Ewages were increased 139.9 per cent as compared with December, 1917, as against 52 per cent increase in cost of living, the wage scale as fixed last May was 69.4 per cent higher than at the 1917 date, while cost of living averaged an increase of only 17.2 per cent.

Such, so far as the evidence is laid before us, is the position of affairs. It is a phase of the social and economic situation which had not been generally looked for, certainly not at so early a date, when the war came to its endany more than had the precipitous decline in prices. It has been very largely a consequence, not of disturbance of the economical relation of things during the war, but of the disturbance of them in the period of violent inflation of values during the year and a half after the war was over. But these now well-recognized facts have not made the problem of wage readjustment any simpler. It was bound to be a painful and difficult process, not less so when organized labor has the near recollection of a time when, under the illusion that unprecedentedly high wages meant an equally unprecedented margin before income and cost of living, the wage-earning class was among the most lavish and wasteful spenders of the two years after the armistice.

THE labor organizations are right in being on

Difficulties of the Situation

their guard against unfair and excessive application of an inevitable readjustment. But the problem is at best a difficult one, and human instincts are too strong to make it possible for one side in the controversy to accept even the demonstrated facts on which the other side bases its contention. What was called the "strike vote" of the railway unions in 1921 and again in this present year, was a strong illustration of this aspect of the matter. Railway workers whose wage-scale had been reduced in line with the Transportation Act's provisions, were asked through a referendum of the unions to say individually whether they accepted or rejected the decision. But in so far as their response was merely approval or disapproval of the wage reduction, human nature alone was sufficient to insure a vote of rejection; certainly not less so when exactly such a vote by large majorities on the railway wage reduction of last year was not followed by a strike.

Yet on the other hand labor-union politics, the sense which every elected officer of the union has of being watched by factional op(Financial Situation, continued on page 52)

ponents for some action which could be utilized to unseat him, has made the path of the union leader difficult. Perhaps the varying point of view, the deadlock of opinion, were even more forcibly illustrated by the fact that, in the decision for lower wages by the Labor Board in June-a decision which the Board itself approached reluctantly-all the railway representatives voted for reduction and all the labor representatives against it, leaving the matter to be decided by the vote of the three representatives of the public.

THIS is the situation which is working itself out in the series of industrial disputes made inevitable by such circumstances. It is in many respects a peculiarly complex situation. In the period following our Civil War, statistics show that the average wage-scale in this country in- The Present creased during every one of the Period and eight years after 1865 and that this Others occurred even when the general average of prices was declining. But a little study of the figures shows that the case of the sixties was one in which wages during the war itself, instead of keeping pace with the rise in prices as they did between 1914 and 1919, had advanced scarcely half as rapidly as prices. It was also a case in which the violent reaction of trade and industry, the precipitous fall in prices, which in our own recent case occurred less than two years after return of peace, and in the compass of a single twelvemonth, did not then begin in earnest until eight years after the end of the Civil War.

There are other complicating considerations. The individual laborer is naturally restless that reduction in his wages should be based on statistical averages of a changing cost of living. His own idea is to better his condition under any circumstances, and his own experience very probably may be that he has recently increased his own scale of expenditure because of his higher wages. On the other hand, there is necessarily a limit to the wage cost which producers or transportation agencies can sustain in a falling market for their goods and services.

industries into the market as urgent bidders for labor because of actual scarcity.

Problem in the

Future

The Labor This fact suggests the question what would happen in the field of Industrial employment if a vigorous industrial recovery were to spread to most of the other trades, at a time when the new restrictions on immigration have checked the old-time automatic increase in our laboring population from that source.

What shape will be assumed, in the longer period of economic readjustment, by this problem of change in the wage scale, whether upward or downward, is one of the questions in the financial and industrial outlook which it is hardest to answer confidently. There has been ground both for encouragement and discouragement in the course of events since the war ended. The great increase in the size and power of the more important labor organizations, which it was once imagined might aggravate the severity and violence of industrial struggles, has on the whole resulted differently. The very magnitude of its responsibility has instilled something of caution, not to say conservatism, into the union leadership. Widespread recourse to violence in the conducting of a strike has been absent to a degree that would have seemed remarkable two or three decades ago. The Federal Government has more and more positively accepted, as a matter of course, the duty of intervening and settling nation-wide disputes when production or transportation of necessities was stopped by the failure of negotiations between employers and employees.

Beyond these facts, the problem is still in the doubtful and experimental stage. Whether the arbitral board established by the railway act to pass on the merits of wage controversies in the industry points the way to the solution, when it is possible to enforce such decisions. against the employing company or individual but not against the labor-union, is yet to be determined. The one really assuring consideration is the attitude of the general public: the complete disappearance of the old idea. that a struggle between capital and labor is something in which the public cannot take a hand in the way of peremptory settle

ment.

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We offer new 7% Cumulative Sinking Fund Preferred Stock and new Common Stock as a desirable investment for individuals-proceeds to be used for manufacturing the new Franklin Four. Our circular gives interesting details. Please send for it. Partial Payments

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Here are 35 booklets that tell about Safe Investments

SCARE

CROWS

are danger signals to the birdsbut safeguards to the seeds. If your investments are well guarded and out of the hands of vultures-they are safe.

1-How to Invest

2-Bonds and the Investor

3-Investment Position of Municipal Bonds 4-Partial Payment Investments

5-Variety and Classes of Railroad Bonds 6-Railroad Equipment Issues

7-The Public Utility Field

8-Public-Utility Securities as Investments

9-How to Select the Sound Utilities

10-The Future of Our Various Public Utilities

11-Things to Know About Stocks

12-Preferred Stocks-"A Middle Ground Investment" 13-Preferred Stocks, Pro and Con

14-Unlisted Securities-Whence Do They Come? 15-The Machinery of the Unlisted Security Market 16-Unlisted Securities-Where Do They Go? 17-Our Foreign Bond Holdings

18-"Internal" Foreign Loans and the Exchanges 19-Foreign Bonds to Suit All Tastes

20-Real-Estate Securities-Strong-Box Investments 21-The Unique Investment-The Mortgage Loan 22-The Mortgage in Retail Packages 23-Mobilizing Mortgage Money 24-Amortization of Mortgages

August

25-The Farm Mortgage as an Investment 26-How Sound Farm Mortgages Are Made 27-The Various Forms of Farm-Mortgage Security

Attached

28-Story of the Farm Mortgage Bankers Association

29-What Is the Stock Exchange? 30-Exchange Members and What They Do

is check (or money order) for $2.00 for

which send 35 booklets.

31-The Sinews of the Market 32-Investment and Speculation

33-Dimensions of the Market (Long and Short)

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34-The Committee on Business Conduct

35-The Odd

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The Bankers Trust Company of New York is issuing periodically an Investment Letter with an informing review of the investment situation, which will be sent to investors on request.

"The New South's Message to the Conservative Investor." "Caldwell First Mortgage Bonds," and "Caldwell Municipal Bonds," three new booklets issued by Caldwell and Company, 214 Union Street, Nashville, Tennessee.

"Bonds as Safe as Our Cities" and "Municipal Bonds Defined" are two booklets published by the William R. Compton Company, St. Louis, New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. Both booklets describe the various kinds of municipal bonds and the safeguards surrounding them.

"The Giant Energy-Electricity." A booklet in popular form, which shows the attractiveness of carefully selected public-utility bonds, and deals largely with the wonderful growth in the electric light and power business. Published by The National City Company, National City Bank Building, New York.

Stacy and Braun, 14 Wall Street, New York City, have just published "A Quick-Reckoning Income Tax Table, Revised for 1022" showing the exemption value of municipal bonds which are free from all Federal income taxes as compared with investment subjects to these same taxes. Copies may be had upon request.

"How to Figure the Income Basis on Bonds," a non-technical discussion of this important subject which investors may have simply by writing to Wells-Dickey Company, Minneapolis.

Write H. H. Franklin Manufacturing Company for details concerning new $rooo air-cooled, four-cylinder Franklin Car and booklet of interest to investors.

'Bonds-Questions Answered, Terms Defined," and "A Sure Road to Financial Independence," are two excellent booklets issued by Halsey, Stuart & Company, 14 Wall Street, New York City.

REAL ESTATE AND FARM MORTGAGE
BOOKLETS

"How to Select Safe Bonds" explains the security back of Real Estate Securities. Write George M. Forman & Company, 105 C West Monroe Street, Chicago.

Greenebaum Sons Investment Company, La Salle and Madison Streets, Chicago, will send on request their July Investors' Guide, which explains how to invest savings at highest interest rates consistent with safety.

The Mortgage and Securities Company of New Orleans, Louisiana, specializing in Southern investments, have published a booklet, "Farm Mortgage Bonds of the South." setting forth the attractive features of Southern securities of this type. They have also published two additional booklets, "Southern Real Estate Bonds" and "Southern Industrial Bonds." Write for copies of these booklets.

"A Guaranteed Income" is a booklet for investors in real-estate bonds, describing the added protection of a guarantee against loss. Write the Prudence Company, Incorporated, 31 Nassau Street, New York City.

"The Story of the Mortgagette" and "First Mortgage Safeguards" are two booklets dealing with first mortgage investments in the Nation's Capital. Write The F. H. Smith Company, 1414-1416 I Street, N. W., Washington, D. C., for copies.

"Common Sense in Investing Money" is a comprehensive booklet published by S. W. Straus and Company, Fifth Avenue at 46th Street, New York, outlining the principles of safe investment and describing how the Straus Plan safeguards the various issues of first-mortgage bonds offered by this house.

The Title Guaranty and Trust Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, will furnish upon application a list of mortgage investment offerings.

"The South Today," a booklet describing investment opportunities in first-mortgage bonds on Southern real estate, has recently been issued by G. L. Miller & Company, of Atlanta, Georgia.