GO SLOW POLICY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1665, 23 January 1917, Page 4

GO SLOW POLICY.

“Slow work is a tragedy; carried to ultimate limits it means national suicide,” said the Chief Railway Commissioner of New South Wales, Mr James Fraser( during a lecture in Sydney recently). Mr Fraser quoted figures showing that, since 1908, there had been a falling-off of 15 per cent, in the production of work. In 1908, he said, the average number on the staff was 14,891, the number of train miles per man being 957. Each year had seen a redaction, until in 1915, with 20,535 men on the staff, the train miles per man had dropped to 800. In 1916 there was a slight increase, the number being 812. In part, the reduction had been due to shortened hours and improved conditions. Otherwise the Hgui’es would have almost ghastly significance. And yet, making allowance for this, there was a considerable margin of loss not accounted for, and it must be admitted that it was due to reduction in effort, or to misdirected effort. “Neither the individual who wastes his substance in riotous living, nor the community which wastes labour in superfluous work,” Mr Fraser added, “can maintain a high standard of comfort in life, and the sooner this fact is idealised and those who preach the gospel of ‘slow work’ and ‘sabotage’ are finally and definitely put out of business, the better both for the railway workers and the community as a whole.”