Cutting Wages, Slashing Prices

When other dictators cut the wages of their Government employes they always except the Army & Navy, bulwarks of Dictatordom. Most recent instance was the action of Dictator-President Gerardo Machado y Morales of Cuba. He dared not risk discontent among his lighting men, but slashed the pay of meek civil servants as much as 35%. But last week, in Rome the Original, the One & Only Benito Mussolini announced that every man or woman employed in any capacity by the Italian Government will accept on Dec. 1, 1930 wage cuts as follows:

1) Salaries above $3,000 cut 35%.

2) Salaries between $2,000 and $3,000 cut 25%.

3) Salaries below $2,000 cut 12%.

Promulgated by the Cabinet in the form of a decree which luckless little King Vittorio Emanuele must sign, these wage cuts will, it was estimated last week, affect 60% of the wage-earning population of Italy, including street-sweepers, bus-drivers, streetcar-conductors, postmen & postmistresses, policemen, workers on the State Railways, employes of the State Tobacco, Salt, Telephone and Telegraph Monopolies, doctors & nurses in the State Monopolies, school teachers & professors, personnel of the Army, Navy, Air Force and even of the National (Fascist) Militia, the Dictator's personal last line of defense. Explaining himself to the people of Italy with characteristic frankness, Il Duce gave three main reasons for what he has done:

1) Since the Treasury faces a deficit. Government wage cuts are "the only alternative to higher taxation."

2) The wages of non-Government employes "have already been deeply cut."

3) By reducing at one staggering stroke the earnings of 60% of the nation, Il Duce believes that he can force the sellers of manufactured goods and foodstuffs to cut their prices drastically, thus hammering down the cost of living to the lowered level of wages. Thus far, in the opinion of the Dictator, profiteering tradesmen have not cut their retail prices nearly enough to bring these into line with the staggering decline in wholesale raw product prices throughout the world.

Obviously if the Original, the One & Only can batter down retail prices 15%, a postman whose wages have been cut 12% will be better off than before.

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