Page:James Hudson Maurer - The Far East (1912).pdf/27

 England, Spain, Germany, Russia, Japan and the United States in a single year would provide every family on earth with a comfortable home.

Edmund Burk asserted that not less than 3,500,000,000 have been killed in war since the beginning of history.

During the early development of the system in this country and other countries, there existed a life and death struggle between the masters for the home market.

The apologists referred to competition as the life of trade, yet history tells us that thousands committed suicide when they experienced a real taste of it. The competitive system of capitalism meant that the manufacturer who could sell the cheapest secured the market. The prices of commodities were then, as now, determined by a combination of circumstances; but the chief item was labor, The manufacturer having the lowest paid workers had a decided advantage over his competitors. Take for example, the manufacturing of cigars: Prior to 1863 there were less than three thousand cigar makers in the United States. Today we have about 125,000. Of this number nearly 50,000 are organized.

A very good man may engage in the cigar manufacturing business, erect a model factory in a city, pay the Union scale of wages, and be content with a small profit on his investment. Now along comes another good man and goes into the same business. He erects his factory in a country town and the village fathers hail him as a public benefactor and exempt his factory from taxation. This gentleman will not pay the Union scale, because it is not necessary. His employees can live cheaper than the city workers. Rents are lower; each house has its little garden, where the employees can raise their own garden truck; they also keep poultry and hogs. True, with these extra cares these village cigar makers work more hours than do the city workers, and that is one reason why their employer need pay them less.

Now, these cheaper made cigar, very often come into direct competition with those made in the city, and on the other hand the city-made cigar can never come into competition with the cheap village product, everything else being equal.

In the meantime a far-seeing business man opens his cigar factory in the city slum district, amid filth and