"BUSINESS AS USUAL."

The natural laws of economics apply in times of war as well as in peace. Supply, demand, the distribution of labor can be only directed, not governed, by Federal action. It requires the co-operation of the entire nation to insure a proper emphasis upon our war industries.

There exists at the present time a danger, partly the result of ignorance, partly the result of a wilful misrepresentation of economic problems, in the phrase "keeping business booming." We have in our midst the petty business man and the many people who know no better, who profess and carefully maintain the principle of "business as usual." "Money must be kept in circulation. Industries of every kind must be maintained to their fullest capacity." What could be more absurd or harmful to the interests of our cause? We have in our country a definite available supply of goods. We have a definite amount of labor, already diminished by the draft, which can be applied to the extraction and fashioning of such goods. We have an ever-increasing demand for war commodities, which means a necessarily additional application of labor to war industry. Yet we are told to spend our money freely for articles produced by concerns "of every kind." Non-essential industries (in the war sense), finding the same demand for their products, will continue to use supplies and labor which might otherwise be diverted to those industries essential to the prosecution of the war. If the candy-makers find "business as usual" they will continue to use sugar which might be feeding our soldiers in France, and labor which might be building guns.

The phrase ought to be "buy essentials." Make business for the non-essential producer so poor that he will turn his supplies over to the Government and his men to the ship-yards. It means in many cases painful business readjustments, and it will not take place in a day, but the interests of the whole are certainly above those of the few. Leave your savings in the bank, where they will find investment, or buy Liberty Bonds. Pity the well-meaning though selfish business man, who shouts from the housetops "business as usual," but learn that wars are won through economy in non-essentials, rather than in pernicious ignorance which maintains an industrial organization entirely unfit for war-time needs.