YOU CAN'T EAT MONEY

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3376, 2 March 1920, Page 2

YOU CAN'T EAT MONEY

LESSONS OF THE STRIKE.

(By Robert Blatchford.)

When I was a dear little innocent child I was expected by my pastors and masters to assimilate wisdom through the medium of my copybook headings. One of those headings informed me that: "Experience is a dear school, but fools will learn in no other." As an axiom that is what the slangy, self-confident modern boy (so different from us) would call "rather decent."

The great railway strike is estimated to have cost us £50,000,000 A dear leson, but it has taught us things. Yes, we have learnt something. Perhaps I ought to say it has taught "them" something, for I think I had the lesson off by heart a good many years ago. What is the lesson?

According to Mr Lloyd George and the Press there are two lessons. Mr Lloyd George's lesson is that the people intend to be and can be masters in thtir own house. The Press lesson is that the resources of the Empire are tremendous. We will consider first the statement of '.he Prime Minister. As I pointed out recently in these col-

umns, the real issue between the strikers and the Government was not an industrial but a political issue. The two sides were not contending about a few shillings a week, they were contending for political mastery. To put it plainly, the railwaymen, or their leaders, believed themselves capable of coercing the Government and the country by means of a sudden strike.

That was recognised by the Government. That is why the Government decided to resist. In his speech at the Mansion House Mr Lloyd George makes that quite clear. He says the Government and the public were faced by a trade-union attempt at political domination, and that the attempt had been defeated. And the lesson is that the British people will not submit to unconstitutional coercion. Very good. That is one of the lessons. It is a lesson some of us have been offering the revolutionary leaders week after week for nothing. They preferred to pay for it, or to make the country and the unions pay for it. Let us hope it has been thoroughly learnt. If it has it will be worth the money. At any rate, we may venture to

anticipate that in future the revolutionary apostles of "direct action" %will be estimated by the workers at their true value. There remains the Press lesson.

The Press lesson, which appears to have impressed some of our contemporaries with its novelty and value,

is that the resources of the Empire are enormous, and that it will pay us to exploit them. The Press, it

seems, have discovered not without surprise, the value of motor transport and coastal transport, and the

capacity of the people.

I have been

offering them the information gratuitously for thirty years; but they preferred to pay for it. Well, well, it is really cheap at £50.000,000. And as my copybook said, they "will learn in no other." We are struggling with a huge burden of debt, the Premier tells is. So we are. We have a gifted and industrious people, and the people have an Empire, whose potential wealth is almost boun 4 'esc. And we are poor and worried with debts. But perhaps now the Press has discovered that the British railway service and Divine Providence are not convertible terms something may happen. We have three great fetishes in this country: Railways, coal, and foreign trad. Our homage to these fetishes was so profound that we accepted them as finalities beyond which human genius and adventure could not hope to go. Now I venture to assert as a fact that, great as are the resources of the Empire, the resources of human genius transcend them. Coal means power. Railways mean transit. Foreign trade means wealth. But these are not the last words of science

and invention. The Empire is not organised. The genius of the people is shackled. We cannot increase our wealth and happiness by striking nor by cut-throat competition. We have got to give our brains a chance to exploit the potential natural wealth of our Empire.

Coal will not last for ever, and is already dear. Foreign trade must in the nature of things be faced by powerful foreign competition. The railways are run on obsolete lines; they must be revolutionised. We have paid £50.000,000 to find these things out. It is to be hoped we shall not fall asleep and forget them.

Here, while it is fresh in my mind, I want to say a few words about wages. There seems to be an idea abroad that the railwaymen, who used to be so badly paid, are now in a state of comparative opulence. I do not see upon what grounds that idea is based. I will take the case of the worst-paid railway workers. It is admitted on all hands that before the war those men were shamefully underpaid. What have they gained? The rise in wages is roughly equal to Is <3d on the Is. Where the men had a shilling in 1913 they have now half a crown. A substantial rise. Yes. But clothes and boots have rism in price, so that what cost a shilling now costs ihree shillings. Beer has gone up from ono rbi! 1 inc: to th' - eo shillings. Of other important articles of food I find that what cost a shilling now costs the followjj.r amounts: Lard 3s, bu.con. eggs, milkfish, and r.irrants, L's 6ri; cheese IT 3d, butter "s Id. Ijf-ef, sugar ami tobacco 2s; coal Is I'd, bread Is Gd. and tea Is :jd. As f:*r the commoner luxuries, apples I-ave gone to ?.-; for the old rh llingstvorth, and bananas to 2s f-l.

There is nr a'tiole of food or clothing, no furniture, tool, or utmsil that has not £'me up in pr»c; from 50 to 150 per cent. How much better ot'f is the railway worker with hh increased wages? He certainly is not in a state of comparative affluence. Th<> material necessities may be classe 1 under the heads of food, clothing. fuel, and shelter.

They are all dearer. I do not believe that the railway worker has gained 50 per cer.t on his pre-war starvation wage.

If wages were paid in goods instead of in money the illusion of big wages would delude nobody. The agricultural labourer with kis 30s a week is as poor as he was in prewar days with 15s. A professional

man with £2500 a year is no richer than he would have been in 1914 with £IOOO. The inflation of prices is no doubt due in some measure to profiteering, but it is largely due to scarcity of commodities or difficulty of transit. The remedy is to increase production and to facilitate transport, and that, as I said before, depends upon organisation and invention.

The country that invented the tank and fought the submarine ought to be equal to any claims that could be made on its invention and its energy for purposes of manufacture and commerce. We need to put more imagination and foresight into our trade and industries, and not allow ourselves to get into ruts and tie ourselves to outworn methods. There is another of my pet theories which the Prime Minister con.firmed in his Mansion House speech. I mean the power of an informed public opinion. Mr Lloyd George said:

"The strike has proved, once and for all, that this is really a real democratic country. Public opinion rules. Governments cannot govern in spite of public opinion. Trade unions cannot win in spite of public opinion. Every demand which is pui forward must get public sympathy, public support—must win its way into the public conscience. That is true, although I have always said it; and, being true, it is a matter of vital necessity that the public should be furnished with the fullest possible information upon any matter upon which it may be called upon to decide. The wisest heads cannot arbitrate wisely unless cognisant of tho facts. Had it been possible to lay the whole truth of the two issues behind the strike on the public table, and had it peen possible to ascertain public opinion, the verdict would have been, on the one hand, that the railwaymen must have the wages asked for, and, on the other hand, that no body of self-appointed dictators should be allowed to coerce the Government or the country. Happily, the agreement between the Government and the strike leaders is in accord with public feeling, and we may regard the arangement as both satisfactory and just. The revolutionary leaders have been taught a much-needed lesson, and we are not likely to hear much about "direct action" for some time. The British people have no use for dictators, nor is there the smallest danger of their allowing a few megalomaniacs to "shift the centre" of gravity from its present democratic base. The railwaymen have done the country good service by affording the people an opportunity of showing their temper towards the furtive policy of Bolshevism. Nor, on the other hand, is there any reason for the Government to doubt the justice of public opinion. Public opinion in this country will be just as far as its knowledge of the facts will enable or permit it to be just. Without a knowledge of the facts justice is impossible.

Mr G. H. Roberts, the Food Controller, while declaring that the strike was unnecessary, said that wages can only be paid out of production, and there are some groups which take more out of production than they put into it." There appears to be an idea in certain Labour quarters that all workers can and should get more out of production than they put into it, and that such a happy result would be brought about by a Labour control of politics and Uade. But there is a limit to the powers of Labour dictators. No dictator can get a quart out of a pint jug. No business can pay more in wages than it earns by trade, and a business which depends on foreign trade must sell at the market price or close down.

There is a point beyond which increased wages means loss of trade. When that point is reached a Labour Government, or a Soviet of workmen and so'diers, would be impotent to raise wages. Wages, as I have pointed out to the workers a score of times, are not the one thing needed. A man cannot fe?d and clothe himself with paper money. It is not the amount of wages that matters, but the quantity and quality the wage will buy. When the war was at its worst a man with twenty pounds a week could only get an ounce of butter and eight ounces of meat. Why? Because there was no more to be had. It is only when food and boots are plentiful that we can have as much of them as we need, no matter how much money we possess. The Scots drover said that if he had Loch Lomond in hell he would sell it at a shilling a glass. Ice will be correspondingly cheap at the North Pole.

If we want creap goods, which is better than big wages, we must produce more of the things we desire. That does not mean, as some suppose, that the workers must work like horses. It does mean that unless the workers strain every nerve, and unless we can discover or invent cheap means of mechanical production, goods will be dear.

The lesson is simple enough. If we want potatoes we must dig, or we must invent a motor digger. If we cannot get a living price for goods in the foreign market we must learn to make them more cheaply, or we must use them ourselves, or we must find other avenues of wealth.

Xo strike, no Soviet, no Labour Government can change these facts. It would be pood to stop the profiteer, and to expel all the drones and parasites, but that would not suffice, if we wish for abundant wealth wo must create it. We are told ihat this last strike cost us fifty millions. Suppose we had spent that vast sum on the improvement of our transit! Suppose we had set it aside for the aid of science and discovery and invention!

One finil hint. It is net to the noisy or persuasive orator that we must look for salvation, but to the thinker and the organiser and the inventor. Give the national brains a chance and we can overcome all our difficulties. Why, anybody knows that now we have paid £50,0"0.000 for the lesson. And to the railwaymen I would say: You don't expect to get more wa-rcs for some years,.do you? You don't expect prices to fall to pre-war rates aapin, do vou? Weil?