Golden Age, December 10, 1919
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▼•L I New York, Wednesday, December 10, 1919 No. •
LABOR. AND
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Another Labor Conference
THE October labor conference went to pieces because three interests, labor, capital and the public, met together as interests, and from the first they each seemed to conclude that the . most important mission of each party was to .hang together, no matter what happened to the conference as a whole. .We all see now that '* this was not the right way to go about it. There > were some mistakes, too, in the personnel. It inflamed the situation to have Elbert H. Gary . • among the representatives of the public, while the steel strike was in full swing, and the larger • mass of unorganized labor, including the profes> sions, was not represented at all.
>, Now the President has issued a call for • another conference whose mission it will be, s not to deal directly with any condition which I now exists, but to search out the underlying
' causes, and propose a remedy that will avoid
■ such deplorable conditions as those which have recently confronted the country.
The object of the conference is declared to be 1 to determine some plan by which “our industries may be conducted with such regard for justice and fair dealing that the workman will feel himself induced to put forth his best efforts, ♦hat the employer will have an encouraging profit, and that the public will not suffer at the hands of either class.”
The new conferees, of whom there are seven-^en, include ten government officials, such as Unset officers, governors and other public icials, two lawyers, two college presidents, j railroad official, one merchant and one jlrnher. It assembled in Washington, Deoem-flrst. It is expected to act in an advisory
ECONOMICS
capacity, as to legislation suitable to meet the [ present industrial situation.
The American Federation of Labor, apparently impressed with the thought that labor, organized or unorganized, is wholly .unrepre-
sented on the new board, has issued a call for
a general conference at Washington, on Decern-ber thirteenth, stating that labor is now confronted with dangers so grave as to affect the I very foundation of its structure.
' ’
British Labor Policy
THE British Government has announced a
very liberal labor policy. Among other } things it proposes the state purchase of mines,
the social amelioration of the mining areas,
admission of the miners to councils for the reorganization and economical management of the mines, and a free career to mining talent
It also proposes an inquiry and propaganda to promote increased output, the development
and control of electric and water power supply,
a national maximum forty-eight hour week, a living wage for all workers, workers to have a voice in working conditions, workers to have a financial interest in their work, provision to be made for workers in periods of unemployment, the workers’ homes to be made healthful and their transport expeditious.
Lloyd George, the British Premier, in announcing the British labor policy, made an utterance that is remarkable for its breadth of view. He said:
“Millions of gallant young men have fought for toe new world. Hundreds of thousands died te establish ft. If we fail to honor toe promise given to tbeu^ we ditooncr ourselves.
“What does a new world mean? What was the old world like? It was a world where toil for myriads of honest workers, men and women, purchased nothing better than squalor, penury, anxiety, and wretchedness— ,a world scarred by alums and disgraced by sweating, where unemployment through the vicissitudes of industry brought despair to multitudes of humble homes; a world where, side by side with want, there was waste of the inexhaustible riches of the earth, partly through ignorance and want of forethought, partly through entrenched selfishness.
“If we renew the lease of that world we shall betray the heroic dead. We shall be guilty of the basest perfidy that ever blackened a people’s fame. Nay, we shall store ' up retribution for ourselves and for our children. The old world must and will come to an end. No effort can shore it up much longer. If there be any who feel inclined to maintain it, let them beware lest it fall upon them and overwhelm them and their households in ruin.
“It should be the sublime duty of all, without thought of partisanship, to help in building up the new world, where labor «h*ll have its just reward and indolence alone shall suffer want.”
American Labor Ideals
AMERICA has lagged behind some countries x*. in progressive labor legislation; yet a great deal of constructive work has been done, and plans are being tried out which give promise of splendid results, if they can be put into general operation. We mention a few instances which have come to our notice.
The Clark Equipment Company, Buchanan, Mich, has made of its grounds a high-class park. A complete greenhouse equipment, band and band stand, basketball, football and baseball teams and grounds, hospital for employes and families, cooperative store, and shop committees of employes for keeping in touch with the plant management, are features which tend to the promotion of tranquility of mind among the employes. The employes of the Clark Company are encouraged to become stockholders in the company, and when they do so receive special dividends upon their stock, in addition to the regular dividends paid to other share-holders. The Clark company builds and sells homes to its employes at cost of construction.
The Lycoming Foundry and Machine Company, Williamsport, Pa., also has various teams for athletic contests, an orchestra, a sick benefit association, a newspaper, life insurance for all employes, badges for long and continuous service, and a plan of building and selling homes to its employes similar to that used by the
Clark company, and proved equally successful.
The International Harvester Company, Chicago, has tried out a plan of having a House, composed of employes elected one from each department; a Senate, composed of the foremen ; and a cabinet and executive, composed of the officers, after the plan of government of the United States. The House and Senate meet weekly, on company time, to discuss working conditions, safety, sanitation, wages, hours and piece work Any changes must be approved by all three bodies.
The constituency of the House members is so arranged as to make sure that each voter is in personal contact with his representative. In small factories there is one representative to every twenty-five or thirty employes; in large factories one to every 200 or 300 employes. The effort is made to keep the House from becoming oversized and unwieldy, but the men have the utmost freedom in choosing their representatives, as otherwise the company has no way to learn the real opinions of its men.
Grievances in the plant are settled first between the employe and the foreman; or, that failing, between the employe, the foreman and the employe’s representative in the House; or, third, between the representative and the superintendent of the plant; or, fourth, in the House and the Senate; or, fifth, by the president of the company. It is found advantageous to employ an executive whose business it is to see that there is no friction at any point in this industrial machinery, which in actual test has been found to work splendidly.
Under this arrangement, the hours of labor have been reduced from fifty-three hours per week to forty-four hours per week, without decrease in production, twelve hour shifts of certain employes have been eliminated, and piece-work rates have been rectified where it was shown that they were too high or too low in competition with other workmen engaged in similar operations. Standards of production, quality and cost, have been fixed for each department and wage dividends, on a fiftyfifty basis, have been paid to the men and the company for increases in production above th standard production. In some cases these wag dividends have run as high as seventeen p cent, paid every other week in cash.
In some factories, production has been spe ed up by an arrangement under which eight
■ J-s
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ten men working together in a unit compete in production with other similar groups. This is called the group-production system. Bonuses and prizes constitute special rewards for the workers in these groups.
Another method which has been tried satisfactorily is the setting aside of a definite percentage of the net earnings of the company to be divided among the employes in the form of wages. This resulted, in one case, in an increase of fifty per cent in wages to the men.
Fean of Capitalist*
MANY of the capitalists of the country seem to have a well-defined fear that no matter what concessions they make to labor, or what effort to ameliorate the workers’ social and industrial relations, they will make no' progress toward solving the problem of labor’s menacing attitude, and therefore they are talking about plans for resorting to force.
The Merchants’ Association, New York, advocates that employes of public utility companies shall be enlisted like an army, so that employes would contract to work for a certain period, during which they could not legally quit or be discharged except as provided for. This looks like inviting a lion to accept a halter made of cotton twine.
Frank A. Vanderlip, former president of one of New York’s greatest banks, is of the opinion that the nation can not permit the creation and growth of large labor combines which, if left unchecked, “would be in a position to threaten the foundations of American social and economic life”. We have to “permit” many things.
General Miles, now eighty-three years of age, does not like the look of the way things are going. In an address at Shawmut Congregational Church, Boston, November eleventh, after remarking that in China the laborers work seventeen hours for five cents worth of rice, and in Japan earn but fifteen cents a day, with eighteen cents a day in the factories of Tientsin and twenty cents as a day’s wage in Russia, he declared that if the state does not take suitable steps to curb labor agitators, he is in favor of resorting to mob violence.
Other capitalists, studying the question, and noting that limitations have been put upon combines of capital, propose the limitation of labor combines, but a thing which they fail to mention in this connection is that the laws accomplished little in preventing the combines. ■ of capital, which is combined now in as great strength as ever before in history. -
Still other capitalists acknowledge that we do i have large corporations, and declare frankly s-their belief that the countries where the development of large corporations has gone furthest are those countries where the people enjoy the 5 highest wages and the best conditions of life. They even go further and declare that, as a . rule, the smaller the business is, the more un- ■. satisfactory the wages and working conditions. ’
Labor Extremists .
IT GOES without saying that labor has in its ■ camp many men who are very foolish; men who think riches can be distributed without being produced, and who have the idea that somebody has a great, deep, exhaustless treas- !’ ury opt of which fabulous wages could be paid forever without anybody putting anything into | the bag; but the average workingman is not a .1 natural born fool and can be depended upon in the long run to act with reason and judgment. «■ One thing which has disturbed some capital- . ists is the situation in Australia. There labor has had full control of the states and of the commonwealth itself, and has the most elabor- ‘ ate and elastic system of boards and courts in the world, objects of labor’s own creation, but with the continued growth of trade-unions in j the commonwealth, the number and serious- J ness of strikes continue. It seems that the very class that placed the labor statutes on the ( books ignore them and resort to strikes to gain * J their ends. This is not fair to the public, to ■ their employers or to themselves.
Another thing which has disturbed some i
capitalists is the attitude of organized labor \
toward the proposed gift of Mr. Melville G. Henry, of Tacoma. Mr. Henry is a wealthy man, but in his declining years and in feeble health. He has a coal mine, estimated to be able to produce 1,000 tons of coal daily for a hundred years, and to be able to lay down coal in the towns from Seattle to Portland at four-fifths of the freight rate alone now paid on coal brought in there from Wyoming. He offered this mine, free of all cost, to the labor*unions of the Northwest, estimating that it would save $2,000,000 to the laboring men of that country, but complains that his offer was eoldly received, except by one tinsmiths’ union.
Mr. Henry said that in offering the mine he had hoped to solve some of the problems of labor, because, to use his own words, “most people cannot realize the silent tragedy of the toiler. He does not live, but barely exists in most cases. There is a world full of wealth if managed for alh I feel sure that now, more than ever before in these days of high cost of living, labor should own and control its source of supply of the most important necessities, even to owning its own dairy herds and fruit ranches.” These are noble sentiments.
Ike Public’s Interest
WE ARE all interested in this labor problem.
It is a self-evident fact that only a savage fights for his own interests regardless of those about him, and there is an obligation owed alike by the employer and the employe, to conduct their affairs so that the community as a whole does not suffer. Senator Edge, of New Jersey, made * wise observation when he said, “Labor is not the employe of capital (only), but of the . people at large, of the whole United States, and the people are the employer of capital also”. The membership of The American Federation of Labor is now 4,000,000, but this is only about one-sixth of the laboring force of the United States, so that the other five-sixths have to be considered in those questions. We must not forget that every time a reduction in output is made, some one’s standard of living is reduced; and not infrequently this loss is passed on to some class that is not at all organized and is unable to bear it It has been said, and we •think truthfully, that reckless indifference as to whether the shop wheels turn or not is one of the great causes of the High Cost of Living. We are just getting to the point where the ethics of the labor question is coming to the light It is a time for thought and effort to do right and not a time for passion. There was a time when rebates were considered all right; now everybody knows that it was a contemptible piece of thievery. The public is waking up to the principles of right. A proposition has just been made to create a permanent industrial board in Washington to regulate industry in the manner in which the Interstate Commerce Commission regulates traffic. We think well of this suggestion. It is so good that it seems late in arriving.
The Senate of the United States, through its investigation committee, has just recommended an eight-hour shift in the steel industry. This was a step in the right direction. The twelvtf-bour shift is a barbarism that can no longer bo tolerated. Such hours break down the vitality of men and are extravagant even if paid for, because the increased fatigue of the worker is not compensated for by his increased earnings, and cannot be. He is worn out before his time.
So difficult and serious is the labor situation that the Pittsburgh Leader solemnly says, “The people of America must go down on their knees and ask for divine aid. We must pray for those who exercise authority that they may be wise and just We must pray that all of our citizens may be faithful to duty and obedient to law.”
It is evident that the laboring people of the world plan its controL In England, in the municipal elections, the labor socialists gained , control of thirty-nine out of forty-three districts in London. All the industrial centers were captured by their candidates and they predict that they will control the government of England in the general elections next year.
At this time, it seems to us that tho& who have been stewards of earth’s wealth and power in the recent past can do well to read with great care the parable of the unjust steward who was about to lose his stewardship, and who was commended by his master because he recognised that that time had come, and did the wisest thing he could do under the circumstances. He yielded gracefully to the inevitable, and made himself solid with his former debtors by lightening their burdens. See Luke 16:1-15.
Employment of Soldiers
THE Government has reported that of the 4,000,000 men who were returned to civil life since the signing of the' armistice about eighty per cent were taken back by their former employers and only about 25,000 had been unable to secure employment of any kind up to the date of the report, in. September. This is a very remarkable showing and indicates great prosperity in the country, with a desire to do the right thing by the soldiers on the part of employers. Occasionally there are disappointments. Not long ago five ex-soldiers robbed a Chicago bank and explained as their reason that they had been unable to get work. Of the 25,000 jobless ex-soldiers 10,000 are said to bo ib; Greater New York. • Fjr
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Love ve. Hate
irewtn T. BtrWun
IS THERE a wave of hate—a sort of moral influenza, as a result of the war, sweeping over the world! Men have good reason to conclude that war breeds hate and more war and more hate, and earnestly study how to inaugurate some form of control that will stop the periods of murder madness.
Just as the war was breaking out, a great world’s peace congress was assembled in Germany ; its deliberations were cut short the first day, and its members fled. A few weeks before there was heralded all over the world: “Peace and good will to men''-“no more war, a new era has commenced". A new era had commenced, sure enough I The world is a cage of hawks. How can the doves of peace survive in it unless the hawks are chained} '
All must admit that love- is the essential quality in peace, and that hate is a quality which invariably causes war—the destruction of human liberty and order. The cultivation of love, even for one's enemies, is the basic principle of Christian philosophy. Even justice, wisdom and power are deficient without it; in fact, love is the very essence of life, and hate the agent of decay and death. We seem to have reached the climax of the principle (or lack of principle) of rule by human force, which only provokes hate unless absolutely just and loving. The machine gun, the rifle, the revolver, the bomb, the bayonet and the boycott are not the agents of effective persuasion, but of irritation, hate and retaliation. The machinery of government is obliged to be constantly augmented by more force in opposition—more hate. The working people are solidly organized against the capitalists; and the employers and the capitalists are solidly organizing against the working people—more force and more force, but no love.
With man's nature unchanged, is there any prospect that organized human government by the use of force can put down all resistance and inaugurate perpetual peace, that insurrections and wan will cease 1 History forbids any such conclusion. The power of selfishness and
its sequence, hate, can not be put < »wn by human force, although those who havq formed the League of Nations, a church ai 1 state system apparently, may try it as it w is tried by a church and state system during t le dark ages and failed. J
Collective man’s character is fixed—crystallized. Generation after generation of ■'youths, while plastic, under kindly tutoring, ’molded to a humanitarian spirit, have not retained it. How can the start be made! How get rjjd of the old environment—the old human nature!} Even a great military and police force an<f an extended judicial system are inadequate tqprotect fully the property and lives of the law-abiding and the innocent. Predatory nations and gangs plunder and murder worse than was ever known in the dark ages. Robbers in the daytime, on the streets of our populous cities, ply their inhuman calling.
,Men have theorized that the race dould be educated, trained and evolved to a higher plane, preparing it for the coming of Christ, ready to set up his kingdom. But when could thejstart be madet Millions of priests and ministers, also ' religious teachers, following generation after generation, and hundreds of theological schools at work for nearly 2,000 years, and still the wars and the selfishness, the murders and Jobbery and hate have grown worse and worde! The theory that a clergy class or any other human class ean reform the world is forever and finally exploded. Phenomenal, superhuman, divine power, and that alone, can start the new order. The change must be positive and radical. The prayer which our Lord taught his disciples, “May thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven", indicates to a certainty that the time will be when that change will come. “Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity". The problem has become so complex that there is no hope that man can solve it Yet unless it is solved, soon the race will perish in a debacle of murder and starvation.
There ean be no question, however, that in due time, when man is ready to admit that he has failed, divine power will take control ind stop all human rule by force and all disorder and crime. This will probably take the form of the temporary physical paralysis of any one who attempts to harm his neighbor in word or deed; and no force will be needed or permitted by either human governments or individuals. That would perfectly solve the problem. The hawks would be chained, and the doves would survive.
Thus gradually the quality of selfishness and hate would be eliminated from all except the incorrigible, those who would not or could not reform. Pent up hate and selfishness in their case being the active agents of decay, they would drop off in death. But those who desire to reform, and those who had a large measure of the spirit of love and olxjdience, would not chafe under restraint; they would survive and prosper. Gradually the new order, the kingdom of heaven, would begin to be instituted in a natural way. The Scriptures show that this is the way in which our Lord’s prayer will be answered in due time, and that then gradually all that have died will return (recreated) from the grave.—John 5:28, 29.
Pathologists are making astonishing advances in discovering the causes of disease and the means of prolonging human life. They claim that it is not impossible to find some means of preventing the cells that compose the human body, from breaking down. Once that means is discovered, they claim, the problem of endless life is solved. It is well known that loving, happy dispositions conduce to long life; and divine love being so vastly more vitalizing than human love, under the conditions prevailing in the kingdom of heaven on earth we might reasonably assume would be the means of preventing the cells from breaking down.
.Scientific attainment along all lines is miraculous these days. Astronomers, geologists, electrical specialists and chemists note in their line great changes pending in the physical world, changes destined to increase vastly the vital energy which can be evolved from matter or by it, and to remove certain devitalizing agents that have for thousands of years had an adverse influence on organic life on the planet. In fact the earth has never been completed, and the human race has ever been living under abnormal conditions. But shortly mankind will for the first time experience what living on a completed earth under a perfect divine government will be—“the desire of all nations’*.
Only a little more than 4,000 years ago the polar ice caps on the planet aggregated approximately 11,000,000 square miles, devitalizing human life almost to the point of extinction. Ice is a very great devitalizing agent. The polar ice caps now aggregate only about 7,000,000 square miles. Normal conditions are asserting themselves; and the ice will, in the not distant future, all be gone. Then the meteorological conditions on the planet will become perfect.
The clouds arc dark and threatening now all over the world; but the sun is shining behind them. “Seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.” “My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth [selfish social order] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy [not literal fire]. For then [after this] I will turn to the people a pure language [the truth] that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent.” (Zephaniah 2:3; 3:8, 9) “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away. Behold I make all things new.”—Revelation 21:4, 5.
College Boy Police
ACCORDING to School and Society, when
* the Boston police left their positions the following invitation by Professor E. H. Hall, of the Harvard physics department, appeared in. the Boston Herald'.
"Come back from your vacations, young men; there is sport and diversion for you right here in Boston!”
President A. Lawrence Lowell, of Harvard, issued this bulletin:
“In accordance with its traditions of public service the University desires in a time of crisis to help in any way that it can to maintain order and support the laws of the Commonwealth. I therefore urge all students who can do so to prepare themselves for service as the Governor of the Commonwealth may call upon them to render.”
Later he stated:
“Students willing to volunteer for police duty are asked to report to Superintendent Pierce. The fact should be emphasized that these volunteers are reporting simply as citizens of the Commonwealth in response to a call Lorn the Governor.”
‘ 7
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
DrilHng and Pumping Oil
. to nvn> p. Wiwtr PETROLEUM from Sicily was burned in the temples of Jupiter before the beginning of the Christian era, and petroleum from the Caspian Sea deposits about Baku has been the source of the “holy fire” burned for centuries in the temples of India. The famous petroleum spring at Cuba, N. Y., was mentioned by missionaries nearly three hundred years ago, and petroleum was sold as medicine down to the time of the discovery of the process of refining the crude oil so that illuminating oil could be obtained from it.
The first efforts at obtaining petroleum in the United States were confined to collecting the oil from surface springs. Nine barrels-were thus obtained in Western Pennsylvania in the spring of 1858 and were sold promptly in New York City for $275.19. The first oil well was sunk at Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Col. E. H. Drake, and at a depth of 69| feet he struck a vein of oil which rose to within ten feet of the top of the well. During the next four months the well produced 2,000 barrels, which sold readily at $20 per barrel. The production of all wells in the country amounted the next year to 500,000 barrels; in ten years it had risen to 5,000,000 barrels; in 1880 it was 26,000,000 barrels; in 1900 it was 63,000,000 barrels; four years later, with the advent of the automobile, it was 120,000,000 barrels. Oil and gas were formed similarly to coal. Copious vegetation, replete with carbonic acid gas, was laid down in deposit, covered and confined, and subjected to decay, subsequently formed oil and its fumes— natural gas. Gas, however, is not the fumes of oil alone; for it is frequently found in regions independent of oil.
No longer in use is the four-cornered fully closed-in tower, but the great, convenient, seventy-four feet standard rig; no longer the diminutive stem, bailer, jars and bits that, conveniently bound together, constituted only a fair burden for the back of the husky tool dresser; but great massive took that require to -be handled by power cranes; no longer the twenty feet of hole per shift of twelve hours,-but one hundred twenty feet in the same time; no longer the 69| foot hole but an average, in • Pennsylvania, of 1,800 feet.
Here, for example, is a brief history of Bradford Oil Company’s No. 46. The first forty feet were put down 16 inches in diameter through loose earth, mud and soft slate; and a wooden box or tube, called the “conductor box”, was inserted to the bottom, to keep back the foreign matter from the hole. This first hole is called the spudding hole, because drilled by what is called the “spudding” process.
' At the bottom of the spudding hole a hole 81 inches in diameter, called the “big” hole, was started and continued through all the waterproducing soils and rocks to a depth of 350 feet. Here the well was cased with iron pipe 6t inches in diameter, set firmly on the bottom and reaching clear to the surface.
At the bottom of the big hole another hole 61 inches in diameter was started and sunk to the bottom of the oil-bearing strata. The oil sand of this particular well was 75 feet thick, of a rich brown color, very soft and fine, and highly productive of oil and gas.
The drilling of an oil well is a man’s job; it is no job for a seller of hair ribbons and perfumery. The old-style method of drilling was by use of a steam engine; and these are even yet largely used, though some prefer the gas engine because it stands the strain better. The heavy tools are laboriously lifted to a generous height and then suddenly dropped back into-the hole. Between lifts the engine speed is greatly accelerated, because it has nothing to do. Therefore the engine room of a drilling rig is an exciting place.
Shooting the well is no ladies* job either. The old-time oil-well shooter travelled at night in a buggy, carrying with him enough nitroglycerine to shoot his next well If the horse-ran away or if he struck a rough spot in the road, they filled in the spot the next day and sent another man the next night with another load. When No. 46 was shot, they touched off 100 quarts of nitro-glycerine in the oil-bearing strata at one time. Nobody has ever been down a hole to see just what happens under such circumstances, but the effect seems to be to loosen up things somewhat and start the oil to flowing, if there is any to flow.
After the well is ‘‘shot”, tubing two inches in diameter, properly equipped with “working barrel” and “standing valve” at the bottom, is inserted to the bottom of the hole. How would you go about it to put an iron pipe a third of a mile long down a much larger iron pipe? Would you first screw the pipe together on the ground and then lift it up and drop it into the hole? If you tried that plan would you not be afraid it would bend a little before you got it straight up in the air?
Or would you just hold the pipe down the well with one hand and screw in the lengths one after another with the other hand, gradually letting down the pipe until you struck bottom? But suppose you got tired and dropped a few lengths or a quarter of a mile of pipe down the well? How would you get it again? Well! You can let the oil man worry about that He knows how to do it, and without losing any of his precious oil, or even any of his precious gas. But it is no job for one of the weak sisters.
After he has his tube down the well the oil man puts in his rod, equipped with another sort of valve, and this, too, has to reach all the way from the top of the bottom of the well. Then he is ready to pump. This rod is called the sucker rod. By means of surface rods any number of sucker rods can be operated from a single power house conveniently located with reference to the group. Compressed air is also much used for pumping, and has some advantages over any other method.
The average price of Pennsylvania crude petroleum has been about $2.50; now it stands at $4.25 per barrel, with small probability of a decline. The average production per well is today approximately half a barrel per day. A small operator with twenty producing wells has a very comfortable income, while one with fifty wells has the foundation for a fortune. A gusher may make a millionaire over night, but Pennsylvania has probably had its last great gusher.
The first place where petroleum is mentioned in the Bible is in the account of the construction of the Tower of Babel. There the partially evaporated fluid is referred to as “slime”.
“And they had bricks for stone, and slime had they for mortar.” (Genesis 11:3) The first battle of history occurred amid the “slimepits”, the oil-bearing strata at the head of the Dead Sea. “The vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there”.—Genesis 14:10.
Curiously enough, bricks cemented together with dried petroleum have been found in large quantities in Nineveh and Babylon, and the oil deposits in the valley of the Dead Sea are now being developed. It was these oil-bearing and sulphur-impregnated shales that supplied the “brimstone and fire” which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 19:24) We are glad to have the prophetic assurance that those people of Sodom, destroyed so many years ago, shall yet “return to their former estate” (Ezekiel 16: 55) on the borders of the inland sea where they once lived.
Quicksilver Scarce
PERSONS owning thermometers can look at the quicksilver in the bulb and comfort themselves that there, at least, is something that is not lessening in value. Those needing thermometers should take note that quicksilver is worth $1.27 a pound and going up, because it is becoming scarce.
Quicksilver is one of the semi-precious metals. In the United States it is found at New Almaden, California, and comes from Almaden, Spain, where it is separated from the sulphur in cinnabar ore, by a current of hot air arranged so as to bum the sulphur and leave the mercury, or quicksilver, in the metallic state. The tendency of quicksilver to unite with gold into an amalgam causes the chief use of the metal beside the familiar one in the thermometer. The mercury is spread over a copper plate, over which the gold ore is washed; the gold from its weight comes in contact with the plate and is promptly amalgamated with the quicksilver, from which it is separated by heat. Another familiar use is as a medicine when rubbed to a fine globular powder with rose water, under the name of blue mass. Among the chemical compounds is bichloride of mercury, made by heating a mixture of mercuric sulphate and common salt, which is sometimes taken as a poison, and results in painful and lengthy suffering and in death.
Quicksilver is also essential to the manufacture of high-class mirrors.
FINANCE COMMERCE -TRANSPORTATION
Foreign Exchange
THE unfavorable condition of foreign exchange and its effect on foreign and domestic trade and on manufactures and agriculture have been much in evidence in the newspapers; but it might as well be so much Greek, for some of the public who do not understand enough about foreign exchange to know what is wrong.
Foreign exchange is the medium of exchange for business between, for example, this country and England. It is not the exchange of money, for currency or gold is employed as little as possible, but is such an exchange as takes place when one dealer pays another by check; no money passes, but a transfer of credit is made on the accounts of a single bank, if both dealers use the same bank, or between two banks if they employ different banks. Foreign exchange employs paper or drafts, something like checks, called bills of exchange.
A transaction in foreign exchange requires four parties; a merchant, M, and a broker, B, in this country and a merchant, BM, and a broker, BB, in England. Merchant M sells £*ods to merchant BM. Instead of sending e bill direct, merchant M sells it, with a draft on BM, to broker B, who is buying such bills constantly. This gives merchant M the money and gives broker B a credit payable from England, which becomes part of his fund of like credits. Broker B does not collect direct from British merchant BM, but send the bill with draft attached to British broker BB, who presents the draft to merchant BM,who pays the bill to BB, This completes the transaction. Like transactions where merchant BM sells goods to merchant M are executed in reverse order. The grand total'of transactions is larger on one side than on the other, and the difference is periodically settled by shipments of gold. A person wishing to remit to England without having sold goods can purchase a bill of exchange out of the fund of credits of broker B and mail the bill of exchange direct to England, where the receiver collects the money from broker BB.
Ordinarily a dollar is worth 100 cents in gold, and a British pound is worth 486f cents in gold.
worth only about 404 cents
The pound is now .
taken into account
in gold. Foreign ei change is figured so that an equal amount of ;old is represented in the money of both coun ties. Some bills of exchange are cabled across, f ad there is no interest to be ... but bills payable in thirty days, or other period, take into account the interest payable for the tying up of the funds for that time. Oth< r items carefully figured in are insurance, freight, packing, commission and wear of the gold com, as though it were shipped. If the pound is fluctuating in value, it may go up or down, during the period; and the broker selling the exchange figures the risk in as part of the cost of the exchange. Quite a high charge is made on time bills of exchange for remittances to countries where the local currency is making wide and frequent fluctuations.
The value of the exchange of different countries is published daily in financial pages of the newspapers, and exchange bankers are continually kept advised pf changes through the day. The value of exchange for France and some other countries is figured as so many francs for 100 cents ip gold, i If a country’s currency is inflated it will be forth less cents to the franc, lire or other unit, and will require more units to equal 100 cents in pold.
Another factor produces fluctuations in exchange: Exchange! when bought and sold by the bankers becomes in effect a commodity and subject in price to the law of supply and demand. If, for example, there are twice as much goods shipped to France as are shipped from France, French merchants will owe more than they are able to pay without the bankers’ shipping gold. French merchants having bills to meet for goods received will compete for the available exchange, and will bid the price of exchange up, so that they will offer more francs for 100 cents in gold than the local value of the franc would warrant. This amounts to paying more than the billed price for the goods, makes the goods cost more, reduces the profits of the French merchant, and hinders him from ordering goods from Aifterica, on which he may lose money. If there is too great a “ balance of trade” in favor of {this country, and the foreign merchants are unable to pay the balance with bills based on goods shipped by them, or with gold, the trade between the two countries is reduced to the figure where the imports and exports and the corresponding bills of exchange balance each other. Each country has a certain stock of gold, most of which is needed to sustain the value of the local currency, and part only can be shipped to pay for bills of exchange. The government cannot afford to permit too .much gold to be sent out of the country, or the currency would become disorganized and, the gold foundation being removed, may drop to a very low figure or become subject to wild fluctuations, especially if the government prints an excessive amount of paper currency not based on gold, to take the place of the gold which has been shipped away.
In extreme instances when the scarcity of exchange is excessive and cannot be overcome with counter shipments of goods or gold, as at present between this country and Europe, the discrepancy can be overcome by this country’s loaning Europe amounts enough to balance the unavoidable difference. Europe pays thin country out of the money loaned, and securities, on account of which it was proposed to loan credits of from one to five billion dollars to Europe in order to keep trade going there and here.
If the matter cannot be balanced up with goods, gold or loans, foreign trade has to fall in volume and become equal between the countries. In this country this would cause the decline of the great prosperity in manufacturing, mining, agriculture and trade enjoyed since the early summer of 1919. The consequences would be too serious to be readily invited—such economic, industrial and social effects as flow from factories wholly or partially shut down, men out of work, and the increase of poverty, discontent, unrest and of revolutionary sentiment The effect would be felt both sides of the ocean and would be serious. It would be properly remedied by turning over management of affairs to men who did understand the intricacies of commerce.
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If the balance can be restored between countries, the value of exchange will rise to its normal figure. Rising exchange stimulates trade, because merchants deal under the opposite risk of falling or fluctuating exchange, and have the same chance to make money that a local dealer has in a rising market.
The problems of commerce and exchange arc liable to become too great for even the experienced minds that are working upon them. They are part of the conditions that were foretold ^y Christ, when he said, “There shall be upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity,” (Luke 21:25) and when the old Hebrew prophet said, “That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince [profiteer] asketh and the judge [ruler] asketh a reward [graft or honor]; and the great man uttereth his mischievous desire [for a share of the spoils]; so they wrap it up [arrange it]; the best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge; the day of thy watchman and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.”— Micah 7:3, 4.
Pig Iron Hard to Buy
WOULD-BE buyers of iron are reported to .be finding it hard to get. Several factors look toward some rise in the price of pig iron, such as the strikes affecting iron, steel, coal and coke, and the huge demands of business; and furnace men are unwilling to sell much iron at present prices, when the possible artificial scarcity may send the price up and cause a relative loss on iron sold now. Buyers are eager enough to order the metal, but sellers prefer to wait. The prosperity in the pig iron business is an index of prosperous conditions for some mnnt.hu to come; especially is this true when a rising tendency in prices show an unsatisfied demand, and more business going on than can be supplied with iron.
Aviation by Dirigible __
DURING the World War a German dirigible flew from Bulgaria practically the whole length of Africa and return without mishap. Some of the Zeppelins were 800 feet long, with speeds of 80 miles per hour, and carrying capacity for 500 passengers. It is believed that in this type of machine lies the future of aviation as a field for legitimate transportation.
The dirigible can be built to fly around the world without landing, can stop for repairs in mid air, can descend slowly in a fog, or can rise above fogs or storms if desired. The airplane does not have these advantages, and engineers are now seriously considering the estab- . Ushment of aviation lines in which dirigibles • will be used exclusively.
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^POLITICAL-DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN ~|
Nationalism in Russia
A "WIRELESS dispatch from the Russian Republic claims that two thousand industrial establishments have been nationalized by them, or about eighty-two per cent of all the industries in the country. It is very difficult to obtain from the daily press any adequate idea of what the Russian people are trying to do; and perhaps the newspapers themselves do not know, and are contenting themselves with raising a general howl in lieu of giving out real information on the subject. It looks from the above dispatch as though the Russians are trying to work out the problem of what is called Nationalism. In 1897 the Nationalists put forth this claim:
“The combinations, trusts and syndicates, of which the people at present complain, demonstrate the practicability of our basic principles of association. We merely seek to push this principle a little further and have all ' industries operated in the'interest of all, by the nation— the people organized—the organic unity of the whole people. ■ *
“The present industrial system proves itself wrong by the immense wrongs it produces; it proves itself absurd by the immense waste of energy and material which is admitted to be its concomitant. Against this system we raise our protest: for the abolition of the slavery it has wrought and would perpetuate, we pledge our best efforts.”
While it has some favorable points, Nationalism as a whole is quite impractical Although Nationalism does not, like Communism, directly threaten the destruction of the family, its tendency would surely be in that direction. Among its advocates are many broadminded, philanthropic souls, some of whom have helped, without hope of personal advantage, to found colonies where the principles of Nationalism were to be worked out as public examples. Some of u these colonies have been utter failures, and even the practically successful have been forced to ignore Nationalist principles in dealing with the world outside their colonies; and, as might be expected, they have all had considerable internal friction.
Several colonies on this Nationalist plan have started and failed in the United States. One of the most noted failures is that known as the
Altruria Colony, of California, founded by Rev. E. B. Payne, on the theory “One for all and all for one.’* It had many advantages over other colonies in that it picked out its members, and did not accept all sorts. Moreover, it had a Lodge form of government of very thorough control. Its founder, giving the reasons for the failure, in the San Francisco Examiner, said:
“Altruria wu not a complete failure; we demonstrated that trust, good will and sincerity—which prevailed for a part of the time—made a happy community life, and on the other side, that suspicion, envy and selfish motives diabolize human nature and make life not worth while. Wo did not continue to trust and consider one another as we did at first, but fell back into the ways of the rest of world.”
What some people demonstrate by experience others know by inductive reasoning, based upon knowledge of human nature. Any one wanting a lesson on the futility of hope from Nationalism while selfishness still controls the hearts of men, can get his experience cheaply by boarding for a week each at three or four second-class “boarding houses”.
About September first, General Maurice, the great London military critic, said in the New York Times:
“The only hope I aee of overcoming Bolshevism by force of arms is through a long, slow process of exhaustion. That process is at work, and will continue to work as long as we continue to cut off supplies of food and munitions from the Bolsheviki and furnish their opponents with both; but it will not be rapid and it will be costly.” -—
Maybe we are not as wise as General Maurice. Certainly, if what he seeks to overturn is what has been tried several tunes without success in this country under the guise of Nationalism, it is far more likely to overturn itself than to be overturned by force. It takes some people a long time to learn that the one sure way to bring great success to a difficult cause is to persecute it. Persecution causes investigation, and investigation of a new thing is more likely to bring to light its good points than its defects.
So deep-seated are the laws of constitutional selfishness, and so certain are their operation that, if all the rich were dead today, and their wealth distributed pro rata, those laws would within a few years reproduce the very conditions of today. And any system of laws that the majority of men might enact, which would deprive men of the opportunities. for exercising their acquisitive and selfish propensities, would sap the life of progress and rapidly turn civilization hack toward improvidence, indolence and barbarism.
The only hope for the world is in the kingdom of ottr Lord Jesus Christ, the Millennial kingdom. It is God’s long promised remedy, delayed until its due time, and now, thank God, it is nigh, even at the door. Man’s extremity will be God’s opportunity, at a juncture when human ingenuity and skill have exhausted themselves in seeking relief without avail. “The desire of all nations shall come.”
Uncle Sam's Boys Abroad
THERE is an apparent difference of opinion between the Congress and the executive department of the Government respecting the places in which United States troops may be used. Congress alone has the power to declare war; yet the Secretary of War holds that the President alone can determine where United States troops are to be used, and that no authorization for the use of United States troops in Siberia was needed. If the President or the Secretary of War can legally place troops in Siberia they would seem to have equal rights in Mexico, Canada, Japan, China, England, France or elsewhere, actually producing a state of war to which Congressional sanction would be a mere form. The Constitution evidently did not contemplate this, and Congressional leaders, led by Senator McCormick of Illinois, are dow protesting against the further use of United States troops in Europe or Siberia without instructions from Congress. The Versailles treaty with Germany provided that American troops shall be maintained in Europe for fifteen years. The League of Nations, if adopted, would have legalized this.
The pressure for return of American soldiers from Siberia was hastened by the flogging of Benjamin Sperling, a Brooklyn soldier, by Cossack chiefs in Eastern Siberia who are nominally responsible to Admiral Kolchak, the ruler pro tern of Western Siberia, but who are actually mere instruments of Japan on her westward march into Siberia. The Kolchak Government has apologized for the outrage; and the Japanese Government is expected to do so, as it is believed to have been the more responsible. The American troops in Siberia are understood to be under instructions to stay there but not to fight
There is no doubt that we are at a place where the policy of our Government must be definitely fixed respecting European affairs, and especially the use of our soldiers in connection with those affairs. American forces in the Adriatic, acting under the general orders of the British Admiralty recently drove out of Tran, Dalmatia, Italian troops that had been landed there in the attempt to seize the port without the consent of the Paris conference. This brought upon us the displeasure of many Italians who naturally blame us for depriving them of one of the things promised to them in the secret treaty under which they entered the war. They cannot understand why their secret treaty should be set aside while the Japanese secret treaty respecting Shantung is considered sacred.
Concerning the Government’s recently announced purpose to send 7,200 men to France to replace troops about to return, and the further announcement that some of these troops would probably be used in Silesia (on the borderland between Germany and Poland) in connection with the voting about to take place there as to whether Silesia is to be included in the new Poland, Senator Moses, of New Hampshire said:
“The orders for our troops to go to Silesia are simply carrying out the general scheme adopted by the President at the Peace Conference of making the United States a party to all the internal disputes of Europe. If the treaty should be ratified in its present form, this would be an everyday occurrence.”
We know that at heart our President does not believe in the United States concerning itself with the Silesian coal mines or other strictly European affairs. We remember that he was elected the last time because he kept us out of the war. He stated just prior to that reelection that it is “the fixed and traditional policy of the United States to stand aloof from the politics of Europe”, and gave expression to the fear that the success of his political opponents would mean “that we shall be drawn in one form or another into the embroilments of Europe.”
We believe that it is good govermental polir
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for the United States Government to avoid entangling itself in the border disputes and other local affairs of Europe and European countries. , We have a reason for this. It reads: “Let none of you suffer as a busybody in other men’s ■ matters.’* (1 Peter 4:15) It is quite as true in ; national life as it is in private life that most ' people have sufficient to occupy them in attend* , ing to their own business properly; and if they give sufficient attention to the business of others «. to be competent to meddle in their concerns they are surely neglecting to some extent their own affairs. One of the best ways to help along the Golden Age is to mind our own business and encourage others to do the same.
Belgium Getting Stronger
AS BELGUIM was the first country to suffer in the war so it is one of the first invaded countries to show signs of recovery. While it is a great industrial country, yet it is also one of the most closely tilled countries in the world. > Its agricultural interests did not suffer to any appreciable extent during the war or since. The farmers received fabulous prices for their pro> ducts, and still receive them.
The coal mines of Belgium were undamaged by the war and are now said to be producing eighty-four per cent of their pre-war total, which permits the export to France of 300,000 tons per month and considerable quantities to Holland, Switzerland and Italy.
During the war one-half the blast furnaces were destroyed and half the remainder were damaged, so that at present only one- fourth of the blast furnaces that were in operation in 1914 are in blast now.
Clearances through the port of Antwerp are said to be about one-third what they were before the war, and this presumably represents in a • fair way the general condition of the country.
. The transportation situation is in pretty good C shape, the Germans having returned the rolling ’ stock which they carried away, together with much other railway equipment. Passenger travel is about the same now as before the war.
Hundreds of the great Belgian factories are still idle, and a great many of the old employes ’ of these factories have been lured to France by the higher wages. liepairs for the factories ire difficult to obtain, and in many cases their wners have been ruined and are unable to re
gain their former business. Full recovery will entail a long, hard fight. _ .
The Belgian Government is doing the right thing by farmers whose lands were within the fighting zone. These lands are being leased to the Government at five per cent of their pre-war value, the Government guaranteeing to return them to their owners in a few years’ time in as good condition as before the war.
Full recovery of the country is impeded by the peanut politics of the clerical party, which, in the effort to retain its hold as the majority party of the Government, is trying to discourage the use of the French language, by which the Belgian people.have hitherto kept in touch with the progress of the world.
The value of Belgian property destroyed during the war'is estimated at $7,000,000,000, or about $1,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. The national debt is now one-half that amount There is a plethora of paper money, and prices are sky-high.
Though Belgium is so small, being only about the combined size of New Jersey and Delaware, yet its population is equal to that of the whole of New England; and its rivers, although they are short, are so important that fifteen of them have been canalized. These canals are all in use.
The glory of Belgium is in its agriculture, the Belgians being universally considered the model farmers, or, we should say, gardeners, of the world. Nearly all the farm work in Belgium is done with the spade, and the whole land is one vast garden. Every farm is fully stocked, but the cattle are not turned out to graze. They are fed on green crops, arranged to come forward in regular succession. Every particle of liquid manure is collected in a tank sunk in the floor of the cattle shed. It is these liquid manures that have made Belgium the garden spot of the world. •
Belgium seems to be the one country which, having at first accepted the Reformation doctrines, was driven by persecution back into the Roman Catholic Church and has since remained there, with apparently no desire to again look into “the perfect law of liberty’’. (James 1:25) In our opinion the great war and the present struggle of the clerical party to maintain itself in power will result soon in a real and great Reformation in Belgium. And we think, too, that this Reformation will make itself felt in every part of the world.
European Food Situation' '
FROM the Signing of the armistice to the end of June, 1919, Mr. Hoover, the world food administrator,' sent relief foods amounting to $770,000,000 to twenty-one European countries. Without this food the people of Europe would literally have been starved.
Europe paid for the food, and paid high prices for it American bacon sold to the Germans at as high as $1.60 per pound. At present the warehouses of northern Europe are packed with food of all kinds, which is in danger of spoiling because there is no market for it. It is not that the Europeans do not want the food, but they have not the money to pay for it Mr. Hoover estimates that to release this food to the hungry nations that desire it would require a credit of $4,000,000,000. But credits to a Europe that is virtually bankrupt and facing revolution, do not fill the professional Ampriea" financier . with any special enthusiasm.
In August of this year, in the city of Chemnitz, Germany, ninety citizens and soldiers were killed, and two hundred and fifty wounded, in food riots in which the famished rioters killed the horses of the soldiers and divided their flesh among the people.
An unexpected reversal of the usual experience occurred when the relief expedition tried to sell flour in the southern part of Russia. They found that local flour, scarce as it was, was selling in the open market for about two-thirds that asked for the AmeriefiT) flour, and were obliged to take it elsewhere to dispose of it.
Universal Training
UNIVERSAL military training has been proposed as a convenient method of providing a trained soldiery for the protection of the country in case of future wars. Plans for this vary from the Swiss plan of six months training spread out over a period of eight years, to the so-called West Point plan of requiring one year's continuous training for all youths of eighteen, military court martials for all violators of military law, and organization into an army reserve at the close of the period x>f training. It is conceded that universal military training would save the lives of many men in case of war and that it builds up the physique.
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