Published weekly by The Outlook Company, 120 East 16th Street, New York. Copyright, 1926, by The Outlook Company. By subscription $5.00 a year for the United States and Canada. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. HAROLD T. PULSIFER, President and Managing Editor ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief and Secretary Volume 143 What Is the Hurry? A The Outlook CCORDING to Roy G. Finch, State Engineer of New York, there is an "enormous waste of water" on the northern boundary of the State "that should be utilized." He declares that "the harnessing of the waters of the St. Lawrence" in that region "can provide four times the power that can be generated at Muscle Shoals and nearly twice that now produced at Niagara Falls." In a report to the New York State Water Power Commission on the application of two power companies to develop this water power he describes and compares the different plans that have been put forward. He explains that whatever plan is adopted must be arranged in conference between the State of New York, the Province of Ontario, the United States Government, the Canadian Government, and the International Joint Commission. He describes the limitations that should be placed upon any grant by the State of New York. He recognizes that all the people of the State have an interest in this natural resource. He discusses in particular the question whether the license fee should be so low as to enable users to get low rates or so high as to make it a source of income for the people of the whole State. He urges the speedy development of this great source of power. Haste in the development of resources is by no means always wise. Irrigation in the West was undoubtedly too rapidly developed. Indeed, the early advocates of reclamation warned Congress against going ahead too fast. Water that irrigates unneeded farms or creates industry in an over-industrialized era may go to waste as truly as if it never entered an irrigation ditch or turned a turbine. Power that relieves men of drudgery is welcome, but power that simply means new industrial problems, new cities, new slums, is a doubtful blessing. Before developing present water supplies we need not only a survey of the water Ο RDINARILY if one should say to a game of association of ideas he would reply, "Home run!" Immediately after the Fourth of July, however, particularly if he lived uptown and had business downtown, he would respond with "Taxicab," or merely a look of weariness. Fortunately, only one of the strikes is on a transportation line-the Interborough subway. The other big strike is in the cloak and suit industry. Both of these strikes illustrate the chaos and anarchy into which industrial relations still too easily lapse. Though industry has made great strides toward democracy in recent years, it still has a long road to travel. Neither of these strikes is primarily directed by employees against employers. In the cloak and suit industry the strike is really against exactions of the jobbers, who are not employers of the strikers at all. In the case of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company the strike is directed against Number II the existing union of subway employees, which the strikers declare to be too much under company control. The employers in the cloak and suit industry are almost helpless because they cannot change the conditions which the jobbers by their demands and their contracts have created. The subway company cannot arbitrate the dispute with the striking motormen and switchmen, because arbitration would recognize a new organization and thereby contravene the contractual relations the company has with the union from which the strikers have seceded. The cost of such strikes is always paid by the public. In these cases it will be paid by the women who buy garments and, in inconvenience and in time, if not in money, by the users of the subway. There ought to be some way by which the public could insist that industrial relations be placed upon something else than a war basis. Some day such disputes will not be fought out by strikes, but argued out before tribunals. San Francisco's Labor War SAN FRANCISCO is in the throes of an unusual labor dispute. A strike was called from Indianapolis by the International Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. It has nothing to do with wages or hours, but is a frank effort to break the "American plan," which for five years governed successfully the building operations of San Francisco. The strike order leaves no doubt on this point. It reads: You are hereby notified that on and after that date [April 1, 1926] nonunion carpenters cannot work on the same job in this district with carpenters holding membership in the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. The wording of the order is significant. It does not say that union men cannot work with non-union men, but that "non-union men cannot work with union men." The onus of action is not on members of the Brotherhood, but on non-members. It is clearly a warning and a threat to non-union men. That it has been so construed by supporters of the Brotherhood the present reign of violence throughout the whole Bay region leaves no doubt. For several weeks a veritable reign of ful trade union to enforce its will not "Valkomna " thuggery has obtained. Contractors, Sw superintendents, engineers, non-union carpenters, have been daily victims of wrecking crews of union men. Their practice is to drive up in front of a job, leap from their automobiles, swarm over the job and strike right and left with whatever weapons they may have. Large numbers of men have been seriously injured. Prosecution is difficult, partly owing to the indirect intimidation of the elected police judges, partly to the abundance of funds supplied from the Brotherhood headquarters for fines and bailing out offenders. The struggle, as the Industrial Association of San Francisco quite justly insists, is one of principle. The Association policy is that no association of employers or employees shall enter into agreements contrary to public welfare, and it claims that it has devoted more attention to securing fair play for the workers than to resisting their demands. There appears to be no room for doubt that the "American plan" has worked well there. Questions of wages, hours, and working conditions have been fixed by an arbitration board on which are entitled to sit representatives of employers, labor, and the public. The union has refused the offer of representation, so the practice is to appoint as representing labor's view a public man known for his favorable labor attitude. All parties are privileged to present their cases, and decisions are arrived at after the manner of a court of law. The Association, moreover, has established trade schools for apprentices, organized free employment offices, and brought about a remarkable degree of co-operation among all concerned in the building trade. As much as this is generally admitted. There seems to be little doubt that the present strike was called from the headquarters in Indianapolis because the plan was establishing to a dangerous degree the principle of the open shop. WEDISH America, any one west of Chicago will tell one, is Minnesota. The visiting Swedish Crown Prince and his Princess have heard from the lips of their countrymen there the welcomed "Valkomna." At any time the Prince would have been enthusiastically received by the Swedish citizens of the country, but it happens that this visit comes at a time when the Swedes of America are celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of their advent into the New World, and for that reason he was doubly welcomed. In his address of welcome Governor Christianson, of Minnesota, said: “We are heirs of two worlds; we have inherited the almost unlimited natural resources of America and the ripe culture of Europe. We should not deserve much credit if we did not build out of much credit if we did not build out of these the greatest civilization man has achieved." The Prince during his visit remarked, "We thought when we awoke we were in Sweden; there were the same red barns, the same trees." He named the nationality of the Minnesota farmer. For it is on the farms that the Swedes, many of them, have tilled their way to independence. Later he said: "Those of Swedish birth and descent have drawn heavily on their spiritual inheritance from across the ocean in order to take that prominent part in American citizenship which I am proud to know they have attained." If the Swedish inheritance has helped --and no doubt it has-in enabling these people to turn Swedish qualities to account in the making of Americans and America, both America and Sweden can justify a greater pride in them than could ever be felt for Swedish-Americans and a Swedish America. An Experts' F RANCE has applied the Dawes Committee idea to herself. That interWhat makes the matter one of Na- national body of economic experts detional importance is that it is not a trade vised a plan for the reform of German dispute in the ordinary sense of the finance when the old currency of Gerterm. but a war on the part of a power- many had lost its worth. Their plan became the basis of the present reparations program. Just so, with the French franc falling rapidly in exchange value and purchasing power, a committee of French experts has devised a financial plan for France. But back of the Dawes Committee plan was the international power of the Allies and the United States. And the final force that made Germany acquiesce in the experts' proposals was the French army in the Ruhr Valley. Without that occupation of her most valuable industrial district, Germany might have continued her resistance to the payment of reparations for some time longer even at the cost of her own prosperity. There is and should be no question of an international organization to coerce France. The question for France is whether her Parliament will accept the plan which her own experts declare to be neces sary. The French Government cannot turn the French army against the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. These political bodies, split up into many factions and dominated by partisan motives and personal ambitions, hitherto have blocked any policy of national retrenchment and economy. Premier Briand, with his reconstituted Cabinet, has a reasonably secure majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies. The presentation last week of the new finance and tax proposals marks the sharpest and perhaps the final test of his long career as a maker and leader of Ministries. The French economic experts call for a drastic program. It comprises rigorous economy in administration, strict balancing of expenditure and income in the Budget, no more borrowing from the Bank of France, consolidation of the national floating debt, freedom for capital, and, finally, exact fulfillment of all obligations of the state, including the payment of its foreign debts and the arrangement of foreign credits on a basis of long-term loans. The man who has been put in charge of this program is Caillaux, who came to Washington last autumn as Finance Minister, heading a mission to attempt the adjustment of the French war debt. There is no shrewder politician or more audacious financier in France. Whether the Parliament will give the necessary support to this man, who was exiled during the war on charges of treason and treating with the enemy, remains to be With the strong leadership of seen. Briand as head of the Cabinet, and with the nation thoroughly aroused to the emergency, Caillaux has the best chance he has had to show what he can do. The Radicals and Socialists undoubtedly will oppose him and continue to agitate for their scheme of a forced levy on capital as a means of relieving the financial difficulties of the Government. But it has been shown that their plan could not command a majority in Parliament. It is to be expected that the conservative principles of the experts' report will be carried into effect. Another deadlock in the Parliament would mean that the only recourse left to the Government would be to resign and call for new general elections to test directly the will of the French people. Productivity and Profits THE HE theory of mass production now so widely proclaimed in manufacturing as a means of making more money does not seem to apply to farming, and, in particular, to orcharding. The recent report of the Wenatchee, Washington, International Apple Growers Association shows that the 1925 apple crop for that region will be worth, when finally marketed, $18,000,000, produced at a cost of $16,000,000. The 1924 harvest was much smaller. It brought in $18,000,000 also, but cost only $13,325,000. That is to say, 12,660 car-loads were more than twice as profitable to the grower as 16,100! The Administration THE When the vote came in the Senate, the Administration controlled a bare majority of Republican Senators. Twentythree Republicans voted for the measure, twenty-one against it. This despite a public statement issued by the President urging the adoption of the amendment, numerous conferences held in the effort (C) Keystone Emile Coué, whose methods of inculcating autosuggestion as a cure for some ills gained great vogue in this country a few years ago-especially the repetition of the words, " Day by day in every way I am getting better and better "-died in France on July 2 to win votes for it, and the presence in the lobby of Secretary of Agriculture Jardine actively urging Republican Senators to support the President. The advocates of the Haugen Bill voted against the Fess measure because they did not believe that it offered enough aid. Some other Republicans voted against it because they believed that the aid it offered would be too much. The Democrats, with three exceptions, voted against it, partly for these reasons, partly because of traditional Democratic opposition to so-called special privilege, perhaps partly because of a desire to embarrass the President. It would be idle to say, as some are saying, that the views of President Coolsaying, that the views of President Coolidge with regard to agricultural relief have not changed since this session of Congress began. The several measures offered or suggested, each with the promise of Administration support and each going somewhat further than its predecessor, indicate that they have. And it is greatly to the credit of President Coolidge that he has modified his views with fuller knowledge of the situation. The country, we believe, has done the like. Out of the discussion of the various agricultural relief measures has come the realization that the agricultural problem is an economic problem for the Nation to solve. The advocates even of the Haugen Bill, unsound as that measure essentially was, performed an important public service in bringing the facts of the farmer's situation to the attention of the country. The Fess proposal-which is also the Tincher proposal-may not be the best that can be devised to meet the situation. It is the best of the proposals made at this session of Congress. It may be that the Administration view will be still further modified during the recess. It may even be, despite the rough handling of the Fess amendment, that the demand will be modified, that the agricultural organizations will adjust their view, as the President has adjusted his. The fact may be more nearly known after the dust cloud settles out there on the prairies, which is likely to follow immediately the November election. Primarily Primaries ERALD P. NYE, the newest of the in GERA surgent Senators, and one of the most consistent in his opposition to Administration measures, has won a double victory in the North Dakota election and Republican primary. He was elected to fill out the unexpired term on which he is now serving by appointment, and he was nominated by the Republicans for the full term succeeding the short one. His opponent, L. B. Hanna, ran as a "Coolidge Republican," though without specific indorsement by the Administration. The result is generally construed as an expression of dissatisfaction of North Dakota Republicans with Administration policies, particularly with that concerning agricultural relief. All such constructions are, of course, peculiarly liable to error. Primaries and elections involve numerous questions and cannot be regarded as referendums on particular questions. None the less the habit of trying to explain them as such is widespread. The following sentence presents a case in point: Andrew J. Volstead, father of prohibition, and other Minnesota dry adherents had something of a shock to-day when they realized that Minnesota wets had nominated all three candidates for Representative in Congress-Republican, Democratic, and Farmer-Labor-in the Fourth District. |