Music Trade Review
Issue: 1920 Vol. 70 N. 16 - Page 3
Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVM
THE
ffDJIC TI(ADE
VOL. LXX. No. 16
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
April 17, 1920
BlB 1
« £i o R;
Production, Prices and Profits
P
RODUCTION, prices and profits, a trinity as alliterative as it is pointed, furnishes manufacturers with
more than enough food for thought and material for discussion, in these days. Can production he
brought up to within hailing distance of demand? Should prices be advanced, or ought they to remain as
they are? If they remain as they are, what about profits?
He who could possess perfect answers to these questions would be in an enviable position. One feels that
much of the current discussion of them shows little knowledge of facts. The following considerations are there-
fore put forward as a contribution to the stock of available information on these important topics and for what
they are worth.
The problem of production is above all a human problem. Neither wages nor hours need at all concern us
if only we can get men to work again, to work after the old idea of a fair .effort .-each and every day. The
trouble with labor is not that it wants more money—it is that it wants to loaf on the job. Why does it loaf
on the job? Because it is discontented and unhappy. Why is it discontented and unhappy? Mainly because
of the mad profiteering of some men. Piano manufacturers are not profiteering but they have to suffer as
much as if they were the worst offenders.
The remedy is not simple. One great need is a recognition by the public press that the people of this
country—the masses—are at sea on economic questions. They do not understand simple economic facts. They
believe that they can become prosperous, and outshine the other fellow, by increasing wages without increasing
work, by shortening hours without shortening leisure. The newspapers ought to realize that the best service
they can render just now is to teach their readers some of the homely truths of economics. Those truths are
easy to understand. The only trouble with them is that they are really too easy. They call for industry, thrift
and general deflation. But the silence of our public educators—the press—with regard to them at this time is
simply inexplicable.
That the attitude of employers is changing for the better is plainly evident, but that we shall not have
normal production till capital and labor get together is still more plainly true. The truth is to be kept in mind,
likewise, that all the righteousness is not on one side, and that radical propaganda has found ready acceptance
with thousands who a few years ago would have scorned it.
That is what is the matter with production. And that also is very much what is the matter with prices.
The demand for all sorts of material is greater than the supply, while at the same time the disposition of
labor continues to be against, rather than towards, harder work and more effort. The chief element in price
increases on pianos is the cost of raw materials, and in them of the cost of labor. Now, labor was never so well
paid, but the masses are still discontented. Increases in price are simply inevitable with every manufacturer
whose problems are not already stabilized as to the relations between the movement in the costs of material
and the progress of production. It is a vicious circle. Low production, means high costs. High costs mean
further demands for high wages. The figures climb higher and higher. Yet who is better off? No one! The
figures have changed, and that is all.
Where will profit come in? As things are going, the need is to balance justly between production and
price. We must give the manufacturer his profit, and he must give labor its return. That means again produc-
tion. And that in turn means just work. All the cry of the times is the simple cry "Go to Work." It is a cry
which anyone can understand. It tells a simple fact and utters a simple powerful command. When the people
heed it there will be an end to economic and industrial perplexities. What an opportunity is here for the news-
papers, the trade papers, and the press generally to impress upon the minds of the people the only sane solution
of the problems which now confront us!
,;c« Bi',
REVM
THE
ffDJIC TI(ADE
VOL. LXX. No. 16
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
April 17, 1920
BlB 1
« £i o R;
Production, Prices and Profits
P
RODUCTION, prices and profits, a trinity as alliterative as it is pointed, furnishes manufacturers with
more than enough food for thought and material for discussion, in these days. Can production he
brought up to within hailing distance of demand? Should prices be advanced, or ought they to remain as
they are? If they remain as they are, what about profits?
He who could possess perfect answers to these questions would be in an enviable position. One feels that
much of the current discussion of them shows little knowledge of facts. The following considerations are there-
fore put forward as a contribution to the stock of available information on these important topics and for what
they are worth.
The problem of production is above all a human problem. Neither wages nor hours need at all concern us
if only we can get men to work again, to work after the old idea of a fair .effort .-each and every day. The
trouble with labor is not that it wants more money—it is that it wants to loaf on the job. Why does it loaf
on the job? Because it is discontented and unhappy. Why is it discontented and unhappy? Mainly because
of the mad profiteering of some men. Piano manufacturers are not profiteering but they have to suffer as
much as if they were the worst offenders.
The remedy is not simple. One great need is a recognition by the public press that the people of this
country—the masses—are at sea on economic questions. They do not understand simple economic facts. They
believe that they can become prosperous, and outshine the other fellow, by increasing wages without increasing
work, by shortening hours without shortening leisure. The newspapers ought to realize that the best service
they can render just now is to teach their readers some of the homely truths of economics. Those truths are
easy to understand. The only trouble with them is that they are really too easy. They call for industry, thrift
and general deflation. But the silence of our public educators—the press—with regard to them at this time is
simply inexplicable.
That the attitude of employers is changing for the better is plainly evident, but that we shall not have
normal production till capital and labor get together is still more plainly true. The truth is to be kept in mind,
likewise, that all the righteousness is not on one side, and that radical propaganda has found ready acceptance
with thousands who a few years ago would have scorned it.
That is what is the matter with production. And that also is very much what is the matter with prices.
The demand for all sorts of material is greater than the supply, while at the same time the disposition of
labor continues to be against, rather than towards, harder work and more effort. The chief element in price
increases on pianos is the cost of raw materials, and in them of the cost of labor. Now, labor was never so well
paid, but the masses are still discontented. Increases in price are simply inevitable with every manufacturer
whose problems are not already stabilized as to the relations between the movement in the costs of material
and the progress of production. It is a vicious circle. Low production, means high costs. High costs mean
further demands for high wages. The figures climb higher and higher. Yet who is better off? No one! The
figures have changed, and that is all.
Where will profit come in? As things are going, the need is to balance justly between production and
price. We must give the manufacturer his profit, and he must give labor its return. That means again produc-
tion. And that in turn means just work. All the cry of the times is the simple cry "Go to Work." It is a cry
which anyone can understand. It tells a simple fact and utters a simple powerful command. When the people
heed it there will be an end to economic and industrial perplexities. What an opportunity is here for the news-
papers, the trade papers, and the press generally to impress upon the minds of the people the only sane solution
of the problems which now confront us!
,;c« Bi',
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).