with

the rise of the modern chemical industry of Germany. He proceeds to show how the German chemists and manufacturers of chemicals, their own home market well guarded, entered foreign lands to destroy native industry and to develop a large commerce for themselves.

All this is so well told that a child or an illiterate person might suppose that our chemical imports were different from all other imports. There is not what there should be-a recognition of the fact that Germany was simply doing what Great Britain had done before and what Japan is endeavoring to do now. German oxalic acid sold here at 6 cents. American competition brought the price down to 4.7 cents. American competition ceased, and the price went up to 9 cents, with another fall and another rise. Bi-carbonate of potash had a similar history. Yet the only moral the author seems to draw from these facts is that Germans are relentless competitors. He does not see what Lord Brougham and Daniel Webster saw long ago, that a well-established industry will cut rates, if need be, to cut the throat of an infant industry. Mr. Palmer, with all the triumphs protection has wrought before his eyes, does not admit what John Stuart Mill admitted, that the young republic needs protection against the Old World.

As to what was done during the war and what is planned by the Chemical Foundation, Mr. Palmer's report is full of interest. He tells us that "Tariff protection has proved utterly unavailing in the past. The

German industry as hitherto organized, and still more as now organized, has had so much to gain by extending its foreign trade and by destroying the industry in other countries that it would undoubtedly give away its goods in this country for nothing in order to recover the American market."

The Attorney General wants to see the chemical industry flourish, and he is willing that the government should bar out German competition for five years. Does not all this logically point to the protection that protects, the protection that guards the mechanic, the farmer, the shipbuilder, and all who are menaced by foreign competition?

Yet the injury Great Britain inflicted on our shipping and the cheap goods now coming from Japan do not appeal to him. He is ex parte as if he simply urged young men not to get drunk on German beer and ignored all other intoxicants.

Mr. Garvan's language is more heated than that of his chief. What he says is excellent as far as it goes. As war came upon us German competition was resented more than any other competition. The entire German trade program was of a piece with the blowing up of railroad bridges and munition factories. A wrathful speech against German dyes might be as well received as an editorial urging our destroyers to hunt down the under-sea-boats.

All this was inevitable; but one cannot trade on war issues forever and a day.

No great world convulsion like the recent war can leave industrial conditions as they were before. For over four years millions of men in Europe were called from farms and factories to the battlefront. The processes of production were interfered with and radically altered. The vast energies of nations were directed toward winning the war.

At the time of the armistice the United States had nearly 4,000,000 men under arms and other millions engaged in the production of war supplies. This vast disarrangement of normal industrial activities threw large burdens upon manufacturing establishments and created a demand for goods and for labor that was difficult to supply. As a result prices rose, profits increased and wages advanced to unprecedented heights.

The problems which this situation created are still with us to a considerable extent. The war-time armies have been demobilized and many soldiers have returned to the ranks of workers. But the demand for goods to fill depleted supplies and replace the ravages of war is so great that the burden on production has not been lifted to any appreciable extent.

In the well-known manufacturing city of Grenoble, France, famous the world over for the quantity and quality of gloves manufactured there, it is now impossible to secure enough

glove makers to produce the gloves needed. Wages in Grenoble have largely increased since the outbreak of the war. Is it any wonder, then, with the increased wages and the shortage of help that the price of gloves has advanced?

The situation in the glove industry of Grenoble is typical of many manufacturing industries throughout the world. Similar conditions in many respects are found in the textile industry of America. The war created grea: demands for textile products. Business multiplied, profits increased and wages advanced. Raw material and supplies kept pace with the advance in wages, and it was inevitable that the price of textile products should advance as the cost of production increased.

Wages form a large element in the cost of production, and wages show a large increase since the outbreak of war in 1914. In the cotton industry as a whole hourly earnings of male workers collectively increased 106 pe cent, and for female workers 105 per cent from September, 1914 to March 1919. In five groups of cotton mil workers, opening and picking, carders, spinners, and weavers, hour earnings increased more than 110 per cent during the war period; in two others, spinners and weavers, the increases were 105 per cent and 103 per In only three groups, time

cent.

workers in spooling, warping and twisting, loom-fixers and miscellaneous unskilled workers, were the increases less than 100 per cent, and these were over 90 per cent. The increase in the case of loom-fixers brought the hourly wages from 26.2 cents up to 51.4 cents. In the carding department men workers received increases of 119 per cent for time work and 134 per cent for piece work. In the wool industry average weekly earnings of all male workers increased from $11.52 in 1914 to $23.21 in 1918. The average weekly earnings of female workers increased from $8.70 to $16.42. Hourly earnings for most groups in the wool industry increased during the period of the war 100 per cent or more. In the silk manufacturing industry hourly earnings up to March, 1919, increased 97 per cent over the earnings of 1914 for male workers, and 100 per cent for female workers..

The following table shows the date and the amount of the several advances in wages in the typical cotton manufacturing city of New Bedford:

122.55

Total Increase since 1916

These wage advances were due in some degree to the scarcity of labor, to wage advances in other industries and to the large business being done by the mills, and were for the most part voluntarily granted. It was inevitable, with such large advances, that the prices of goods must advance also.

Can this process continue indefinitely? Has the peak been reached? This is the problem that manufacturers and workers must face. Will the public pay more for textile goads? Will the market, now that the war is over and help is returning from the battlefields to European mills, stand any further advances? The demand is becoming more and more incessant that the cost of living should be reduced. The only way that this can be brought about is to increase production and thus reduce the cost of manufacture.

During the war every effort was made by employer and employe to turn out goods. Labor bore manfully its part in the great enterprise, and millions of its higher earnings were invested at the call of the Government in Liberty loans, just as millions of in

creased profits were paid by the manufacturers in excess profits taxes. Labor and capital bore their part in the sacrifices and expenses of the war, and it was through their combined efforts that victory was achieved and the world's civilization saved.

Coningsby Dawson, the author of "The Test of Scarlet," relates an interesting and suggestive incident of the Foch offensive of August, 1918. He says:

One evening we passed through wheat fields, recently recaptured from the enemy, still strewn with Australia's unburied dead. Here troops were busily at work gathering in the harvest of trampled grain. We realized then that it was not our blood alone, willingly as it was shed, that would restore peace and happiness to the world, but the thrift that could satisfy man's bitter cry for bread.

Though a soldier, Mr. Dawson shows in the paragraph quoted a clear understanding of sound economic principles. The world cannot be saved merely by the heroic sacrifice of the soldier on the field of battle. must have arms and ammunition, but he must also have food. He must fight his way to victory, but he must also garner the trampled grain.

He

The workers of the world cannot save the cause for which their brothers fought and died by subscribing to victory loans and producing military supplies alone; they must fill the depleted supplies of the necessaries of life and manifest the thrift, energy and enterprise in after-war production that was manifested in the splendid production of military supplies during

the critical years of conflict. In the problems of readjustment and recor struction there is the same opportunity for the exhibition of patriotism and the same need for faithful and loyal effort to produce the things essential to the life of the world as there was during the war to produce the supplies essential to the victory of our armies.

We gave ungrudgingly of life and money and effort to meet the demands of war. We should give strength and effort in equal measure to supply the demands of peace. It is just as patriotic to work for national prosperity and contentment in times of peace as it is to fight for national safety in time of war. To manufacturer and to worker comes today the call of the country for increased production and for a lowering of the cost of living. It is upon the proper adjustment of profits, costs and wages in peacetime conditions that the recovery of our country to normal conditions depends. In this process of recovery and readjustment the country looks to labor to exhibit the same loyalty and fairness that it exhibited during the war.

RESTORE PROTECTION.

Production is the first essential of prosperity. To encourage production, there must be reasonable assurance of a profitable market. A profitable market cannot be assured as long as the producer is in danger of competition with the product of lower wages and lower standards of living. That is why an import tax is necessary to insure the largest production of American commodities.

Free traders declare that the reason wages in the United States are higher than in any other country is that the workman here "produces more" and "labor is more effective." They also say that the reason for differences prevailing in various parts of the world is to be found in the varying productiveness of labor, and they rank England and Germany next to the United States. But a well known Englishman, E. Mackay Edgar, after a recent visit to this country, declared that he did "not fear American competition;" "on the contrary, I see," he remarked, "some reasons for thinking we in Great Britain, if we play the cards rightly, shall soon regain all we have lost and a little more into the bargain." And he also made an observation which explains the disinclination of the American business man and manufacturer to engage in foreign trade. "You can get a safe 7 per cent," said he, "almost anywhere you like in America. How can a country of which that can be said, a country that offers within her own boundaries limitless opportunity for development, play a big part in international finance? Where is the inducement? Why should the American investor venture into an unknown field and run greater risks for the sake of getting smaller returns?" Why should he, indeed? Mr. Edgar does not fear American competition in shipping because we cannot yet turn out special ships for special trades on account of the costs of con

struction which are very far ahead of the British; because the expenses of operating American ships are at least 30 per cent heavier than the British; because we lack the wonderful net work and organization of shipping agencies which the British have built up all over the world and because with England a mercantile marine is a necessity, while with us it is a luxury. And as to foreign commerce, Mr. Edgar holds the same opinions. opinions. Admitting that we made a magnificent burst into the arena during the war he doubts if we shall be able to maintain it. "Here again," he added, "the element of compulsion is lacking. Our foreign trade is absolutely vital to us; to America it is merely a convenient way of dispensing with their surplus. America is so huge, her command of her own market, of 110,000,000 people so secure, and her domestic demand likely to be on so prodigious a scale that ten years hence you may easily find that the smaller profits and longer credits of international trade will have little attraction for your people." Well may we doubt the wisdom of giving up the vast domestic markets for the uncertain foreign field where the risk is greater and the return smaller. And if the American manufacturer is not lured into the markets of the world give him credit for the sagacity that prefers safety first.

A British textile paper commenting on the forced unemployment when there is plenty of work for all in the