THE NEW FACTORY: ITS WORK OUTLOOK

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 61, 13 March 1934, Page 6

THE NEW FACTORY: ITS WORK OUTLOOK

Statements by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, by the Board of Trade, and by the banks indicate sustained greater activity in. British industry and trade. • In yesterday's issue was published portion ;of a review by Professor/John: Hilton'/of manufacturirjg industries,in Britain, particularly of those industries featuring .machine-tools. Machine-tools are doing what men used to ;do with handtools, are doing it 'at much greater speed, and; as'"one man'qan look after 'a battery of automatics;" there are'-.far fewer -men seen in such ♦workshops. But, notwithstanding the technocrats, he writes: Does that mean that'people are being permanently supplanted by machinery, and that we are in for perpetual heavy unemployment? I don't think so. He does not think so because he believes that the new efficient industry will expand to a degree far surpassing the old. This expansion is partly a question of selling prices; and theprocess is illustrated in Japan, for that country, coming in as a new competitor, has taken advantage fully of the new production methods, and her selling prices have startled the world. But Professor Hilton's report indicates that British production methods have come'up to the new level in many industries, and are coming in others. British industry is scientific and alert. Once it was alleged that British factories worked behind closed "doors. Now this seems to be true only of the bad and backward. The investigator finds that ■' the doors of the well-run establishment are open to him; he's welcomed and shown, arid told anything and everything. But the doors.of the scab shops', the sweat shops, the bully shops, the start 'cm and stop 'em shops, the mess and muddle shops, are kept well closed.

Adversity has worked for the development of the better class industry, and has been a refining and improving influence.