MACHINES THAT OUST MEN

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 9 June 1920, Page 4

MACHINES THAT OUST MEN

I T MARVELS OR MASS PRODUCTION. The British workingman is going to hear a lot about mass production very soon (says an English paper). It is the new dominant file tor in world trade, and it is going to affect him in all manner ol ways lie perhaps little dreams of. American workmen, of course, have been up against it for a long time. American manufacturers turned out cheap "Waltham and Elgin watches by 1 t the million many years ago, each j watch, and each individual part of each ;js watch, being an exact duplicate of I every other timepiece of that grade. and of every corresponding individual : part. I Later. Ilenry Ford applied the same I I principle to the manufacture of motor p cars, with the result that he was able I in a very little while practically to monopolise the American market for l cheap ears, and seriously to threaten i the European market. To-day. over there, they are applying similar methods to the making of all j sorts of other commodities and articles in common use. Human labour is in i many instances being almost wholly i eliminated. One mechanical wonder, once started, will continue working without, pause, day in and day out, 5 Sundays included —a 168-hour week. > The newest American mass produces. tion .factories employ very few work--7 men. Here and there a man may be ' seen gliding silently about the vast £ shops crammed with intricate machiny ey. clicking a lever here, pressing a | button time. The mechanism does the rest. 3 iu cite,but one instance. A machine tj has been invented which can turn a | quarter of a million electric light bulbs i every 24 hours, and aJI the human j element in connection with it is reprereuied by three shift' of three men each. l'veutv-four ".eel arms gather the glass from ;• tank, each arm virtually taking the place of a pair of human hand.-, and the rest of the processes fire similarly performed and expedited. One ; man mixes by machinery the whole of the liquid glass required to feed six of the furnace.-. The effort- of several hundred skilled workmen", spread over an entire week, would have been required in order io produce a like output, working la the old-fashioned way.