GERMAN "EFFICIENCY"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 48, 21 November 1918, Page 6

GERMAN "EFFICIENCY"

. » WJ'RLD WEARY OF B0.)S? a KAISER'S PEOPLE MUCH v OUTCLASSED

■Mr. E. T. Adams, author of the following article, which appeared in. the "San Francisco Chronicle," is an engineer of national standing, professionally familiar with conditions which he describes.

The world' is weary of nil this talk of "German efficiency,'' with the implication that "efficiency" is typically German or that "German efficiency" is particu-. larly commendable. This is not true. If the German appears to be more' efficient than a Frenchman "or an American it i 3 chiefly because we give the name "German efficiency" to acts to which other peoples would give a very different name, regardless of whether they are efficiently performed'Or not. The German performance in Belgium is constantly quoted as a typical instance of German efficiency in making war. Why efficiency? When the Sicilian saws olf his shotgun and, from .ambush, kills the neighbour by whom ho has lived and worked for years we do not say' "Sicilian efficiency"; we exclaim, "A black-hand outrage." Much of this so-pllcd German efficiency, when analysed, shows this same rutlilessness, this same disregard of moial values and human rights. The German is super-efficient only when we pronounce him efficient because of acts which are commonly and rightly considered as evidence of moral degeneracy. This war is largely to teach tho Germans that disregard of the rights of others is not efficiency. Comparison of Methods. The German is not more efficient than the American, neither is he more efficient than the Englishman or the man of France. It is true that there is probably nn class in Germany so worthless and inefficient as the thousands of defectives from the bentcn nations of Europe whom wo allowed the German shipowner for his profits to gather together and transport to our shores. But, considered class by class, business men or professional men, mechanics or farmers, I think we may fairly say that the American, for example, has dealt as efficiently with 'his conditions here as has the German with the simpler problems of an older and more fully developed land.

Is German farming carried out more efficiently than American farming? I doubt it. Consider the difference in conditions. The German population of over 300 per square mile, as against an American population of less than 30. The German farmer does efficiently, by hand, the labour-that his father and his father's father did by hand, and he docs it much a; they taught him. The

American farmer does his farming by machinery which tho American developed, and without which his crop could neither be planted nor harvested. By a patient, plodding lifetime of toil the German chemist has perfected industries which are tho wonder of the world. Ho lacked opportunity to do anything elseor h'e was a fool; he was not efficient. The barons of the dye industry are not chemists; if he had been efficient the German chemist would have emigrated to America.

For the Benefit of the Upper Classes. German efficiency exists chiefly for the benefit of upper classes, for men of tho so-called "upper class," for men of noble birth, men of wealth, or men of special attainments, life 'in Germany is made, both pleasant and profitable, and it is made so at the expense of the masses lower in the social scale. Any educated German familiar with conditions both here and in Germany will admit that tho mechanic, the man earning his living by skilled labour, is a fool to remain in Germany. p ( t'o.-Hed he can get to America, hknow many Germans, in Germany, who have made this statement. Ido not recall one who contradicted it.

The care which is taken by the upper classes to conceal this fact from tho lower classes is no doubt evidence of.the efficiency, or the ruthlessness, of the German minority, who control the Press, the school, and the pulpit to the extent necessary to enable the few to exploit the skill and the. labour of the many of their fellow-Germans. - -

On the streets of any German city women with basket ami broom are the scavengers behind the horse. Doubtless the German will tell you that it is efficiency to use women "ather than men for this purpose. Travellers in Germany ore familiar with the sight of the German woman harnessed with dogs who go daily io market with the produce of the farms. Thousands uf German women are so employed. The writer has seen them in all parts of the empire. In the German social scale the German peasant woman and 'he German dog aro are perhaps not so. widely separated as to make this appear unseemly to the German; but we in our country desire no efficiency of this type. Man versus Man-Hire Labour. German industries are r.ot n-ore efficient that American. They are different —so different it is difficult to compare them. Labour, both common and rkill ;d, is cheaper in Germany with us. Therefore, Germany has the .-tdraufoge in those industries where labour enters largely into cost. In America labour of all kinds is high. America has cheaper raw materials in many lines, and lias a manufacturing advantage in those industries where'material cost, :iiul especially in those industries where the volume of business is great enough to allow us to secure the cost reductions 'the special labour-saving machinery niakes possible where we can attain "quantity production?" American industries- n.ro specialists in quantity production.

The steel industry is one of the great German industries, but to an American Hie steel mills of Thyssen (the Carnegie of Germany) or of Krnpps seems small and crude .with the mills and the methods of the United States Steel Corporation or of Bethlehem. - ( At Gary is a miracle of machine-made material; at Essen is a miracle of hand-, made material. The one is typical of America, the other of Germany. It is evident that "cheap labour" is the foundation of Gentian commercial efficiency. And. as the/Kaiser and his aids pointed nut to the Ballins, the Thyssens, or capitalists of-Germany, a fundamental reason for (he irnr was tint thereby Germany was to ncquire the coal of ilelTimn, the iron ores of Prince, the petroleum, the wheat, and cheap labour of Russia and the Balkans. To "the end th'nt raw material and labour may always bocheap and thereby the great of Germany lxMnade greater. This may be. efficiency, hut even Germans are not wanting (o call it / ruthlessness. i