TEXTILE WAGE CUT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

It was interesting to note your very biased editorial concerning the textile dispute in the Fall River-New Bedford area. While it cannot be denied that it is quite desirable to have full employment at high wage rates, your stand never indicates that you have considered whether or not the textile companies are able to afford the present wage rates.

Past history of the New England textile industry has shown it to be very cyclical in nature, enjoying periodically high profits and abysmal losses. Continual financial reinvestment in capital equipment has been subordinated to the desire of owners to obtain profits while they can, and to the consistent demands of workers to acquire higher wages. Southern competition benefits not only from lower wages but also from newer and more efficient machinery. The enactment of a minimum wage will, therefore, not completely solve the problem.

Your accusation that Stanton's group has "deliberately caused the unemployment of 18,000 workers" achieves the result you desire in portraying the textile manufacturers as a vicious, irresponsible bunch. You might reflect that the workers themselves (or their union) are 50 percent to blame.

If the remainder of the textile industry still in New England is to stay, it is not unreasonable that it should desire to be profitable . . . at least from a capitalistic standpoint. To do so apparently requires an acceptance of responsibility by the working force and a realization that lower labor costs, while presently inequitable when compared to other industry in the area, are a necessity. Management's demand for a wage cut, on the other hand, must carry with it the responsibility on its part to reinvest profits in new machinery that will reduce costs, raise a worker's productivity, and, thereupon, enable wages again to rise. Charles C. Townsend, Jr., 1B