246 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

here and abroad, so far as tariff policies are concerned,
while its inauguration might be accompanied with temporary
 dislocations and losses, would in the long
run tend to stabilize more completely the new industrial
 order, with great permanent gains not only to
industry itself but also to the great body of wage-earners
and consumers.

But any constructive policy as to industrial stability and
employment, for the time being at least, must be confined
solely to domestic measures. The realization of this condition
 of affairs has caused main reliance for industrial
stabilization to be placed upon the development of increased
purchasing power among the great body of industrial
workers. By a constant advance in domestic wages and
incomes, it has been sought—and is constantly declared to
be practically possible—to absorb the output of our established
 industries and services, and to take care of the wageearners
 displaced by the adoption of improved methods
and machines. Industrial and financial leaders, as well as
the representatives of organized labor, as has already been
shown, have completely committed themselves to this
policy. By way of further illustration, President Green,
of the Federation of Labor, in addressing the students of
the University of Michigan in 1928, cogently expressed
this view as follows:

The nation cannot destroy the purchasing power through
the creation of an army of unemployed and expect to maintain
 increased commodity production. The buying power of
the people must be placed at a high level through an economic
condition which provides steady employment and high wages.
This is the only way through which a balance between production
 and consuming power can be maintained.
The other extremes in leadership in industrial policy
have no less strongly advocated the same policy. Mr.