are still, unfortunately, quite a number of sinuous-minded people in this country who so dislike these hard facts that they spend their energies in trying to dodge them, and in trying to create some formula by which they can becloud the truth.

Every peace speech, whether hypocritical or real, gives them new hope that the task to which we have set our hand may in some manner be avoided, and they busy themselves with such schemes for world improvement as urging the British Government to duplicate Trotzky's guarantees of freedom to Persia.

These curious mentalities with their subtle manners of thought, are apt to speak of the more simple-minded people who believe in actually winning this war for democracy as “bitter enders." But the term is misapplied. Those who believe in making no compromise with autocracy are not "bitter enders." On the contrary, they are willing to fight a bitter war through, but they insist that the end shall be sweet. The real bitter enders are those who, like the poor Russians, have put their faith in princes-and Teutonic princes at that-and who believe that democracy is safe while Hohenzollern and Hapsburg rule and their armies are still intact. Where these people prevail the end will indeed be bitter.

I

Setting Idle Land to Work

IN TIME of war the people of the small cities and towns have a special duty regarding food production and transportation. They are in the habit of living much like city folk. They buy their bread and ice cream from neighboring cities, and they consume immense quantities of canned goods, including corn and tomatoes. Potatoes that might be grown upon their own vacant lots they ship in from distant fields by the carload.

The people of these small towns and cities with a population under ten thousand constitute more than one-fifth of our total population. If, while the war lasts, they would consent to live more like farmers, raising a considerable proportion of their own food, making their own bread, and becoming as nearly as possible self-supporting, the change would help tremendously to increase the available food supply, and at the same time greatly to relieve transportation, which is now being taxed to the utmost.

The people of the town are abundantly able

to raise the sweet corn which they are now buying, and now that tin and glass are scarce the crop can be dried, which is always safer for the individual housekeeper. In this transportation will be avoided. Tomatoes can be produced on land that is now growing weeds. These people can also raise a considerable proportion of their potatoes, thereby saving the transportation of a heavy and perishable crop. They can not only supply themselves with the ordinary demand for this vegetable, but if they will make their own bread, they can use these potatoes to an extent of thirty to fifty per cent. as a substitute for flour. The potato is the only vegetable that can replace the bread grains, the starch content being practically identical with that of wheat. It can be almost universally grown, and it can be prepared for bread-making in the kitchen without expensive processing or transportation.

Once having formed the habit of production, it would be perfectly feasible to extend the cropping to include green vegetables and small fruits.

The town not only has the vacant land, but it also has the labor and the time to do this work. Every small town has its bunch of idlers. Housekeeping here is in general simpler than on the farm or in the larger cities, and many a family can provide a hand or two for cultivating the neighboring idle land. There is usually plenty of fertilizer, and every town has its coterie of retired farmers or other citizens who know at least the fundamentals of crop raising.

It is entirely unnecessary to plow up golf courses and beautiful lawns, but it is eminently desirable to set to work the hundreds of acres of idle land within the precincts of our small cities and towns. These people who could so easily become producers have no right to remain simply consumers when the winning of the war may turn upon the food supply.

Foreign Holders of American Securities

O

NE of the most noticeable effects of the war upon our industrial life was the natural one that the constant stream of foreign money that stimulated our activities suddenly stopped, and the stream flowed the other way. The stocks and bonds which we had been selling to European buyers for years began to flood our markets. And we were glad to buy them back, for we had lots of money and we could buy them cheap. Now that we need our money to finance the war it is satisfying to know that the American securities held abroad are not still being forced on our markets. The figures recently compiled by the United States Steel Corporation seem to show, if its securities are a fair criterion, that the amount of American securities now held abroad is likely to remain at least at its present level.

At the outbreak of the war, approximately 25 per cent. of the $508,000,000 common stock of the Steel Corporation was held abroad. On December 31, 1914, after five months of war, there was still nearly 23 per cent. of it so held. It will be recalled that the New York Stock Exchange was closed during practically all of that time. The heavy selling from abroad, however, did not start until after March, 1915. It is interesting to note that the lowest price at which United States Steel common sold after the outbreak of the war-38-was early in February, 1915. In other words the foreign selling did not start in volume until the stock began the advance in price which culminated at 89 in December, 1915. Between March 31st and December 31st of that year, the foreign holdings of the stock were reduced nearly by half. The percentage of the total held abroad was brought down from 221 per cent. to 13 per cent. In the succeeding year and nine months it was further reduced to below 9 per cent. In the last three months of last year more than 7,000 shares were added to the foreign holdings, the percentage being increased from 9.39 to 9.52 per cent.

More than forty foreign countries are represented in the list of shareholders of the Steel Corporation. Before the war England was by far the largest foreign holder. Holland now is. It is interesting to note that the prosperous West Indies have more than doubled their holdings of United States Steel stock since 1915. Canada also increased its holdings last year.

L

British Labor's Programme

ABOR and the New Social Order" is

the title of a report on reconstruction

by a sub-committee of the British Labor Party. This report probably comes as near as any single document to expressing what the party's programme is. As the Labor Party can hold the balance of power-if, indeed, it can not soon command a majority in Parliament-its programme is of great interest as it affects Great Britain, and as its programme will react upon thought here.

The underlying motive of this programme is to discontinue "the competitive struggle for the means of bare life" and institute “a deliberately planned coöperation in production and distribution for the benefit of all who participate by hand or by brain," in order to achieve not the present "utmost possible inequality of riches," but "a systematic approach toward a healthy equality of material circumstances for every person born into the world."

"The four pillars of the house we propose to erect, resting on the common foundation of the democratic control of society in all its activities, may be termed

"(a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum.

"(b) The Democratic control of Industry. "(c) The Revolution in National Finance. "(d) The surplus wealth for the common good."

The universal enforcement of a national minimum wage is a principle very generally looked upon with favor by many people, both laborers and employers. What it means is that those industries or particular employers who can not afford to pay a living wage will have to go out of business, and other industries, or the taxpayers in general, would have to take care of the people thrown out of work by this process. In the United States the number would not be large, for most of the businesses which underpay people in this country could afford to pay more if pressed to do so. The conditions in the British Isles are probably sufficiently alike to make a national minimum wage apply all over the kingdom, but the cost of living varies so in different parts of the United States that if the experiment were tried at all some zone method would have to be devised.

The democratic control of industry means state ownership of the means of production and distribution, beginning with such things

as railroads, mines, steamers, canals, electrical companies, etc., and ultimately including practically everything.

In the words of the programme:

"It demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock; and the setting free of all who work, whether by hand or by brain, for the service of the community, and of the community only. And the Labor Party refuses absolutely to believe that the British people will permanently tolerate any reconstruction or perpetuation of the disorganization, waste, and inefficiency involved in the abandonment of British industry to a jostling crowd of separate private employers, with their minds bent, not on the service of the community, but-by the very law of their being only on the utmost possible profiteering. What the nation needs is undoubtedly a great bound onward in its aggregate productivity. But this cannot be secured merely by pressing the manual workers to more strenuous toil, or even by encouraging the 'Captains of Industry' to a less wasteful organization of their several enterprises on a profitmaking basis. What the Labor Party looks to is a genuinely scientific reorganization of the nation's industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteering, on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production; the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity and only among these, and the adoption, in particular services and occupations, of those systems and methods of administration and control that may be found, in practice, best to promote the public interest."

In a country where the "democratic control of industry" is in force, practically every one in the country except those selling personal services would be on a Government salary. All industry would be conducted by the State, which would be one single, all inclusive, monopolistic, political, and industrial corporation, guaranteeing a job at at least a living wage to every industrial worker of every kind, using all capital, buying all raw material, doing all transportation both at sea and ashore, and selling all finished products. The whole thing would be a single national coöperative society.

The authors of the programme are convinced that this organization would not only be sufficiently productive to make at least a living

wage for the entire population, but that it would even increase the total productivity of the population. The increased productivity, combined with the fact that no one would have a very large salary, would produce "the healthy equality of material circumstances" which is one of the main objects of the programme.

The whole question of State ownership or democratic control of industry is whether or not it could be made efficient enough to make enough money to support the population.

The revolution in National finance and surplus wealth for the common good (the third and fourth pillars on which the programme stands) means direct taxation arranged so that those who are making merely a bare living pay nothing, but rising rapidly from this point to the practical confiscation of any very great wealth. Once the huge fortunes were reduced, in a country where industry was under democratic control, they would have little opportunity to rise again.

These four major demands, which in their entirety constitute a complete reorganization of the British State, could be met in part even under the existing economic system. A national minimum wage, the state control of at least some industries, and direct taxation and very high taxation on wealth, could all be done under present economic conditions. The further demands of provision for work for the returning soldiers could likewise be met.

The two main political features of the Labor Party's programme, the extension of the suffrage and the abolition of any hereditary privileges or positions in Government, except the royal family's, are already accepted in America, and we have the same intention of fair dealing toward all other nations which the Labor Party's programme proclaims.

However much or little of this programme of the British Labor Party achieves, it is significant in that it is a concrete expression of a determination to see that the oft repeated phrase "that things will be different after the war" comes true. That same feeling is very prevalent in this country and, while it does not take the same form with us as in England, it will have to be met in some form.

The root of the whole matter is that the people at the bottom of the economic scale feel that they are not getting a fair deal, and the difficulty in disabusing them of this idea is that they are right. In a country where there is as much natural wealth as there is in the