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Cutting wages is the easiest and most slovenly way to handle the situation, not to speak of its being an inhuman way. It is, in effect, throwing upon labour the incompetency of the managers of the business. If we only knew it, every depression is a challenge to every manufacturer to put more brains into his business--to overcome by management what other people try to overcome by wage reduction. To tamper with wages before all else is changed, is to evade the real issue. And if the real issue is tackled first, no reduction of wages may be necessary. That has been my experience. The immediate practical point is that, in the process of adjustment, someone will have to take a loss. And who can take a loss except those who have something which they can afford to lose? But the expression, "take a loss," is rather misleading. Really no loss is taken at all. It is only a giving up of a certain part of the past profits in order to gain more in the future. I was talking not long since with a hardware merchant in a small town. He said: “I expect to take a loss of $10,000 on my stock. But of course, you know, it isn't really like losing that much. We hardware men have had pretty good times. Most of my stock was bought at high prices, but I have already sold several stocks and had the benefit of them. Besides, the ten thousand dollars which I say I will lose are not the same kind of dollars that I used to have. They are, in a way, speculative dollars. They are not the good dollars that bought 100 cents' worth. So, though my loss may sound big, it is not big. And at the same time I am making it possible for the people in my town to go on building their houses without being discouraged by the size of the hardware item.”