World Unrest

Mr. President and Gentlemen, I suppose that most of us will agree that world-wide social and political reforms can be brought about, not by noise and shouting not by complaints and denunciation, not by the formation of parties nor the making of revolutions, but rather by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. When we think right thoughts, right actions follow, and not until then. One of the encouraging features of today is that more people are realizing the importance of sound thinking. More wonderful than all the inventions of the day is the way people are thinking about our relations to the natural resources of the world, and of our relations to one another. Of course we are so keen upon action that we act without thinking, without taking the long view, the careful view; and that is why we spend most of our time pulling ourselves out of the ditch.

No doubt you have seen the little poem by Pagadorn entitled, "The Unknown Soldier," part of which is as follows:

Because we would not think we had to die; We died, and there you stand, no step advanced. Dead eyes keep watch; you shall not rest or sleep. We died, but now you others who must live must do the braver thing than dying is, For you must think, and ghosts will drive you on.

It does seem to me that we need a good many ghosts to drive us on to do some worth-while thinking; to get under the surface of things. Do you not agree with me that unless we end war, strikes, wasteful and costly litigation, and all the conflict that there is about us which are unavoidable under our present system-that these things will end us? Do you not think it is time that we gave up our weakness for palliatives, our tendency to fuss with effects-a course which in the long run is more expensive than going courageously to the root of those problems.

Do you not think we are all prone to rely too much upon force? Are we not a little too much like Mussolini, who says that force and right rule the world; force, until right is ready. I wonder when right is going to be ready, so that we may give up our great reliance on force?

It seems to rue that what we most need now is an economic system under which, oh terms of equal freedom and equal opportunity, every one everywhere may apply their knowledge to the natural resources in a reasonable way, so that we may all have material things, so that people everywhere should develop their physical, intellectual and spiritual powers to the full? That should be an easy thing, not a hazardous adventure.

We have now conquered production; indeed, we are afraid of over-production. Our next problem is that of distribution. What we need now is to find an economic plan for the equitable distribution of our work or service. I am almost afraid to use that word "work," because it is apt to make so many people nervous. If you are talking to a lot of lawyers and you suddenly say " work," a sort of tremble goes through the building. Perhaps we should use the word " service, " for there are now a lot of service clubs, and that word is quite popular; yet I prefer to stick to the good old Anglo-Saxon word "work." If we could do our work equitably, the distribution would be equitable, and we could destroy all our present fallacies.

We lawyers are a great institution. If we did not take people over to the Court House and give them a run for their money, and send them a good bill of costs, they would be out on the streets fighting each other with knives. So lawyers are everywhere; there are 800 in Montreal. Imagine a big husky fellow like myself coming from Cape Breton where I could do any kind of thing, where I should be digging coal, or fishing, or something like that; but I am up in an office building, nine floors up, with those books that we keep to impress our clients-those books that are bound in calf with the "tale" inside. We fall in love with our clients, who think we know everything in the books. We always impress our clients like that.

Imagine a social order that is so bad that you have to set aside thousands and hundreds of thousands of men to try to keep track of those laws, that are only good for about six months, when another law is passed. There have been 33,000,000 laws passed now, yet we want some more. Of course that serves our immediate interests, and we lawyers say the more the merrier. A man who has goods to sell wants his goods scarce, under the present system, so that they will be dear; but we lawyers want the criminal laws all the more twisted up, to serve our immediate interests. Of course when people get fairly well-off they talk about uniform legislation, and things like that; but how can full-grown people be so simple as to think that lawyers, who live on trouble and conflict, and who are as necessary as any part of the -community under the present system, are staying awake at nights worrying about making the law simple? It is the people who are simple. There are as many lawyers as doctors doing things for nothing, and helping in charitable work; but when are we going to give over that dependency upon legislation?

Would it not be very much better if we depended upon acts of production rather than on acts of parliament? As a rule, acts of parliament are a substitute for work. Another fallacy is that there is not enough in this world for everybody. That idea is utterly ridiculous. Statisticians say that if you put all the people in the world -1,600,000,000-in a piece of territory 20 miles by 30, each of them would have a little over ten square feet. How many pieces of territory could you carve out of this wonderful empire within our own wonderful Canada, with its 3,750,000 square miles? What utter rubbish, to talk about there not being enough in the world to go round! We trample under our feet every day enough to feed billions, by this wasteful conflict, which cannot be avoided. Nobody is to blame; we are all in this mess together; the economic system is wrong, and we do not seem to have enough sense to know that blaming others will not get us anywhere, though it is a very popular thing to blame public men. What utter rubbish! Public men are doing all they can for Canada; they are as much interested in Canada as you are, and I am; they have their children; they want to make this a good country, but they cannot do so under the present system. I wonder that they do so well. You know the result of government putting on another mortgage. We call it "refunding the public debt." You know it is a terrible thing for a private person to go into debt, but it is quite an easy thing for a government to do so. Now, that should not be.

At certain times we begin to look around and see that it is not the people at all that are to blame. You know the things that people who are out of power say about those who are in power. Of course if half of the things they said were true it would mean that those people were guilty of treason every day. I do not believe a quarter of what I hear, because I know that our public men have a terrible time of it. I have been in the midst of practical politics when I was very young and I know all about that. It is easier for us who are outside to look into the matter of constructive plans. Our public men are so harrassed that they have not time to look into such matters, and we do not expect very much of that from public men. At election time they have no opportunity to do fundamental thinking; they have to make a mass appeal on a large number of questions, and we are supposed, when we vote, to say Yes or No to those questions. We who are outside should get away from our complaining, and say, " We will do what we can in the direction of educational work along constructive lines."

Now, I am going to talk to you about the plan. It is called the Equitous Plan. It was thought out by a man who lives in the United States, not a very well-known man, but one who, with his daughter, is giving a lot of disinterested service in trying to get to the bottom of this economic question. He sometimes says, " I would like to discover the missing link in economics." You know how elusive it all seems to be when we think we have put our finger on it, and then it seems to fly away. If there is a solution of the problem it seems like the little verse I read in a poem called " Relativity. " The first part you know very well. It goes thus:-

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are; High up in the sky you shine, But according to Einstein You are just around the bend, You are not where you pretend, And your sweet seductive rays Have been leading men astray

All these years; Oh, little star, Don't you know how bad you are?

This plan is based upon the money question. It seems difficult to think in the abstract; to think of the natural resources. We seem a bit slow in observing and understanding the obvious. Just think of how many people could be put down in the vacant land between Montreal and Toronto. Think, even, of the amount of vacant land between Montreal and Smith's Falls. Then think of Montreal, all crowded for three or four flights; no place for children to play without being killed; smoke hanging like a pall over the city, getting into the lungs and shutting off 25°/0 of the sunlight. Is it not strange that people do not think more about the land question? There is plenty of it. Of course the trouble is fear. The big fears today are the fear of want and the fear of work-that is, human primary production, punching the clock, and all that sort of thing. I early saw that there was not very much in that sort of thing, and that is why I sailed into the law business and got up nine floors, away from any toil, that is, toil largely with my hands, or anything of that kind.

I suggest to you that we should all think more on this land question. The other day I saw a poem that helped me to understand it better than I did before, although I have dwelt on this question for a number of years. Of course we lawyers get a pretty clear first-hand view of deeds and titles and that kind of thing, in the searching of records to see that there is no cloud on the title, and telling the client that everything is quite all right. I once had a client who asked me, " How do these people get that, from the Creator? Isn't there a little cloud on the title just there?" Well, now, of course, he was just fussy. We have these title deeds, but there is a cloud, no doubt. If we cannot just start and clear that, the business will not pay.

Of course the whole thing is wrong. God intended that the land should be for all his creatures, and it is a ridiculous proposal, though I have done my full share of land-grabbing-I do not want to pose as a purist, or anything of that kind. After all, all that is wrong that I should get natural resources, and then say to my fellows, " You can go and apply your labor to that, but you must pay me a profit." That thing is utterly ridiculous, and we can never have peace, we can never have plenty, under that system.

This poem was written by a man who was born in this Province. When he was about eight years old his family went to Cleveland, and now he writes wonderful verses. His name is Edward Vance Cooke. He is a very brilliant, kindly man. This poem he calls-

You can see a little strain of philosophy running through that. In talking to some Harvard students I observed that this poem did not register on them very quickly. I observe that it registers well here. I told those students that if it did not register quickly with them they should go around to the Medical School and see a physician, and have him touch them-I forgot at the moment whether it was the cerebrum or cerebellum-but I said, "Get both cerebrum and cerebellum touched;" and if anybody should come here and read that poem, and then pick up an ordinary book called Current Economics as taught today, if you cannot see through that thing you should really consult somebody."

So the suggestion of this Equitous Plan is that we should have pure money. today we have gold. Well, that has done a lot of good work. The National Bank Bulletin of New York says that gold stands on a good basis, and it is better than any other medium in many ways, but that it is quite conceivable that we may find some other plan that would work just as well. So some of us say that the real basis of exchange should be one hour of adult human work. You see the way that would work-any work as we have it today, pleasant, useful service. Conflict would stop when we would give work for work. All I can do for you is to work for you, and that is all you can do for me. I ask you this: If I get work from you and do not give you work in return, what do I give you? Of course I give you some kind of tribute. Where do I get that? Generally from the Government; some kind of special privilege legislation, the sort of thing we are all chasing after-and I have done my full share of log-rolling.

So we say one hour of toil, human work, with the Mutual Bank, with cheques. If I get something from you I issue my own money. Now, do not be afraid of that, even the first time you hear it, because the thing is so simple. You say, "This sounds visionary;" but you can see that it sounds just because the really practicable thing is the sound thing, the true thing, and the just thing, while the impracticable thing is what we have before us in the system of today. None of us are happy. The world is in a terrible foment. So we say that if we had one hour of adult human labor our own interest and profit would be complete. But we also say that the rich man of today would be richer; that is, in 1926, the middle of real work, if there were rich people, they would be richer. There is no need to sacrifice; there is plenty for everybody.

But can we have a peaceful, happy world while some people are at a disadvantage? They would pull down the finest civilization that was ever built. Do we not like to be around with well-off people who live in a nice street and have nice things? Of course we do. Well, what is the best way to cure a person of these extreme and bitter views? Make him comfortable. People on the outside growl and say bitter things, but when they get on the inside, and the salary starts, perhaps from the Government, they are pleasant, and they say that the other people on the outside are just trouble-makers, while those on the outside are as cross and mad as wet hens.

Now, let us make this reform by agreement. The ordinary way is to impose reforms either with bullets or ballots, and there is not much difference, because ballots for a bad law may be just as insidious and evil as a bad war, though there is no war that is any good; we are discovering that now. Nobody in particular is responsible. Public men that do not want war; most of them send their sons. Of course military men do not want war; nobody does; but are we going to have brains enough to stand off and take a good look at ourselves and ask what we are fighting about? I make bold to say that the cause is commodity-money, not result-unit money. When we have money as a basis we at once fix the price of goods upon it, and then we want it scarce so that it will be sure. So here is a money-plan that encourages individual initiative, the holding of private property, co-operation, and self-government, but at the same tune has no special privilege, but a fair field and no favour. You do the thing you are best fitted for, and so do I; hence we both enjoy the benefits of the division of labor, and there is no disparity in our hours of work. Of course people used to ask, "Would you exchange your hour with that of a street sweeper? " But now the street sweeper lives in the house next to the college professor, and drives a nice machine.

It would be worth while to get a change in the social order. We always would be far happier than we are, now we have to listen to quarrels and disputes between husband and wife, brother and brother, and members of families, all over property. One of my clients who engaged me to collect a claim for him, wanting to put some iron in my soul, told me, "Get after this man; don't treat him as if he was a Christian!" I doubt if there is a lawyer who does not go home pretty well tired, especially if he is dealing with criminal law. But we do not need all that; the conflict would be gone if we could adopt by agreement such a plan as this. I do not think it would take a terrible lot of educational work to show people that such a plan would pay. Of course there is no use talking about it if it will not pay.

People may think they are going to have a hard time making a living out of this plan, and that it will involve a lot of disagreeable work. That is not the idea at all. Experts estimate that the present waste amounts to billions upon billions. In 1924 the Allies spent $2,500,000,000 in preparedness for war. We now have 6,000,000 active soldiers, with 24,000,000 in reserve. We spent about a billion and a half on advertising. It is hard to find the billions that are lost in strikes that were quite avoidable. What do we spend in litigation all over the world? What do we spend in Government, that does not do much for us-another commission, another set of people to try to do something with this new law. In the United States the figures for government and avoidable waste are startling; they run up

to $10,000,000,000.What would that enormous sum do in the way of food, clothing and shelter? Take the waste in bookkeeping,-banking is bookkeeping; under this plan two-thirds of the bookkeeping could be done away with. What does that mean in the feeding and clothing and housing of the people of the world?

On the other hand, we have only begun to get all that we can out of the soil. In the last fifty years the fertility is said to have increased eight times. What would it mean if we were able to make fertile all the acres that are fit for working, for the benefit of those people who have never had a chance?

With this new pure dollar, free from tribute, the process of exchange would just be a checking-account against the Mutual Bank. The bulletin of the National City Bank had an article which said, "The whole object is to exchange services; and if all the cheques and tickets were brought together they would cancel each other. " Everybody is working for everybody else. We are all consumers, and the consumer pays the full cost of making and delivering the article; and by eliminating all the billions of waste it is calculated that one dollar would be equal to $50 under the present system today. Then think of the rent, interest and profit account-the most wasteful of all. It takes some time for ideas like this to sink into most minds, because they are not thinking in terms of humanity, not thinking of having things for use rather than profit.

I have a genial friend who is incubating a great scheme. He has had an eye on natural resources, but finds most of them taken up. However, he says that the air is still left, so he proposes to bottle it up, and prevent people from breathing except those who pay him tribute. At Christmas time, however, being a good Christian and churchman, he proposes to select a list of friends, and send them bottles of air!

An encouraging sign of the times, which shows that human nature is as sweet as a nut, is the number of people who are giving away large sums of money in these days for education and churches and hospitals without expecting any return. An eminent doctor friend of mine, who is a specialist in nervous diseases, told me that if this plan could be put in operation he would guarantee that two-thirds of the sickness would disappear and that patients would leave the lunatic asylums in large numbers, because the plan would relieve them from worry that causes sickness and insanity.

We call our countries Christian, and we would like them to be Christian, but we cannot make them so when we have a pagan system that, like Topsy, just grew. Our difficulty is not because of human nature or animal ancestors; it is that up to this moment we have not understood how to devise an equitable economic system, and really do what is fair with each other. We have memorized the Golden Rule; and now do you not think we should begin to live the Golden Rule? So I hope you will not think this too violent a strain, and I trust you may begin to think about the problem in these terms. We must find the cause of war and do away with it, and some of us think that the cause lies in that land question and the money question.

I would like to recall another poem in order, if possible, to get people's minds turned against war, and with the hope that we may find a plan so that they will not have to go through that agony again. It is a poem written by Richard le Galliene, called

THE CHAIRMAN voiced the thanks of the Club to Mr. Ross for his thought-stirring address.