A PROPHECY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 478, 11 March 1933, Page 7

A PROPHECY

THE MACHINE AGE VOLUME OF PRODUCTION HAS NOW OUTSTRIPPED DISTRIBUTION. DISPLACEMENT OF LABOUR. (Published by Arrangement with The Auckland Executive, N.Z. Farmers' Union.) "As far baek as 1920 technologists saw that their automatic machinery was heading our world into a terrible crash. They figured the crash due about 1930. It actually happened an 1929, six months earlier," says the Vancouver Sun, commenting on Mr. Mayne Parrish's contrihution in the New Outlook of America. The Flood of Goods. "By 1929 the flood of food® and 'gioods created hy automatic machinery had reacheid such' ai huge volume that an antiquated system of finance and credit and distribution could1 not handle it; so buying fell off, and th'e depression set in. As well try to handle and distribute with horse cars the millionist of people who daily cross "up and down New York, as to try to handle the output of .modern machinery with our present political and social and financial machinery. "Few people realise the extent to wiMch automatic machinery has upset the modern world, 'a.nd how recent has been th'at upset. "Since the days of the Pharaohs, there was little change in the way of do-inig work. Then came steam, eleetrieity and machinery. "Tihe maehine displaced handicraft, but technology hasi now displaced handicraft, but technology has now displaced hand-operated machines, with one, two or three automatic machines to the sinigle industrial plant. This has happened since 1915. And since then, production has advanced so rapidly that people are just beginnimgi to realise their serious j problem. "That problem is to simplify and to speed up distribution to the tempo of automatic maehine production. "To seek a way out hy having people drop the benefits of- automatic machinery, and to revert to handicraft is as senseless 'and silly as to suggest that men drop the use of fire and light and electricity, and go back to cave dwelling. "It is only when present day production is compared with that of 15, or 30, or 100 years ago, that there is seen the vast change that must take pia.ee in finance and distribution. One Man in One Hour. "To-day one man in one hour can, with modern machinery, manufacture as many incandescent lamps as in 1914 took 9000 hours. "Thiree years ago machines produced 600 cigarettes a minute. Today machines produce1 2600 cigarettes a minute. "The miller of ancient Athens ground out in a day only two barrels of flour. A Minneapolis flour mill today produces 30,000 baa."i"els of flour per day per man. Brickmakers for 5000 yeai"S never averaged oveir 450 bricks per day per man. A modern straight-line brick plant will produce 400,000 bricks per ray per man. "And as it is in industry, so it is in agriculture. To-day one man in one hour does what in 1840 took 3000 hours. "How; far technology with its machines has igone in replaeing men can be realised when it is seen that 100 men in a modern brick plant, working continuously, could produce all the bricks used to-day in the United States and Oanada. "When this brick situation i® applied to other industries such as shoes, clothdng, cement, one can catch a glimpsa of how drastie is the adjustment that society has to make, becausq in a. land of plenty, man finally will not allow his fellowman to starve or xot. "Normality in to-day's maehine age means that man doss not have to work more than four or five houi-s per day, but to achieve this high standard both labour and capital will have to agree to become more scciable and drop a lot of present lost and waste miotion. "Just as tedb'noeracy in 1920 forecast the crash of 1929, so does technocracy to-day forecast that unless drastie adjustments are made in distribution within 18 months the modern world faces national bankruptcy and chaos. "This prophecy is something that must at once engaige the minds of all thinking people. "But Government leaders can only aet if their people are instructed in the new order that is required to di-tribute the products of technology. "There need he no fear of teshnocracy, any more more than there was need to fear th'e industrial revolution in England of a century ago; or the scientific discoveries of Bruno 300 years ago. 'Teclbnocracy is a benefactor of man. It will lift the human family to heights of living never before dreamed of, but those benefits will come to man and his children only as hel studdes and adjusts himself to the new conditions."