WAGES IN U.S.A.

Grey River Argus, 28 November 1927, Page 5

WAGES IN U.S.A.

MR. BEVAN ON SHARE HUMBUG. (Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn). LONDON, September 28, “All this talk about the workers in America sharing in the increased prosperity and in the control of industry is pure humbug,” said Mr. Ernest Bevin, secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union, speaking [yesterday at Messrs. Rowntree’s conference for directors, workers, managers and foremen, at Balliol College, Oxford. His subject was American efficiency from the standpoint of British labour, and he described his impressions of American industry during his recent visit to the United States.

“I found nothing miraculous in America,” he went on. “Nothing there has been the result of greater capacity than that which exists in this country. ’ ’ NEXT GENERATION. It was true, he said, that American workers had accepted the machine age unquestioningly, and this was largely due to the fact that the worker who was displaced by the machine could more readily find other employment because of the developing market in the United States itself.

In the next generation, however, he thought America would find it very difficult, indeed to find the type of labour that she needed for her mass production factories.

The aim of all American parents was to get their children educated, but when the children passed from school it was not into industry they were going. They all made for what was called white collar jobs.

He did not think Britain had anything to fear from the New World. “I wonder whether Britain’s solution lies along the lines of management and labour combining to hire capital.” concluded Mr. Bevin, “instead of capital hiring both of us.”