INGUSH AND GERMAN WORKMEN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 120, 19 May 1909, Page 6

INGUSH AND GERMAN WORKMEN.

WHICH ARE THE MORE , - EFFICIENT? (By a Manufacturer, in the London Daily Mail.) What is the real truth about 'tho relative efficiency of English and Gernian workmen? I speak,; of course, ,of the workers engaged in the great industries which are more or less dependent upon ex- ' port, and .to which as a consequence the.1 question of efficiency is one of paramount importance. I venture to say that no one conversant /with the facts will, dispute the assertion that,, man for man, the capacity of skilled English workmen is at least a third above that of workmen following the same occupations in Germany. Let the comparison be. with France, or Belgium,' or Austria, and the difference will be found to be nearer 50 per cent.' in favour of the English workman. Germany has by general consent gone sahead wonderfully as a manufacturing. country during the past twenty years, and it has no need | to be ashamed of its industrial prow-j ess. Nevertheless, the English workman at his best cannot yet be beaten in his own trade. Our engineering ■ shops can hold their own with the j

1 best not only in Germany, but in the world. There are nowhere in Europe textile workers like those of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Not long ago the manager of a large German cotton mill who had been engaged in Lancashire mills said to me, "Give me the English spinner and weaver—their equals are nowhere to be found." "Their' equals in what ?"■ I ■ asked. "In intelligence, common sense, and initiative," he replied. "The workpeople here have to be watched and directed and instructed at every turn, and if you are not always looking over their work you cannot know what will happen next. The Lancashire, operative knows his work and does it without having to be told how." HOW THE ENGLISHMAN ■> WORKS. Similarly the director of a large textile mill in Austria, who knew England equally well, once made the following comparison for my benefit: "This is the difference between our workpeople and yours. When a workman enters a mill here he does not settle' down to work at ontie. No; he leisurely takes oft his co.at, looking up to the clock to see it it can really Be time to begin. Then he looks out at the weather, to see if it has changed since he came in. After that, he has a chat with ms neighbour, and finally, when all possible resources of distraction have been exhausted, he sets to work. Your English workmen —I have seen them—go right at it; they work when they work, just as they play when they play." . ~ All things considered, I profoundly believe in the English workman. Mis material is splendid, if not unsurpassable. In almost all the industries which nowadays count in international trade he has the advantage ot the knowledge, the experience, the inherited aptitude—and how much that means! —which generations ot arduous training have produced. It is not too much to say that the English workman can do everything he wants to do, and that if he likes no one will ever beat him. Nevertheless, it would be folly to Verlook the fact that there*are influences at work which must tend m some degree to diminish the advantage wjhich the English, manuf act at er possesses in haying at his command the finest race of workers in. tl.e world. One of these influences is th^e ■growing tendency to substitute mechr anical appliances for hand work. The most efficient works to-day are those in which the human factor is mosb eliminated —those in . which production is most mechanical and most automatic. Intelligence, practical sense, and power of initiative will always remain important factrnsunder any conditions of production, yet the 'inevitable result of automatic processes is to make the woi kman. himself, an automaton. To the extent to which this tendency develops, and one workman becomes as ; good as any other, the conditions of production will become more and more equalised in different countries, • so far as individual capacity is concerned, and, the respective ~advantages which are enjoyed by competing nations will be determined by other forces-and circumstances. The perspective wliich is here opened out- is so, wide that only a few brief beralisations are possible. CONTINENTAL HOURS OF ■•■ LABOUR. \ Aimtong thje to which ,. the \ English: employer; is exposed/ I place the question of the hours of labour last, bfcauserit is my deliberate opinion ithat '.: the ■■'■■. Continental manufacturers 'who still work tlic-ir men and women eleven and twelve hours a day for six days' a week, far from handicapping English industry, are diminishing .their own competitive power far more than they know. If considerations of humanity .and civilisation did not clamour for sorie amelioration of the terrible strain of overwork*, which goes on in many parts of Germany and • almost all over France, Belgium, Austria, and Italy, one would wish nothing better for English industry than the -continuance, of the common Continental work-day of eleven and twelve hours, Saturdayi included! On the other hand, ~th© lower wages paid are ' a •distinct advantage in favour of German 'JmaTiufacturers, though an a&- ---■ vantage which is gradually but surely diminishing. , It must be admitted also that Ihe German—and much more.'the French and Belgian — employer has so iar been "master, in his own house"* to a degree that his English fivalj beset on every" hand by trade union regulations and demands, can hardly under-1 stand. This is an issue which the great individualists and the powerful trade unions of Germany are now fighting "out for themselves, and, without going into the rights and wrongs of the question, it may be said that the very'bitterness of the feud T»ia"yba accepted as a measure of the employers' appreciation of the

immense and1 vital interests which are at stake. Absolute victory will be won by neither side, yet there can be little "doubt that the stars in xheir courses are fighting for the Labour Tarty; The probability—nay, the certainty—is that, the trade uniuns, which now number more than a million and a-half members,'will step by step assert, the same power which, for good or ill, has been asserted by the same bodies in this country. TECHNICAL EDUCATION; IN i, \ '■ : . GERMANY.: ;. ; ■ If, however, the German, manufacturer •'., is to some extent helper! by cheaper labour, lie .is helped far more by technical education/which has for half a, century-been steadily ministering to industrial efficiency. Whatever the trade, the German employer devotes careful attention to the technical . training' of his vworkers, and if public,institutions do not exist, as is often the case in small .towns, the large employer will take the work i into his own hands and conduct ire 6 day or 'night schools for his apprentices and young people. It is not ■too1 much to, say that efficient education ;is more responsible than, any other cause for Germany's industrial success, and Germany itself is so con? vinced of the fact (that the effortis and sacrifices" which are being incurred on behalf ofi^he technical and continuation schools of various kii •ds were never so great as now. It is a significant fact; that there are few large German towns\without industrial'associations (distinct i from the usual chambers of Commerce), one of whose primary' objects, is to make full and adequate provision for the technical training of the youth\ of both sexes. So far is care shown for the rising generation that in some towns the public labour bureaux have iur several years co-operated with the educational authorities in assisting boys and girls to obtain, situations m the occupations for which they hay o been preparing themselves It is also an immense: advantage to German industry that by ' the operation of the universal system of sickness and invalidity insurance the physical well-being and, therefore, the efficiency of \the workers are safeguarded to a , degree which is unrealisable in this country, where only a1 small fraction <5f the working cldßSfisenjoy, any provision of the kind. Thanks to the insurance funds, to which he has paid a fair contribution, the German workman is secured in time of ill-health prompt and effi-, cient; medical attention, .followed, if necessary, by convalescent !<ome treatment, while the money grant which he receives in addition assures him against any diminution of do"mestic comfort or any inroad upon his savings. The consequence is that in the home of a German workman struck down, by illness there is none of that pinching and pining, none of that bitter'struggle to scrape through the often long : drawn-out agony of privation, which must be faced by so many of our owri toilers owing to cur unwillingness or neglect to recognise the fact that in dealing with so vast and complex a question as. industrial insurance, whether against old age, sickness, pr unemployment, the voluntary principle is inadequate. The head of one of the largest industrial undertakings in Germany—whose contributions, run into thousands of pounds—said to me on one occasion that from his standpoint as an employer of labourj philanthropy apart, the, three industrial insurance laws were of incalculable, vabue, and that though their cost was heavy there was no item in his expenditure which he more willingly paid.