to produce at low cost, is only part of the story. Real efficiency is the ratio between the human effort and sacrifice given, and the results in production. To make cheaper goods at the cost of human happiness is not real efficiency. Nor, in the long run, can this kind of financial efficiency last; inhumane methods are bound to generate dissatisfaction and slackness, if not actual sabotage. But unhappily, human nature is shortsighted; and there is likely to be a perpetual tendency on the part of employers to slight the claims of such abstract ideals as Liberty, Equality, and Democracy, in their interest in immediate financial returns. For this evil there seems to be no permanent remedy save some form of democratic control over the power of capital.

After all, "the good will of labor is the most valuable asset in business." It is foolish to expect the utmost from workers when their attitude is one of docile, unthinking obedience, still more foolish when their attitude has become that of resentment and bitterness. In the chaos of plans and suggestions and experiments, we must expect a long period of clashing ideas, with much friction and much loss to production. But in all our musings on the tangled situation, we must never forget that the workers of the country must be fairly treated, treated as selfrespecting citizens; more than that, they must, if possible, be led to feel that they are fairly treated. For only so can we have a high morale in business; and without a high morale we can have neither happiness nor efficiency.

SUGGESTED READINGS

H. Schneider, Education for Industrial Workers.
J. S. Taylor, Handbook of Vocational Education.
H. S. Person, Industrial Education.

Meyer Bloomfield, The Vocational Guidance of Youth.
J. R. Commons, Industrial Goodwill.

R. F. Hoxie, Scientific Management and Labor.
Helen Marot, The Creative Impulse in Industry.
Ordway Tead, Instincts in Industry.

H. F. Ward, The New Social Order, Chap. IV.

F. W. Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management.

H. N. Gautt, Organizing for Work.

F. A. Cleveland, Organized Democracy, Chap. XXXV.

E. M. Friedman, etc., American Problems of Reconstruction, Chap. VII.

W. C. Redfield, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 411.

CHAPTER XXIII

CONSERVATION

PROUD as we Americans are apt to be of our efficiency in business, it is probably safe to say that, by contrast with an ideal mechanism of production and distribution, our existing processes are not more than ten per cent efficient. Few of our industries are much more than at the beginning of the development of their technique. The discoveries and inventions of modern science, the education of human skill, the organization of human effort, open endless vistas of progress before us. Eventually, when every ablebodied citizen works, a far shorter working day should suffice for a satisfaction of human needs far above the present average standard of life. Even now, if we had exercised a wise prudence in the developing of our national estate, we should be far richer than we are.

The inertia of the human mind-even of the American mind—is great. Trade journals and associations are doing a good deal to advertise the more efficient methods; and there is a visible improvement from year to year. But the opposition to a scientific organization of the national industry and commerce, and to the wise conservation of our resources, is more than a stupid conservatism; it comes largely from the deliberate opposition of individuals and groups that profit by the general loss. The fact is that business is run too exclusively to benefit the pocket-books of

the owners, and too little as a public service. Unhappily, the two ends often conflict.

It is doubtful if America has any more important duty than to conserve with a reasonable prudence the natural resources of the continent. Yet we have actually been wasting these resources with criminal prodigality. There has been no intelligent, comprehensive plan for this utilization. The nation's heritage has been allowed, for the most part, to fall into the hands of private owners; and these owners have been chiefly concerned with making immediate profits for themselves rather than with conserving this inheritance for future generations.

The

Take, for example, the destruction of our forests. There were over 800,000,000 acres of forests in this country when the white men came. Five-sixths of this area has now been cut over, culled, or burned. We are now taking twenty-six billion cubic feet of wood out of our forests annually, and growing only six billion cubic feet to replace what we take. depletion of the lumber supply has already seriously affected the whole population. Hundreds of thousands of needed homes remain unbuilt because of the high price of lumber. Many industries have been seriously crippled. A report of the United States Forest Service, in August, 1920, contains the following statements: "The timber of the country as a whole is being used and destroyed four times as fast as new timber is growing; and the saw timber, the most valuable and most needed part of the stand, is being cut five and one-half times as fast as it is produced. More than 80,000,000 acres of land that should be growing timber is unproductive waste, much more is only partially productive, and fires are steadily causing further deterioration."

The Forest Service deserves the highest praise for what it has done. But the policy of forest-reservation came too late to save the wanton despoiling of the greater part of our timber-supply. Methods of cutting have been exceedingly wasteful, reforestation has been neglected, and forest fires have been allowed to complete the destruction. Altogether, about ten million acres of forest are devastated annually by fires a yearly loss of between one and two hundred million dollars' worth of the national wealth. About forty billion feet, board measure, of merchantable lumber are cut annually, and another seventy billion are wasted in the forest and at the mill in getting it! In a comparatively few years more, at this rate, our reserves will be nearly exhausted.

Moreover, an expert has recently estimated that "in the yellow pine belt the values in rosin, turpentine, ethyl alcohol, pine oil, tar, charcoal, and paperstock lost in the waste are three or four times the value of the lumber produced. Enough yellow-pine pulp-wood is consumed in burners, or left to rot, to make double the total tonnage of paper produced in the United States."

This is what our reckless individualism has brought us to! In Europe, forest-cutting is carefully regulated by the various nations, so that there may be as little waste as possible, and no depletion of the supply. Fortunately, it is never too late to plant forests. There are hundreds of millions of acres of land in our country, not suitable for other purposes, upon which enough timber can be grown to meet our needs. What is wanted is a comprehensive national policy, strict regulation of timber-cutting, and a greatly increased organization for fire-patrol.

Forests can be replaced, in time. But the wasteful