INDUSTRIES IN CANADA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 April 1938, Page 7

INDUSTRIES IN CANADA

SOME IMPRESSIVE FIGURES. LESSONS OF EXPERIENCE. OTTAWA, Canada. “By the ordered sequence and systematic distribution of work in Canadian industries, standards of mechanical excellence and economics in production, undreamed of in the older industries, have been attained in the manufacture of some of the newer standardised articles, especially automobiles.” So states a report on the industrial and economical progress of Canada during the eighteen years of the post-war period issued by the Bureau of Statistics of the Canadian Government. This aspect of the improved methods of production is of particular interest to purchasers throughout the world of Canadian manufactured goods. Reviewing the 18 years of progress, the report states that “productivity per wage-earner in Canadian manufacturing plants rose sharply in 1922 from the low level of the preceding years and subsequently continued to rise at a more moderate rate.” The Bureau estimates that the productivity per wage-earner showed a gain of 3.06 points per year in the general index from 1919 to 1935.

"In the production of standardised articles a complete change has been brought about in the internal organisation of the factory by the introduction of the conveyor system. The result has been the continuous accumulation and transport of material from one section of the factory to another, where formerly the production of each article was confined to a particular part of the establishment. By the new method, men and machines- are not grouped together according to Icind, but are placed in the sequence of the functions they perform in producing the finished article.”

Whereas in the past an enlarged body'of workers was the chief .factor in expanding production, states' the report, more efficient technical equipment, improved organisation and enhanced skill on the part of the wo. rking force, seem definitely to have supplanted numbers as instruments of expanding production. "The number of wage-earners employed in the manufacturing plants of Canada." says the report, "was 468,000 in 1935 ag: linst 524.000 in 1919 and in the meantime,, the production of manufactured g, >ods increased by 39 per cent.”