CHANGING TIMES

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 51, 28 August 1926, Page 20

CHANGING TIMES

CLANNISH PEELINGS OF THE ■ . VILLAGE.

Fifty years ago, when transport was primitive, writes Sir A. Denny in "Engineering," tho staffs and artisans remained largely in the place of their birth, education, and apprenticeship. Tradition th*s grow up in each, works, which were generally moderate in size and frequency situatsd in small towns, so that everybody know overybody; thero was a clannish feeling and a spirit of emulation between works and works; tho staffs and artisans were as.pleased with a technical success as the master, and considered that they shared the credit, as indeed they did. Son succeeded father in all grades in the works, and, so far as discipline and willing service were concerned, the manager, if ho had any anxiety at all, could yet make his calculations as to cost and time of delivery with a fair certainty of "coming out." Trade unions there were, but controlled by men with different aims from the present. Tho same held good in the local football team, tho men were really from tho locality. And just as professionalism has destroyed that spirit in football, so professional agitators and politicians have largely destroyed tho old spirit of "the works." Tho employer is blamed for not knowing his own men, but every precaution seems to be taken to prevent the employer from doing so; the individual workman is not permitted to talk things over with the individual employer.