OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN man nature. We must write it into every arUcle of every covenant and then try to think what peace treaties willwead to. President Wilson went to Paris with the avlwed purpose of seeing to it that there should be a peace of justice . Au entente .Europe was clamoring for a peace of vengeance. The resillt has been a Great Britain and France abandonee! their extreme demands; the president modified his fourteen points to such an extent that Europe was to be reconstructed along thJ old lines. New nations have been erected, but old jealousies have r ot been extinguished. Beneath the surface, moreover, are religious ar tagonisms, especially in eastern and southeastern Europe which the treaty of peace did not reach indeed could not touch. The frightening aspect that looms like a spectre is the intensification of racial and economic hatreds. Who will say that the venomous sources of hatreds and antagonisms have been removed? Human nature has not been cured by a rectification of boundaries. On the. contrary, we have more than 65,000,000 people in Germany raging at the peace terms, thirsting for vengeance, sensitively jealous of every new prosperity that comes to France, to Great Britain or to the .. com-promis- e. United States. By lifting the oppressed nations into independent existence the peace conference has created nations capable of waging warfare and, in fact, almost, continuously waging warfare at this very moment.. We have as many wars in Europe today as at any time in the last century. We have cut the terrible dragon of a single war into .many parts and. each part has. a virulent activity. ; It is at this point the covenant comes into play. We hope that its stipulations, its provisions for the settlement of disputes, its elab- orate machinery may do what even Christianity has failed to do-- stop war and establish an actual brotherhood of man. The peace treaty, the league covenant and the labor covenant are all devised to promote peace among the nations, to create a better spirit by giving wider and freer play to the principles of justice. But in vital respects the covenants have failed to uproot old and new injustices. We haye but to mention Ireland, Korea, Shantung, India and Egypt to realize that the peace of justice brings justice only to a small part of the world. To Germany has been meted out harsh, deserved justice, but it places the culprit irrevocably on the side of the oppressed who are innocent. Germany, Bolshevik Russia, the Teutonic regions of central Europe, the Teutonic element in our own country will sympathize with those who still plead for justice and, when opportunity offers, will try to effect political alliances which will pave the way for vengeance. We have had examples of what will happen. In Chicago, only the other day, the disaffected Teutons, using the balance of power, a mayor. A Wisconsin constituency as congressman a brazen, blatant, defiant traitor Victor Berger. radicals and socialists The anarchists, I. W. W.s and German-minde- d are preparing to join with the juireconstructed Teutons to wield the balance of power in our national elections. The Teutonic influence is not dead. It will do its evil best to continue the war with political weapons. What the consequences will be no one can predict, but it is certain that the elements of discord and of warfare are as rampant today as they were in 1914. It is not our purpose to implant seeds of despair. On the cond desire in the trary, there is much reason for hope. The hearts of men to administer justice should have a beneficent effect even We must be fall short of justice. if peace conferences content to work out our destiny within the limitations of human nature and the human reason. Failure we have always with us, but we have with us always hope and the will to achieve. The golden rule is still our ideal; it is our' goal through all our blunders, all our blindness and all our disasters. Our duty now is to foster good will among men. We must do what we can with covenants and treaties, but we shall do more by striving to promote everywhere social justice within nations, political justice among nations and love and brotherhood everywhere among men. The covenant is merely the machinery ; it is the heart and mind of man that must operate the machinery. re-elect- ed pro-Germ- re-elect- an deep-seate- $ ed S WILL PRICES FALL? fall, and if so, how much? This question, we believe, WILL prices one nearest to the present interest as well as the pocket-boo- k of humanity. Although it is. likely, that the general tendency of prices may be downward during the next decade the consensus of opinion among experts is that that the decline will be gradual and there is a general impression that we have attained a new price level that will never give way to the prewar level. In a word, while it is conceded that there will be a falling of prices, the fall will stop short and perhaps far short of the old level. We can get a glimpse of the future if we consider those elements of high prices which tend to remain and those which tend to disappear. Present high prices may be ascribed to three main caues increased cost of labor, higher rentals and higher taxation. We will have no difficulty in realizing, for example, the influence of taxation when we are told that taxes have increased in this country 2,000 per cent over what they were before the European war.' In Great Britain they have increased more than 1,000 per cent. Rent and taxes, however, cannot compare with cost of labor as a factor in fixing prices. Unless wages materially decrease prices cannot decline radically and there are few signs that wages will go to a lower level. Wages will remain high because of the following basic , reasons : War wastage the stoppage of production due to the withdrawal of men and machinery for war purposes. Millions of laborers will be returned to production, but millions will not. 2.. The virtual stoppage of immigration in 1914. The millions who formerly came to our shores remained at home and it is extremely doubtful whether the tide of immigration will assume the 1. old proportions within the next decade. 3. The establishment of new industries such' as shipbuilding and the making of dyes and chemicals. The increase in the demand for materials for construction. During the war construction was held to a minimum as nonessential. 4. Shortage of the worlds food supply and the worlds supply of raw materials. These shortages can be made good only by slow de5. grees. 6. The higher level of prices in Europe. It has been perplexing to some that while men were out of work, wages should remain high, but if we consider the foregoing list we shall acquire an understanding of the conditions. There has been scarcity of employment only in some lines and even this tends to disappear as we shift from a war to a normal production basis. The world over there will be a shortage of labor when anything like normal production is restored. Shortage of production in Europe has resulted from the collapse of credit and business. Men are idle because business cannot readily be resumed on the old scale. In this country we are rapidly resuming business on a prewar basis and unemployment is becoming rarer. Soon the time will come when there will be a labor scarcity, greater of less, in all lines. During the civil war prices rose relatively more than in the world war. Based on greenback money, these prices were largely inflated. Making allowances for that condition which is not closely paralleled at this time we should note that the drop of prices in ninety-tw- o commodities from 1864 to 1874 was at the rate of less than 6 per cent per year. In building materials it averaged less than 4 per cent. . . In the period from May, 1918, to October, 1919, commodity prices in the United States had advanced about 107 per cent above the level of 1913. From October, 1918, until March this year, the decline was 6.9 per cent according to Duns index figures. During April, despite the agreement to lower steel prices, other commodities rose to such an extent that the average price level on April 1 was only 5.7 below the high point of October 1, 1918. after the civil war was due in the main The return to low prices mato say, quantity-productio- n busichinery. Manufacture, agriculture, mining, transportation and ness in general felt the effects.' Although we shall go in for quantity the production by machinery on a greater scale than ever, before yet to the use of labor-savin- g, that is . |