear the end of it, but who outside of Britain's tight little isles has heard much of the prodigious enterprise of this combination of the common people! At the present time they are looking forward to the addition of the following to their already great list of businesses: flour mills, tanneries, jam factories, boot and shoe factories, corn mills, dairy farms, and other nameless odd? and ends under the classification of “similar enterprises.'' Three weaving mills with a total of 1,900 looms are the property of the societies, and not satisfied, they are about to extend their textile interests, and build a large mill for the spinning of yarn.

In America the common people have swallowed, bait, hook and sinker, the delusion fostered and foisted upon them by the banking interests, that it takes special financial training acquired only at the lower end of New York City, to raise money. The British cooperative societies are securing the money to invest in their great extensions by issues of what they call “development bonds/' in denominations of $100, $250, $500, $2,500, and $5,000, up to a total of $12,500,000 for the first issue. The societies agree that these bonds shall bear 4 1-2 per cent interest payable semi-annually and be redeemable at par after ten years; and judging by the past fidelity of the societies in keeping their promises they will meet this obligation the same as though they were “regular” financiers.

Another extension of membership and business is in process. The cooperative societies run their own banks, but up to this time have not been able to persuade the great British trades unions to place their banking business with them. Arrangements to this effect have been concluded, and in order to knit together more closely the interests of the British trades unions and the British cooperative societies, a great plan of agricultural and industrial development will shortly be announced for the benefit of both parties.

In the United States .plans for cooperation in manufacturing and distribution of goods have never been the great success they are in Great Britain. The British people, it is said, are more thrifty and more honest in their dealings than the Americans, and both these qualities are required in a high degree to insure success in cooperation. Possibly under the lash of the high cost of living the American common people may become more thrifty, and no doubt enough thoroughly reliable people might easily be found in practically every community to make a success of American cooperative societies comparable to what is seen across the aea.

The idea of the Golden Age is a perfect cooperation among all mankind. It will be not merely a cooperation ' for business purposes as now, but a drawing together in a unity expressed by Paul, <fThat ye should speak the same things, and be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10) It will be the materialization of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.

OIL THAN PIPES

HE OUTPUT rate of a bottle depends not on the size of the bottle, but on the size of the neck. In the

cil industry the neck of the bottle is the capacity of the pipe lines. The retail trade is capable of absorbing more oil, but it cannot be piped from the wells.

POLITICAL, DOMESTIC and FOREIGN

SHANTUNG AND THE STUDENTS

BECAUSE its excellent harbor of Kiaochau is the shortest approach to Pekin from the sea, and because the province, Shantung, of which it is the metropolis, excels in soil, climate, minerals and the industrious character of its people, Germany selected it as the basis of its raid in 1897. A corps of engineers visited the whole Chinese coast and having in view the German conquest of the world, had just concluded Shantung would serve its purpose best in China when, as a result of a quarrel, two German missionaries were killed by natives in the interior of that province. German troops were immediately landed, the occupation of the territory was announced, and a ninety-nine year lease of Kiaochau and outlying districts, together with railway and mining concessions, was demanded and obtained from the Chinese government. Tliis lease was always particularly . objectionable to the' Chinese because the province was the birthplace of Confucius, hundreds of thousands of the Chinese journey yearly to Confucius' tomb to do reverence to his memory. ।

…