The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1920. INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1920. INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.

The abnormally high prices of manufactured goods has had the effect of drawing attention to the question of promoting the highest efficiency with the twofold object of increasing the output as well as the durability of the goods. Wages have advanced by leaps , and bounds, so that it is only reasonable to expect there would be an appreciable increase in the output of the workers. Unfortunately, in the Dominion, this expectation lias not been realised. Instead, the tendency has been in the opposite direction. Plainly this is burning the candle at both ends; perpetuates the high cost of living, and has a demoralising effect on the workers. It is, therefore, interesting to note what the Empire's greatest competitor (the United States) is doing with regard to industrial organisation and efficiency. In ji recent address, given at a meeting of the Auckland Industrial Association by Mr: J. Harbutt, considerable light was thrown on this subject. First of all the aim is to obtain "100 per cent, efficiency," and from the .point of view, of put-

put, said Mr. Harbutt, the American is certainly efficient. In the motor factories he visited he 3aw evidence of the sentiment expressed by the great American labor leader (Samuel Gompers) some years ago: "Give us the latest machinery. "We will welcome it; we will endeavor to improve it; we will get the utmost out of it." That is the spirit which should prevail throughout the world; it is the true mainspring of competition and trade expansion, besides a powerful stimulus to individual effort, as the fast man , gets the benefit of his expertness. They have no minimum wage scheme in the United States; if a man is good he is paid well ,and encouraged to excel, a policy that tends to add to the self-respect of every expert worker, while reducing all the workers to a dead level has the opposite effect. As an instance of the difference in output in New Zealand as compared with America, Mr. Harbutt 'stated that whereas in the Dominion "one man one machine" was the rule, he saw in America one man on three machines, each of which was turning out more in an hour than the one man one machine in New Zealand, though the machines in both countries were identical. The illustration is one that conveys a plain moral. At the root of this speeding up system is expert organisation, whereby everything is so arranged as to give the least possible labor. Manufacturers in a large way find that it pays to employ organisation specialists at £IOOO a year to make increased production possible by standardising' and reducing the motions of each worker so as to produce the utmost efficiency at. the minimum expenditure of time and labor. Such a system is only possible where the workers have freedom of action and are not subject to the pernicious and uneconomical rule of taking their time from the slowest and least efficient meu. America is by no means free from industrial troubles; they are, in fact, greater than in the Domin ion, but the foremen and managers hold regular meetings to discuss details and methods, and there is a growing endeavor on the part of the employers to get into closer touch with the employees, it may be argued that the American system tends to create specialists and not good all-round workers. It is surely better for a man to be able to do one thing well, and receive high wages for his work, than to be an inefficient or inferior worker at much lower pay. The system does not prevent an ambitious man from rising, and it has the advantage of paying by results, besides giving scope for talent. As yet the secondary indus tries in the Dominion are limited in number, but the indications are they will rapidly increase. Moreover, the main principle applies with equal force to all manual work. Organisation and efficiency are the two great levers of industrial progress. While there is a shortage of labor the workers can dictate their own terms, and take their own time over the work they perform, but there will surely come a period when the law of supply and demand will be the re verse of what is now the case, and then there will be no place for the slack or inefficient man. The existing methods of reduced output at higher wages is a greater evil than appears on the surface, and is a deterring factor in industrial expansion. The principle adopted in America that if a miu is a good worker he is paid well and encouraged to excel is sound and logical. The workers of New Zealand would find that its adoption would be greatly in their interests, while from an economical point of view the country would gain greatly, and there would ensue a larger measure of prosperity, which would be equitably distributed amongst those who are most worthy.