When it is remembered that America is in possession of running machinery equal to half a billion workers, it will be recognized that it is impossible to estimate the economic injury wrought against the workers, if the slightest burden of tariff is added to shove them and the consuming public in general further down the ladder of prosperity. A brief citation from the New York Times will illustrate the point:

"It was announced that the American Woolen Company had raised the wages of its workers. . . . . The cost to the company, $1,500,000 a year, which looks large until it is borne in mind that more than 30,000 employees are affected. . . A very large proportion of the workers were represented by the the poorer paid class. Now the labor cost in the making of woolens represents less than 20 per cent of the value of the finished product. An increase of 40 per cent in such (wage) cost would, therefore, mean about 8 per cent added to the cost of the product. The present duty on woolen goods is 35 per cent or much more than the total labor cost." 224

In the case of shoes a similar proof of the hypocrisy of “high cost” is bared. Thus the Jackson Citizen-Patriot of Nov. 18, 1919.

Washington, Nov. 18-Mrs. Catherine Derry, Toronto, Canada, weighs less than 100 pounds, yet she is here vigorously representing the 1,000,000 women of her nation at the International Congress of Working Women. She proves once more that "good goods come in small packages."

"They are saying the workers caused shoes to go up," she said. "It is not so. At an investigation in Toronto it was shown that the cost of labor on a pair of $15 boots was 98 cents. The retailers admitted they got 50 per cent profit for handling the shoes. The jobbers and brokers took even more."

We follow potatoes, the world's crop of which, in 1909 was between 5 and 6 billion bushels. The countries in the lead in this production were:

The fertility per acre in the United States is varied, but President William C. Brown of the New York Central Lines has recorded this evidence of the abundance of Nature:

"In the year 1908 a friend of mine who some years ago bought 5,000 acres of land in New York state, raised 200 acres of corn, which yielded 50 bushels of shelled corn per ache; his potatoes averaged 350 ushels to the acre. This was the result, not of intensive farming, but of simple intelligent farming, and these crops were raised in the extreme northern part of the state, 12 miles from the Canadian line, at the northern end of Lake Champlain." 225

At this rate but little more than one million acres of land would be required to raise the entire potato crop of the United States. A crop which, in the time of the war retailed as high as ten cents a pound, $5.00 a bushel, $1,750,000,000 for the crop, presuming 350 millions of bushels for the 1917 crop. Nature blessing the United States with 1,800 million acres of land, the year's product of one million of these acres sufficing 100,000,000 people, but costing them $17.50 per capita, if they had to buy in bushel quantities or less, in large cities, and assuming-what is improbable that most of the crop was sold at the price the writer paid per pound for a time in New York City.

As to eggs, in 1913 it was brought out at the tariff hearings that the United States was at that time suffering under prices that now seem trifling:

The U. S. consumes 1,500 million dozen, or 18 billion, single, eggs per yr., valued at $281 million, or 19 cts a doz. in 1912; at this price the Bureau of Labor has given statistics to show that the price of eggs advanced 86 per cent from 1900 to 1912. 2756.

We have seen that John Stow in London, in the days of Henry VIII and of Queen Elizabeth procured milk for less than a cent a quart in London, in the summer time, and for a cent a quart in winter time. In Mich

igan papers in the summer of 1919 advertisement appeared offering 5 cents a quart for Michigan milk delivered freight paid in New York City.

We turn for one final proof of the abundance of Nature. It is the evidence which she presents in the inconsiderable acreage now required by her to give 100 million people their small fruits and vegetables.

It is impossible, of course, in taking census figures, to tell what proportion of Nature's production was used for home-consumption and what proportion went into export trade. No strictly home-consumption figures are to be had. For this reason the following table.220 is more eloquent for the bounty of Nature.

While the government was by no means able to make

lbs.

223.70 vines

the above figures complete, it is no matter. Our interest is in forming a concept of the abundance of Nature. The apples that bless the average tree, imperfectly as trees are cared for on the average farm, can be calculated; the amount of grapes that cluster on the average vine can be weighed; and so forth.

It will be observed that, small as is the planting, there are for every one of our twenty million families, the gift and care of Nature through rain and sun, through summer and winter, growing and grown into fruitage: more than seven apple trees and more than seven bushels of apples; not two peach or nectarine trees, but nearly five bushels of peaches and nectarines; scarcely a pear tree, but nearly two pecks of pears; more than one plum and prune tree, and quite three pecks of plums and prunes; only half a cherry tree, yet a peck of cherries; not a fifth of an apricot tree, nevertheless a peck of apricots; more than ten grape vines, more than a hundred weight of grapes; nearly a maple tree, nearly a pound of maple sugar, nearly a pint of maple syrup.

Estimated in terms of acreage, there is grown for every one of our American families: on less than a thirtieth of an acre, more than a bushel of rice; on little more than 1-25th acre, more than two pecks of dry edible beans; on 1-15th acre, 1.4 pecks of dry peas; on 1-25 acre, nearly a bushel of peanuts; on 1-15 acre half a ton, either of beets, sugar cane or sorghum cane; on 1-6th acre, 19 bushels of potatoes; on 1-25 acre, two bushels and two pecks of sweet potatoes and yams; on 1-80th acre, twenty quarts of small fruits; on 1-104th acre, twelve quarts and a pint of strawberries; on 1-408th acre, two quarts and more than a pint and a half of blackberries and dewberries; on 1-416

acre, three quarts of raspberries and loganberries; on 1-1500 acre 4-5 quart of cranberries.

And were Nature given a half-chance to show her productivity, these pounds and pecks and quarts and bushels could be doubled or trebled per acre. Is it a wonder that Micah, prophet of the theocratic democracy, sang?

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

Neither shall they learn war any more.

But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid:

For the mouth of Yahweh of hosts hath spoken it."

CHAPTER XV

"The Bounty of Providence May Become a Curse"

"Abundance is prejudicial to the interests of the producers. . It has been objected that the bounty of Providence may become a curse to a country. . . . As long as society is constituted as it now is, abundance will often be injurious to producers, and scarcity beneficial to them."-DAVID RICARDO. 227

"A short crop sells for a greater aggregate price than an abundant crop. Human interests are not parallel with value, but in antagonism. Human weal, social welfare, is out of harmony with the current concept of wealth."-H. J. DAVENPORT. 228

WE

E shall now have opened to us the complete reason why the prevailing untheocratic expediency is permitted and encouraged to burden Christendom. Indeed the reason stands at the top of the page. Human interests and the will of the Almighty are not parallel with privilege.

David Ricardo, prince of the economists of expediency whose system of philosophy requires them to place self-interest in antagonism with justice, voluntarily supplies the information that he is petitioned