On the cost sheet, wages are mere figures; out in the
world, wages are bread boxes and coal bins, babies' cradles and
children's education--family comforts and contentment. On the other
hand, there is something just as sacred about capital which is used to
provide the means by which work can be made productive. Nobody is helped
if our industries are sucked dry of their life-blood. There is something
just as sacred about a shop that employs thousands of men as there is
about a home. The shop is the mainstay of all the finer things which the
home represents. If we want the home to be happy, we must contrive to
keep the shop busy. The whole justification of the profits made by the
shop is that they are used to make doubly secure the homes dependent on
that shop, and to create more jobs for other men. If profits go to swell
a personal fortune, that is one thing; if they go to provide a sounder
basis for business, better working conditions, better wages, more
extended employment--that is quite another thing. Capital thus employed
should not be carelessly tampered with.
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