Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/76

62 in greater ratio by the skillful use of the new labor, which may open constrictions in our industrial system that have arisen from the refusal of our existing labor to function in certain capacities.

It is no more than common sense to figure that if brickmasons would lay 100 bricks per hour instead of 70 and that if they would work 55 or 60 hours per week instead of 44, or 40, we should quickly acquire more houses and rents would fall. Similarly would the supply of all things be increased and all prices would fall.

The present situation has been produced by economic unbalancing and artificial restrictions upon production. Except for dislocations, both physical and mental (the latter being possibly the more serious) the consequences of the war have relatively little to do with it, speaking only of the United States, which incurred no external indebtedness. The pension bill, which is a measure of the impairment in human working ability, is not so big as to trouble us very much. The bond charges, which are collected from some people via taxation are paid out to others as interest. The greatest economic consequences of the war in the material way have been the enhanced demands for replenishment of depleted stocks of goods and the repair of deteriorated property.

The economic and political restrictions that have been imposed upon supplies are manifold. There are people in foreign countries who are favorably situated with respect to certain kinds of production and want to furnish things to us, which we prevent for the avowed purpose of keeping up our prices.