The Editor's Corner

I am no economist, to support what I say with figures, nor a politician, to put people off with words; but I am one of the individuals of this people who were given—after having been "deprived" of much—the gift of "feeling," the power of "observation," and the capacity for "deduction"! I have felt that there is in the country a condition that calls for the gravest anxiety, robs peaceful families of their sleep, and draws a black curtain across the future of the young! And I have observed that much of this anxiety goes back to an abnormal high cost of living under which all classes of the people groan, whatever their incomes and their wealth, after the wave of high prices has vanished, or all but vanished, from every country on earth...

So I deduced, from this feeling and from this obser-vation, that we are heading toward the great catastro-phe which has come to threaten people with more than people imagine—with more than hunger and more than death! It has come to threaten humiliation and shame, and the feeling of the superiority of the mon-eyed... And I deduced that those whose incomes fall short of their expenses—especially the holders of posts and responsibilities—cannot make good the shortfall except in a painful way: either for the abundance of sacrifice it involves, if they are of noble character, or for the abundance of contempt it involves for social, civil, and divine laws and for the rights of others! And neither of the two ways may be passed over in silence.

Who, then, is responsible for the continuation of this condition, after all the world's markets have fallen and it has become possible for the people of the earth to balance, at least to some degree, income against expense! Why is the Lebanese still the only one on the face of the earth compelled to spend his monthly income on his "kitchen" in a week! Who is responsible for this exhaustion after the means of relief have become possible and within reach! Who is responsible for this exploitation of people's pains and toils, and for this threat of deprivation and famine to ninety percent

of the poor sons of Lebanon, when the customs warehouses are crammed with kinds of goods that would help to relieve at least one side

of the crisis? Who is responsible for this scandalous flaw in the balance between a man's income and his pressing needs each month, and for what the making good of this shortfall leads to—chaos, corruption, and trifling with people's interests among those of weak character or character exposed to weakness—which is what most people complain of in most dealings?

Who is responsible for the failure to abide by even some of the price schedules laid down for certain kinds of goods! The result of that rebellion was that it increased the dearness of those goods and the dearness of others besides, and forced the peaceable consumer himself to violate the law made for his own benefit, going halfway to meet the despotic exploiter who trades in people's lives and misfortunes, the profiteer of the evils of the earth, who has fitted himself with a mechanical conscience so as to be able to overcome the laws of humanity and of God, having already overcome the laws of the government! Who is responsible for this catastrophe that approaches with steady steps, threatening the life of the country and its dignity!

Why are the warehouses not opened and the free-dom of competition granted, as the freedom of monop-oly was granted before? Why are the interests of the few individuals who build their palaces upon black corpses looked after before the interests of the crush-ing majority of the individuals of this poor people!

I know that there is such a thing as "the general economic interests"; but I fear, if this condition continues, that there will remain no Lebanese people able to enjoy those "interests"! So set the matter right before you expand upon theories, and be assured that those upon the soundness of whose interests the country's general economic interests depend are other than the exploiters in the name of trade whom you know in this country!