THE MACHINE AGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 250, 22 October 1935, Page 12

THE MACHINE AGE.

MAN POWER OUSTED.

AN ELECTRIC COAL CUTTER. MINERS MUCH CONCERNED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 16. A project announced recently by the Broken Hill Proprietary has aroused a great deal of alarm and resentment in our northern coal district. The Broken Hill Proprietary, which lias very extensive and successful iron works established near Newcastle, is naturally anxious to be certain of its coal supply, and it proposes to take steps accordingly. It intends to reopen the Durham mine (one of the old Lambton collieries) and to install there an electric coal cutter and carrier, which will, it is j said, completely transform industrial conditions on the coalfields. The Broken Hill Proprietary superintendent has stated publicly that when this machine is running the Avhole operation of coal-getting will be performed by a crew of 12 men, who will enable the machine to handle 300 tons a day. This average of from 20 to 30 tons per man outdistances hopelessly the present average, for the ordinary collier shovels from about 8 +ons to 15 tons per day. This "speeding up" at a time when everybody is advocating a shorter working week is alarming enough in itself, but the most menacing feature of this new development is that it threatens to dispense altogether with the coal hewers and wheelers. Already it is claimed that the introduction of labour-saving devices has deprived 10,000 men of work on the northern coalfield during the last few years, and now the minors are askod to accept a change which, as one of the Reading officials of the Northern Miners' Fedora" tion has said, will eliminate two-thirds of the members of the organisation and will mean "the devastation of the coalmining communities."

" Grave Public Danger." Naturally this fresh threat of unem- ; Payment in our most important coal area has produced a great agitation , there. The various unions and other industrial organisations have determined to make a stand against what they regard as a grave public danger. The Miners' Federation has passed a scries of strong resolutions to the following effect: "That labour shall not be supplied to work the mechanised loader at the Durham colliery; that efforts be made to secure help and sympathy from all kindred organisations and public bodies in this struggle,] and that Labour members in both State and Federal Parliaments be urged to invoke the assistance of the Government on the ground that the further mechanisation of the coal industry can result only in the displacement of more labour and the disastrous increase of unemployment." Of course, those who hold the orthodox or traditional conception of industrial progress can see no ground for objection to any new labour-saving device or invention. Mr. C. M. McDonald,. who has been president of our Employers' Federation and is now chairman of the Northern Collieries Association, has made a public ••declaration of in characteristic fashion. Tho owners in the Northern coalfields are endeavouring to increase the mechanisation of their mines and they will continue to do so, in the manner followed in other industries for increasing production and lowering costs " he says. In other words, the industry must progress," no matter what raav happen to the wage-earner. The "Sydney Morning Herald," which holds the sa,uncomfortable creed, assures the workers blandly _ that in tho long run the cheapening of commodities by the aid of labour-saving devices has always been beneficial to the worker, because it has lowered prices and enlarged the avenue for employment in other dircc- ' tions; and it urges the Labour organisations, in effect, not to enter into conflict with what it regards, apparently, as the immutable laws of industrial evolution.

Misfortune Without Remedy. view of the problem of mechanisation two comments mav be made. _ In the first place it ignores the giave injury inflicted 011 the man who, through relentless competition or the _ introduction of labour-savin-machinery, loses his employment. For tins misfortune, as Nicholson said 50 years ago, "there is, and can be, no lemedy, and for that reason, where possible, it should be avoided. But the easy-going doctrine that a man who, under such circumstances loses his job can always find, as the Free Traders used to say, "something else" to do, is a pure delusion. There was not much excuse for it even in the days of Cobden and Bright, when England was still "the workshop of the world," and every cheapening of production opened for her anew market, which reacted beneficially upon production and employment alike. In these days—now that nearly all the great industrial nations aim at supporting themselves, and "the local market for the local producer." is their watch word the era of the "constantly expanding market," which our grandfathers enjoyed so thankfully is over and done. During the post-war period it has been said repeatedly by competent economic and industrial authorities that a large proportion of those thrown out of work in -factory or mine will never find regular employment at their own trade again, and what work they do ultimately get will be of necessity less valuable and worse paid.

Economic thought throughout the world has concentrated very seriously on the terrible problem in recent years, and our miners can find a great deal of evidence to support their conviction that the mechanisation of modern

industry is largely responsible for the world-wide unemployment, and that the

time has come to restrict the use of

machinery when its power to displace labour is being manifestly used with disastrous effects.