OCR Text |
Show STRIKES .. .. (By L. A. Hollenbeck.) .. . . . Recently there was a big coal miners' min-ers' strike in England. The mines had nearly played out and the -cost per ton had to be reduced. and the miners refused to work at anything else, and the government gave them a bonus or subsidy to help them out. There had to be an end to that and when the government refused to give a further subsidy to pay 'miners, to .be paid by all the other workers of j I the .kingdom, there was a strike and I I a lot of other workers struck in sympathy. sym-pathy. ''It has been ail justed and the workers had lo come to reasonable reason-able terms. The writer is not In sympathy with strikes. There is another way, and better, but the unions un-ions refuse to let disinterested parties par-ties settle such matters, 'and in this they are wrong.' ' -Down in. the middle western states in the corn belt there is a great agitation agi-tation to have the Haugen bill passed pass-ed in congress. The bill has just been beaten but it is likely to come up again. That provides that the government back up the markets by 275 million dollars and that the farmers' products may be sold in foreign markets, and if they do not get the fixed price in the foreign market, then the difference shall-be made up to the farmers out of the said 275 million dollars. That is in effect a bonus for their labor and it would also have the effect of raising rais-ing the price of living to everybody. This system is all wrong. If the high tariff were reduced so that there would be a freer world market, mar-ket, so that the farmers and everybody every-body could trade in the niarkets of the world, there would be no necessity neces-sity for any bonuses to be given to any class of people. If the tariff were reduced, then the price of commodities com-modities generally-would .be reduced and the farmer at the present prices or even a little lower price would be getting better pay than he is getting now. for his money would go farther in his purchases. , Competjtior,.,5o nature's remedy' j aa,frj;Jt; frusUiand combines. fAWn' tariff isjthe trust's vveiiprvno v destroy . . nature's -law of "competition. . i Nature adjusts itself when it.jitnot thwarted, and it would do it in this case. Our troubles down in the corn belt is because, the trusts by a high tariff have thwarted nature s law of competition and that brings schemes to reach into people's pockets to help out the farmers by a big bonus for us all to pay and to raise the price of liviug at the same time. Let us get back to horse sense and that will stop this clamor for special privileges from the tariff beneficiaries down to the farmers who are thus induced to ask for bonuses in order to even up against the tariff. |