The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, MAY 17, 1932. APPLIED SCIENCE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 May 1932, Page 4

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, MAY 17, 1932. APPLIED SCIENCE.

The history of applied science in industry, ha® been, and always should be, the history of the replacement of useful tilings by others of superior usefulness. In -the long past this •wan an easy and not a very painful Adjustment, for while the new product ■displaced workers’engaged on. the old, it involved no huge company, no expensive plants, no highly specialised workers, for every worker had many other activities in which lie could engage. Even in more irecent times when the motor-car .'superseded tne horse carriage it was possible to convert the plant and machinery of the carriage factory to the manufacture of the new motor vehicles. And in cases where tliij, was not done, only a few investors of capital; suffered and the workers wetfe capable of finding and performing other work, Such a simple solution is no longer possible, comments tiio Christchurch Times, The specialisation and intricate organisation of modem industrial and tinancial , life have brought about a condition where such (readjustments become almost impossible, Intense specialisation is the key-note of modern industry, with the result that a man trained to be a cog in on e part of the industrial machine cannot be fitted into any Other part. Outside his particular job he i 3 on the level of an unskilled labourer and an incompetent one at that. Then, again, the modern factory is jtist as highly specialised. From foundation to roof It is designed for the purpose of making one specific product. Such plants are worthless if the/ products it manufactures have no markets Machinery is in the same, position, for the number of machines capable of being put to other uses ini the event of. decline in deirfand is practically negligible. There is thus .unusable man-power and unusable' plant a,nd equipment. But another phase in this. application-iof science, to industry is causing far greater anxiety. A huge displacement of workers lias been going on in all manufacturing .countries for more than a decade, not only in times of depressed trade, but also during periods of prosperity. 'Hie growing army of industrial operatives displaced ey machines and llfpible to find otiler work is proving one of till? gravest problems of modern times, ami the old theory that wm&ors thrown out of one occupation are absorbed by others is .diigpvoved by the swelling army of unemployeu skilled workers. In the past ) whenever machine/s have displaced men, new industries have ultimately sprung up to> absorb the unemployed. 'Now, for the first time in history, there are plain indications that this compensatory process has come to an end, and that the trend of modern invention is to make less work for idle hands instead of more. The fact that we live in a world in which machinery is necessary to production must be accepted as inevitable, but >vhat has yet to be learned l is how to. avoid its dangers