Craftsmen or Machines?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 511, 8 April 1949, Page 9

Craftsmen or Machines?

HOMAS CHIPPENDALE, the 18th Century cabinet-maker whose graceful furniture is much sought after these days by collectors and connoisseurs, was a craftsman of genius. Yet many of his | contemporaries — men like Mayhew, Ince, Johnson, and Manwaring, whose names are less widely rememberedwere scarcely less gifted in their own individual ways. In our own machine age of mass production and utility designs, there ate many who contend that the day of the craftsman is over, and that a man who spends all his time tightening the same screw on an assem- | bly line can never become interested in | the final product of his labour. | Something of this idea lies behind a new series of discussions starting from 2YA on the subject Craftsmen or Machines? in which various groups of people who are directly interested in the problems of craftsmanship gather around the microphone to try and work

out their attitude to the position to-day. In the first discussion, which can be heard from 2YA this Thursday, April 7, at 7.10 p.m., an employer, a union secretary, and a trades teacher argue about the outlook for wérkers in the skilled trades in New Zealand. They deal with some misconceptions about the work done in our, industries, and point out that pride of . workmanship is as necessary now as it was in Chippendale’s time. The discussion has been sub-titled "Aspects of Apprenticeship." The second discussion,’ ‘"Tosday’s Trainees," enables the apprentices themselves to have their say, and to criticise (if they want to) their training methods. It will be broadcast at 7.10 p.m. on Monday, April 11. The third discussion, timed for 7.10 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, is titled "To-morrow’s Craftsmen," and in it three secondary schoolboys on the threshold of adult life wonder whether they will find what they want in one of the skilled trades, The final discussion will be a +sum-ming-up of the whole position by H. C. D. Somerset, B. H. Clapcott, and O. Conibear, to be broadcast at 7.10 p.m. on Monday, April 18. The series will be chaired by H. C. McQueen, Commissioner of Apprenticeship, and although the discussions are to be heard first from 2YA, the other main National stations will broadcast them also in due course.