Against “Trusts.”

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2763, 18 April 1900, Page 3

Against “Trusts.”

An American writer condemns the “Trust ” system as suicidical. We have, he says, solved the problem of cheap production, with our perfected methods, our inventive mechanics, and our intelligent workers. If all our people were employed full time they could produce all the nation wants in three months. We have machinery enough to give a sixhour day in the factories. We have enough of everything but common-sense and a system of distribution as scientific as our system of production. Our captains of industry have given all their time to solving the problem of cheap production ; and the result is the organisations of trusts in almost every line of business. They have succeeded so well that they can to-day compete with Europe, and even with China, in the manufacture of cheap goods. But, in spite of all,their foreseeing shrewdness, they have forgotten one thing; you cannot sell goods to a plundered and moneyless people. The trust-makers are killing the geese that lay golden eggs. They are destroying their own market and making business impossible. The labour-saving machines, which are every day driving workers into the ranks of the unemployed, most certainly cheapen production ; bub they also decrease the manufacturer’s chance to sell his goods. Machines can produce, but they cannot buy. They do not rent houses, or buy groceries, or wear clothes, or read magazines, or go to the theatre. The substitution of machinery for men means in the end the destruction, of business, unless the men displaced are allowed to share in the benefits of invention. Self-operating machinery is the ideal of every manufacturer. But what benefit will be reaped by the manufacturer if he cannot find a market for his goods? If corner lots were offered for a dollar apiece to a crowd that could not raise more than ninety cents.no business could be done. Of what benefit are the cable-cars to the man who has not a nickel P What benefit are the cheap rates of the Post Office to the man who has spent his last cent for a sandwich ? Whenever a man is thrown out of work, the volume of our business is decreased. Whenever wages are reduced, profits are ultimately made less. If business is dull to-day, it is not because buyers are satisfied and surfeited, but because money is increasingly difficult, to get. We have a high standard of living in this country, yet thousands of our people are compelled to live like Hottentots. In spite of the organisation of industry and our wonderful facilities for production, they are compelled to live the precarious hand-to-mouth life of savages. A great industrial organisation has been built up—and 1 they are one side of it. We cannot remain in this condition. If we cannot discover a just system of distribution to match our magnificent system of production, then our civilisation is as imperfect as a bicycle with one wheel. It is better for a man to have a wigwam of his own than to be unable to pay rent for a room. It is better to paddle your own canoe than to have no chance to sail on a modern steamer. It is better to be a savage with a bow and arrow, roaming the ownerless forests, than to be a moneyless outcast on the streets of a great city. It is better to have a bowl of bread and milk than to stand outside a banquet-hall and be a hungry spectator of the feasting within. We have the proudest and most sensitive workers ever known in anytime or country—and they are gradually being driven to desperation by the difficulty of making a living. They are discovering that industry, thrift, and sobriety may be inadequate protectors .of poverty. Like squirrels in a treadmill, they find that all their hustling brings them no further ahead. Some economic witchcraft seems to pull them back. In short, civilisation has itself become a vast machine ; and the whole social problem is how to give every man and woman a chance to be a helpful, vital part of it. There is a flaw somewhere In our methods of ownership when the producers of wealth are poor. There is a mistake somewhere in our system of industry when every labour-saving machine makes life harder for the men who labour. Society has committed one of those blunders that are worse than crimes when thousands of worthy people in every large city have to endure more hardships than the the pioneers of a hundred years ago.