Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/63

Rh unionist struggles for fair and living wages. Even the individualistic American farmers are earnestly striving to fix "fair" prices for their wheat, oats, corn, tobacco and other crops. Australia attempts to make the application of a protective tariff to a given establishment dependent upon the payment of "fair" wages to the employees of that concern. A Wisconsin commission is industriously placing a valuation upon the physical property of the public utilities corporations of that state, in order that "reasonable" rates may be promulgated by that official body. In this manner, the ground is being rapidly cut from under the competitive basis of price regulation. Our commercial edifice still rests on this substructure; but the foundation walls are crumbling, and ominous cracks which presage decay and demolition are appearing in the structure. Society is impregnated with the idea that competition is no longer efficient and sufficient as a guide. From all sections of the country come reports of rate commissions, boards of arbitration, gentlemen's agreements, combinations and legal actions against restraint of trade.

With the narrowing of the competitive sphere the question as to what is a just, accurate and scientific standard of measurement for wages, prices and rates becomes increasingly important; and, at the same time, it becomes more difficult to solve because the basis of competitive rates, prices and wages is being undermined. In fact, if no standard can be found, socialism or anarchy seem to be the only alternatives. Much of the discussion and theorizing as to the respective rights of labor and capital is worthless because either free competition is assumed, or reference is made to prices or wages paid in the past; or some arbitrary standard is postulated which has no reality outside the personal desires of certain individuals or classes.

No court of arbitration or board of conciliation has as yet offered any definite and scientific formula by means of which disputes as to wages or conditions of labor may be adjusted. The findings of that famous board of arbitration, the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, merely offered a compromise; the commission did not dig down to the roots of the difficulty. Neither did an anxious public receive any exact data or the formulation of any definite method of procedure which might be used as a basis for the work of future boards. A peace was patched up, and the mines were opened. The members of the strike commission honestly and faithfully tried to take into account the physical, social and economic conditions then existing in the anthracite district. They investigated the home and working environment of the miner; his condition was compared with that of other workers. Yet after all, the principal value of this investigation consisted in emphasizing the rights of the general public. The decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission and of the various state railway and public utilities commissions as to reasonable rates are invariably determined by reference to profits received upon investments in competitive