Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1934. CROSS-ROAD PROBLEMS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 52, 2 March 1934, Page 6

Evening Post. FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1934. CROSS-ROAD PROBLEMS

:The -tremendous problems of the United States which had been temporarily obscured by more dramatic events in. such relatively tiny States as.Austria and Belgium have taken their, proper place again in the news of the: last twenty^our^ hours. Yesterday ,we reproduced ' -an article from the "Christian Science Monitor" which contained a clear arid comprehensive;: sun^ey of one of the'greatest °f: president Roosevelt's experiments and. .criticised it'f in terms generally applicable ;tp other parts .of, his-pro-granune;'^-:c-:'I'•;'■■■'■;;;' '\?'V:'<:^ ... The Adniiuisia-ati-ou'.s monetary policy is!-Sgiitti;.at;,tth;d.>.cvoss^r6a(l4 says, the 'Monitor." ;Shall,the gold-buying plan bd; •abandoned, or shall it! be made effective?- • To.do. the-latter-it:appears necessary to set up a free gold: market in.the United States and/or to be pre: pared to'invest at least.'l,ooo,ooo 000 dollars in; operations- to "boost the cold price; ■.■'. •;■-•,■•.■■ .':■■■■■■■■■::. J;.v-.- v :- -; Despite- official.' assurances that tlie sums;being devoted-to foreign^gold pujrchases" were ; "negligible;" at was disclosed that" no less- than 35,000,000 dollars .had ■' been : so -■ expended: Whether. till; official description of tfriss, respectable -total 'as "negligible-' was- correct- or; not,- the result was negligible beyond/a doubt. While the buying was actually taking place —probably less than a fortnight— the .price of gold in London rose, but it dropped again as soon as the buying ceased. ~ If this expenditure was increased from ; .35,000,000 -."dollars to I.OOO^OOO.OOQHa ;Tqund billion in American parlance—the price of. Spld might be' iriduced to "stay put," but then again it might not. There' was'also thealternative above mentioned of.. establishing. a free gold market "in the United States. ; But, said the''Monitor> J in its concluding sentences, the consequences are incalculable, chiefly in. the; international field. Would London and' Paris nvel-; eoino- the establishment' of- arrival gold market? ; Would a currency .'war ensue? There seems no"-inevitability about these conclusions, and^the ultimate results aie still in a state, of relative fog. Thus the monetary policy' of the Administration which was declared by this competent and not' unfriendly critic at the Beginning, of the article to be again at Jhe cross-roads is left at its close in a state of fog. The responsibility of deciding which road to take in a fog which has obscured all the landmarks, and put the instruments and the calculations of the expert as completely out of action as the horse-sense—if, indeed, the te^m is not in this case too flattering—of the mantis 'appalling to contemplate. blind man or the child can toss a coin as skilfully as Professor Moley or Professor Warren or any other member •of - the Brain Trust, past or present, can do it, and apparently the result would he as safe a guide in the one case as in the other. If the "Christian Science Monitor's" imagery of the cross-roads and the fog apply with special force to the perils'of expeiimenting with the curiency, it has, also, as we have said, a general application to other features of President Roosevelt's wide and varied programme. The chief industrial feature of thai programme was justly described by the same authority at its outset in July as "one of the most remarkable experiments in world history." All America was asked to join in a common attack on low wages, long hours,, and reduced purchasing power, and il was to be carried through with the unanimity and feivour of the World War e la . The N.R.A. made a wonderful slait, and at the present time about 85 per cent, of American industry is said, to be operating under its codes, and the number of unemployed, which was estimated a year ago at 13,000,000, has been " i educed by about half. These aie obviously great achievements, bul they would have been much greater if the initial enthusiasm had'not been chilled by unexpected difficulties. Perhaps the most fundamental of these difficulties was that prices were vising faster than wages and purchasing power. This result, with its special aggravation of the farmer's "already 11110161----able burdens, was evidently one of ,lhe causes 'which turned Mrr Roosevelt's/thoughts to itie currency, but attention to that matter does not mean that he has been able to neglect the other. The N.R.A. has' continued to provide him with a succession of cross-road problems, and the visibility has sometimes been as bad as in the monetarxspliere^itsqir.'. On two.- o|-the-, crucial "difficulties General Johnson,^-Administrator, of ihe .N.R.A., who seems to- be as indefatigable and as full of hope as the President himself, spoke quite

frankly to Mr. Paul Y. Anderson, a Washington cofrespphdent, in an interview reported in tlie,-New York "Nation" of January 24. Most o£ the codes in force, ho said, call for. forty hours. ' We have gone far enough to know that a forty-hour week -won't do the job. I never did think it. would, but it was necessary to convince some people by actual experience* ;.In.-fact, even-under normal prosperity,, a forty-hour - week would not result- in the absorption of all the unemployed. The, change must be made, and' the sooner the better; ... There's only one way out of this de-' pression, and that's to put people- to work at decent living wages. . When industry goes as far as it can in;that direction it -will be the Government's duty to help it. ~- -..;.■ ■.■ .. BdtK^these- points^a''furtheiv reduction in. working hours ■ and. an increase in. wages—are included in the 12-ppint programme reported yesterday to have been, -projected by General' Johnson for the. improvement of.the codes. ■ " • : of ■• General. Johnson's paints is;-a' wider ruse of the mechanism for settling . labour disputes^" but Mr. Anderson would evidently have preferred, a more radical recommendation. ■ : , 1 Nothing in the progress of the recovery programme, ho writes, has been more disappointing and. demoralising than the collapse of the National Labour Board. Set up as the supreme arbiter of disputes between Labour and Capital, it has degenerated into an object of employers' contempt and employees' despair. " Buried under a growing mountain, of . complaints, it blusters and does virtually nothing. To the currency and the N.R.A. the President is reported today to be adding the tariff and national relief as subjects for drastic legislation. His energies appear to be inexhaustible.'. -..- :■;■].■ ':'.-■■■.