TOIL NOT, EARN NOT

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 90, 13 October 1920, Page 5

TOIL NOT, EARN NOT

Much has been lost through the antipathy of British trade unionism to pa-y----ment-by-results. The gradual replacement of payment-by-results by time-pay-ment, and the grafting on to time-pay-ment of the uneconomic principle of limi-tation-of-output, have all tended to an under-production the bad results of which fall first and heaviest upon the weakest shoulders. Limitation-of-output is on a par with cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Of course, it must in fairness be added that where payment-by-results takes the form of a piece-rate, and where the rate is fixed unreasonably low or unreasonably high, dissatisfaction on one side or the other is sure to result ; and under this head both sides have been sinners. It is also.fair to say that limi-tation-of-output is sometimes the fault of the employer,' his plant, or his methods. But, admitting faults on both sides, it is still true that Labour blunders in limiting output; and if a result of the British coal dispute is to reintroduce payment-by-results, a step in advance will be made. The principle of the proposed settlement of the British, coal difficulty is that payment shall be measured, partly, not by individual output but by gross output. Though such an arrangement may shelter individual slackers, and may be far from perfect, anything that it adds to the coal output is gain to the nation. Fuel-famine tactics are as immoral as price-extortion, and are even more, collectively damaging, because, while ill-gotten gains may, and probably do, return into the machinery of .production, time lost is lost for ever.