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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1899)
* ' 8 "Che Conservative. welcome from such a man at such a moment. " An eiror in spelling was as offensive to Parnell , Mr. McCarthy tells us , as the sight of a blackbeetle is to many a man : "I once handed him a letter which I had received from a constituent of mine , asking mo to call Parnell's attention to some improvement which he thought might be made in a bill then before the house dealing with the subject of agri cultural occupation of Ireland. Un luckily the poor man who wrote the let ter had spelled agricultural with two ys. Paruell looked at the letter , smiled sadly , and handed it back to me. 'Do forgive me , ' ho said , 'and tell ino all about it. I couldn't rend through a man's letter who spells agricultural with two ys , ' It was indeed a curious stroke of fate which led the unhappy author of the Parnell forgeries to ornament his letters with flagrant examples of bad spelling. " Among other men who have been lion oned with almost entire chapters are Richard Cobden , John Stuart Mills , Charles Sumner , Walt Whitman , Brigham - ham Young , George Eliot , George Mer edith , Charles Reade , Anthony Trollope , Lord Randolph Churchill , Sir Stafford Northcote , Prince Napoleon , Froude , Freeman , Cardinal Manning , William Black , Rudyard Kipling , and last Wil liam Ewart Gladstone. Published by Harper & Brothers , New York ; price , $4.50. The Argonaut. PltOFKSSOIt ASHI.KY ON TKUSTS. Prof. W. J. Ashley of Harvard Uni versity discusses American Trusts in the June number of the London Economic Journal. Ho considers the movement towards consolidation inevitable. In so far as it is a successful movement it re moves the determination of the price of the monopolized article from the range av m of competition. "The self-interest of the monopolists , " ho says , "although some protection , is yet an inadequate protection of the interests of the con sumer. " The trust will aim to fix the price at the point which will yield the largest net results to itself. This maybe bo considerably above the price that would yield a fair profit. What is the remedy ? Repealing the duties on mo nopolized articles will apply the correc tive of foreign competition to those arti cles only that are imported , and to those only until the monopolists extend their operations so as to include foreign pro ducers , as the cotton-thread makers have already done. Even this remedy will not avail , how ever , as regards articles whoso produc tion is not subject to foreign competi tion. "I see nothing for it , " says Pro fessor Ashley , "but that in countries where the monopolizing movement is well under way , the governments should assume the duty of in some way con trolling prices. " Ho recognizes the fact that in such an event the governments would bo compelled to regulate wages also , since labor is the chief element incest cost of production. The difficulties to be overcome are enormous , and the scheme is not to bo attempted without "a fairly efficient administrative ser vice , " but Professor Ashley thinks that we are gravitating in that direction and that wo might as well face the problem of "tho distribution of the social pro duct without the aid of competition. " This is the socialist programme brought in by a side wind. Professor Ashley's position in reference to it can be best stated in his own words , viz : "It may be a result of niy own pen chant for things medhcvnl ; but I cannot iclp thinking that the economist may soon find himself confronted in modern life with some of the ideas underlying ; he old demand for 'justprices' and rea sonable wages' which ho has been ac customed to regard as quite out of plnce in political economy. When in the great coal strike a few years ago the men demanded that "a living wage' should be treated as a first charge , and that wages should determine prices rather than prices wages , the demand was commonly regarded as obviously foolish. But you may have noticed that the fundamental idea of the successful Birmingham combination , already re ferred to , is precisely 'the taking out of costs ; ' the idea that prices should never be set lower than the ordinary cost of production , including a fair profit for the entrepreneur and a fair wage for the employee. The subject , I know , is full of enormous difficulties , which every tyro in economics can set forth at a moment's notice. " At the risk of seeming to be a tyro in economics wo shall point out some of the difficulties which beset this plan. The substance of it is that in a country governed by universal suffrage the legis lative power shall be invoked to fix the prices of sugar , kerosene oil , cotton- thread , bicycles , leather , tobacco , and all other things the production of which is or may be controlled by a trust or ether combination , and also the wages in those employments. Possibly this delicate task might , in the first instance , be intrusted to the judicial power. In such event now courts would have to be created for this express purpose , since the present ones are overworked already. It needs no profit , however to tell us that the decisions of the courts would con stantly tend in the direction of higher wages. Both the feeling of sympathy and the pressure of the wage-earners would push that way , and if the move ment were not sufficiently rapid , if the wages were not high enough to satisfy the workers , means would soon be found to abolish the courts and to put the wage-making power in the hands of the legislature. Suppose that events in the industrial world should take a turn making a re- duction of wages necessary , what legis- I Lure would have the courage to order it ? Would auy legislature that has over sat in the state of Illinois have had the courage to face Mr. Debs and his follow ers in the Pullman Palace Car Com pany's crisis a few years ago ? In this case Mr. Pullman said that the wages demanded could not be paid ; that the price at which cars were sold netted a oss to the builders , and that stopnage of the works was the alternative , and stop they did. Do we hear the reply : hat the legislature would , in that case , fix the price of cars at a higher rate ? It depends altogether upon the buyers of cars whether they will order new ones or not , and it is not altogether in their oower to say what price they shall pay. [ t depends upon the traveling and the shipping public to say whether the busi ness of the railroads shall justify the purchase of new cars , and to fix the price which can be paid for them. If a railroad has the yard full of idle rolling stock , no decree of a legislature can com pel it to take more cars at any price whatsoever. In short , the conditions of ; rade determine this question , and they will continue to do so in spite of every device that human ingenuity can im agine or contrive. What was possible in the simple state of society in the mediaeval world and in the prevailing habit of obedience to authority , and in the means for enforc ing obedience , would be wholly imprac ticable in the changed conditions of the present day. Society is too complex. The habit of freedom is too ingrained to submit to the regulation of prices by government. The law may raise prices by imposing a tax , but it cannot compel people to buy the thing taxed , and for this reason it cannot fix the profits of the producers of it , or the wages of their employees. Chaos would be the imme diate result of such an attempt in this country or any other. Professor Ash ley , indeed , .says that "any country which thinks of attempting it , must provide itself with a fairly efficient ad ministrative service. " But there is no country which has an administrative service efficient enough or an army strong enough for this purpose. The German government is probably better equipped in both respects than any other in the world. It is also saddled with in dustrial combinations to a deplorable extent. Yet it did not dare to fix the price of tobacco and the wages of the workers in tobacco-factories , even under the iron rule of Bismarck , although the aim was a purely fiscal one , and was justified by the experience of other na tions. New York Evening Post. The Kitchen cabinet of the Greater American Exposition of Omaha has lost its Algor. Embalmed lunches seem to have disagreed with the digestion of the auditing committee. S8ET-
