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Show YES AND NO. Are we "kidding" ourselves when wo talk about the great advantages de-tived de-tived from labor-savini devices? The Pennsylvania railroad prints jijij' this on tho cover of its dining car Hill I menu : "Millions of tons of ore are carried in solid tralnloada over the Pennsyl vanla system every year to feed the iijj! blast furnaces of the iron and steel in-lifil in-lifil lustry, "In order to transfer the ore from argo boats of the Great Lakes to railroad rail-road cars, the Pennsylvania system 'perates giant electric unloading ma-chines ma-chines at its ore, docks on Lake Erie. Trior to 1882 this work was defile frj hand shovel and wheel-barrow at die rate of about 200 tons a day "Today four machines at Cleveland tan empty a vessel and load cars at lie rate of 3000 tons an hour." The actual mining and transporta-:lon transporta-:lon of Iron oro have also been speeded speed-ed up by labor-saving devices, the tame as handling the ore at the docks. All this Is generally accepted as 'more economical." However, in the days when Iron ore aa handled by wheel-barrow and land-Bhovel, the ore cost $4 a ton at .j. ake Erie docks. Today the price is between $5 and a ton. I' look? as if. the more economical the procosa, the higher the cost Tou find the same state of contradiction contra-diction in wheat In 1860 tho cash price of wheat at Chicago was as low as 66 cents a bushel. Today, even with' farm prices far too low compared with other prices, wheat cost.-; a lot more than It did in 1860. All this, despite tho introduction of tremendous labor-saving devices and processes in growing the wheat and shipping It to market In general, it seems that labor sav ing devicos tond to increase selling price, on the average and in tho long run. This is counteracted by two Impor-tant Impor-tant things: First: The buying power of the dollar dol-lar has changed A dollar represents less buying power, today, than f0 centa did when grandpa was a boy. Every' one has more dollars, too, so LOB aoiiar is not a lair meiiouru ui price. Second: The introduction of labor-saving labor-saving devices and processes has released re-leased human labor for other work This enables humanity to produce thousands of articles for general use, where in fie old days such commodities commodi-ties were numbered by tho hundreds. We of today have a wider assortment of artieks, both necessities and luxu-rlea, luxu-rlea, than a few generations ago. That is the long range trend, a higher high-er standard of living. Price Is second- j ary, When a dollar would buj almoal anything, as old men put It, "the trou-ble trou-ble was, no one had the dollar." nn I |