ARE MACHINES DISPLACING MEN ?

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 28 January 1933, Page 14

ARE MACHINES DISPLACING MEN ?

‘ ‘ jVT.ACHINEBY has been for many years visibly displacing men from employment in all industries. Ko economic processes can ever find remunerative work for them elsewhere, for science is progressively diminishing the demand for man-power,” Sir Harold Bowden wrote recently in a letter to “The Times.” “An agricultural revival, emigration, a universal five-day week (were this possible) would act as palliatives, but the mechanisation process will inevitably continue and be intensified.”

These conclusions wore challenged by Mr P. Sargant Florence, professor of commerce in the Birmingham University. “Though in some manufacturing trades machinery appears to toe displacing men, .this is not true of industry and -commerce in general, and it is incorrect to say that no economic processes can ever- find remunerative work for displaced men,” he wrote. “While in manufacturing industries the numbers actually employed between 1924

English Professor Challenges Theory

and .1929 increased about proportionately to population, the numbers employed in building, transport, distribution and services increased from 3,549,000 to 4,145,000, well in excess of populationgrowth. Clearly the greater the output from manufacturing industry as a result of mechanisation the greater is the number of persons required to- sell or serve that increased output, since this cannot usually be done mechanically. “The consequences of the intrjoducion beyond the possibility o mitigaionfi beyond the possibility of mitigation through a policy of shorter hours, if the practice of working multiple shifts was extended. In that case, while work was more evenly distributed among available labourers, efficient, machinery would be worked longer hours and the fixed overhead machine costs considerably reduced per unit of product. This reduction would allow lower prices and increased sales, and might even permit the same wage to toe paid to labour as before.”