Employers have generally protested against social insurance on the ground that the payments they are called on to make are an unbearable burden. Every one of these same employers provides for the wear and tear on buildings and machinery by setting aside what is known as the replacement fund. When a steam boiler, for example, is no longer fit for use, he buys a new one from this fund. We may properly inquire as to the source of this fund. Production, we have already learned, merely means creation of utilities. The obsolete steam boiler has been transformed, so to speak, into shoes, hats, cloth, or whatever else the finished product of that particular factory happens to be. Obviously, the price of the finished product must, under normal conditions and in the long run, be large enough to provide for deterioration in instruments of production. Otherwise the world would soon be out of such instruments. Why should a distinction be made between a worn-out machine and a worn-out worker ? If society can afford to repair and replace steam boilers, why may it not afford to doctor its sick and injured, and to pay at the end of a worker's life a lump sum to his dependents? The world, as we shall see in the following paragraphs, is fast coming to believe that society cannot escape the responsibility; that is, that prices must be high enough to care for a portion, at least, of the costs of labor upkeeps.

Copyright Underwood & Underwood, New York

Building a Modern Skyscraper.