TEAM PLAY AND PROGRESS.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 August 1926, Page 4

TEAM PLAY AND PROGRESS.

UNITED STATES WAY. NEW YORK, June 21. In las opening* address, entitled “ Team Play and Progress,” Mr Lewis E. Pierson, Chairman of the executive committee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, dwelt on the manifold duties of bankers in encouraging and stabilising industry. He said :

Through an evolution with which we arc all familiar, our country has led the way in the development of the now industrial era. For half a century we have been perfecting the industrial machine which to-day produces more manufactured products than are made in any other country in the world. PRODUCE MORE, GET MORE.

In building up this machinery we abandoned most of the industrial philosophy and altered most of the methods of the older manufacturing nations. We started with tho premise that the more any nation produces the more there will be to divide among its people, and we took for the base of our industrial structure the programme of high production.

To secure this high production wo quickly learned that two factors immediately were necessary. They were: 1. Power and machinery. 2. The development of business units large enough to command capital to set up and maintain elaborate manufacturing plants. We placed increasing horse-power behind the machinery until to-day we .have an average of 4-h.p. available for every industrial worker in tho United States. High production, high wages, and high consumption, therefore, are the cardinal principles of modern American industry, and throughout the world to-day American industry is com. peting with the industries of other countries which arc proceeding on the theory of low production, low wages and low consumption. As we look about us to-day wo can reach only one conclusion.- We sec our own country prosperous, our industries thriving, and our people employed. We know, however, that these nations are still in process of recovering from the effects of a long and disastrous war, and prudence requires that we should seek further evidence before we definitely conclude that America’s industrial policy is the policy which must prevail. Part of that evidence I desire to lav before you. UNPREJ U DICED VIEWK.

I'.Mr Pierson here recited the history of the “ Daily AI ai 1 ” Mission, making extensive quotations from reports of its members, and lie proceeded.] It was my good fortune to talk t’i members of the mission shortly before they returned to England. I found them highly intelligent, and possessed not only of experience and skill in.their own trades, but also exceptionally well informed on the general problems of industry.

It was an inspiration to see Amerlmn industry through their eyes. They pad seen and talked with American workmen, they had examined our factories, and they had scrutinised our

manufacturing methods and compared them with the corresponding methods and conditions which obtained in their own land. And their verdict was the endorsement of the American idea.

The statements I have quoted represent the views of unprejudiced British workers and can safely be taken at their face value. These outside observers confirm our own conviction that we have built up in the United States an industrial organisation which on tho whole has produced and will continue to produce a wider diffusion of contentment and prosperity than any other industrial system which the genius of mail has yet devised.

Sincerely inquiring into the reasons for our progress, these visitors have placed their lingers on two factors which in their judgment have been most largely responsibly for our favoured position. And it is one of .these that I desire most particularly to direct your attention. The first, that of high production, with its attendant corollaries of high wages and high standards of living, is a matter which we can safely leave to the manufacturers of America, to whose progressive energy, and broad vision are due the results already achieved.

The second, the co-operative spirit, which to-day exists between management and labour within American industry, is the important part of the spirit of team work which more and more is infusing our whole industrial

fabric. Bankers meet hankers not merely to seek new ideas for their own establishments hut also to improve the whole hanking system of the country. Manufacturers gather in their conventions not merely to secure new ideas for their own factories but also to provide joint counsel and joint action on those problems which affect the industrial production of the nation. VALUE OF UNITED EFFORT. In whatever way we turn we can discover signs that the American business man lias learned the value of united effort. We see trade associations developing through group action the science and standards of each industry, and we find the business men of each community joining ’chambers of commerce and merchants’ associations to improve civic and commercial facilities.

Wo discover the Chamber of Commerce of the United States bringing together in one great co-operative body organised business groups of the entire country, studying problems that press upon all phases of industry, linking the manufacturer with the merchant and the hunker, and encouraging common thought and common action for the common good.

We behold the Government devoting its resoruce and its authority to the solution of industries’ difficulties, devising means of eliminating waste, anil of standardising production, collecting data and statistics to guide the course of commerce, and joining in a concerted movement for national and industrial progress. “ TEAM PLAY.” From the workman at his bendli to the executive‘official at his desk, the spirit of co-operation and team play invigorates our whole industrial movement. American business has accepted as its motto the American doctrine that “in union there is .strength,” and has put the driving force of intelligent team play behind tlic proved principles of its industrial philosophy. No industrial system that the brain of men can devise will ever he perfect, because it will always be subject to the imperfections of fallible human nature. The wise patriotic man, however, will patiently search out those imperfections which are merely superficial, and not confuse them with imperfections which are fundamental. f can think of no greater service, theroftire, which organisations such as our Bankers’ Association and our Chambers of Commerce ran perform for their members and for the public than to bring home to the Amereian people the encouraging conviction that the fundamentals' of our present industrial .system arc sound and’ secure.