IS AMERICA SO GOLDEN?

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 433, 15 August 1928, Page 16

IS AMERICA SO GOLDEN?

EFFICIENCY AND SWEATED LABOUR EXAMPLE OF SMALL SAVINGS While he does not agree with the effect of American industrial organisation upon humanity, Professor H. Belshaw, lecturer in Economics at the Auckland University College, considers New Zealand could take a leaf from America’s book upon small savings. In an address last evening upon “America the Golden,” he said he did not regard the organisation of industry and commerce in America, as being perfect. American efficiency, and especially scientific management, nad a serious psychological effect on labour. It tended to reduce human beings to the level of machines, and made for the standardisation of tastes. Labour organisations were less independent than those in British communities, victimisation and exploitation of individual workers were by no means rare, and it was a known occurrence for machine-guns to be employed on recalcitrant workers. Unemployment, contrary to common belief, was worse in America than in England, and the existence of slums and sweated labour was not uncommon. On the other hand, the professor said ho thought more could be done to encourage the accumulation of small savings. Prodigious sums were saved in small amounts in the United States, and the wealth so compiled contributed in no minor degree to American prosperity. The labour banks, initiated in 1920 by the American labour organisations, had by 1924 accumulated resources totalling £30,000,000. They were operated by the organisations themselves, and the deposits comprised savings out of wages. Small savings were also encouraged by a system enabling consumers to become shareholders in the businesses they purchased from, largely on the instalment basis. Employees were encouraged to save by the purchase of shares in the corporations they worked for, and in 1920 over £140,000,000 had been saved in this way.