Machine-Ridden

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7068, 30 January 1933, Page 6

Machine-Ridden

Some interesting statements are made in an article entitled ‘‘What is Technocracy ?” in a prominent American leview, the “New Outlook/’ The article deals with the amazing position into wIS American industry lias drifted, partly as a result oi the intensive process of mechanisation which ’ with snowball effect during the last decade. lhe Unitea States ” says the article, “is much nearer a complete industrial ' collapse, as a result of the events of the tho VO St maiority of its citizens realise. Oui entrepreneurs and political leaders have believed so steadfastly and for so long that America is incapable of anything except a continuous onward rush to prosperity and ever-expanding developmen that they have been either blind to, or unaware of, the vast technological forces which have been steadily undermining, particularly in the past two decades, our present haphazard industrial system of uncontrolled production, competition and dlSt Thifrecords the views 0 f a group of prominent American engineers, who have been studying the effect of the mechanisation of industry. Their opinions are supported by the ioliow- ■ inS flour mill in Minneapolis produces 30,000 bushels 7 200 shoemakers employed in a modem shoe plant in five and a’half days would produce 595,000 pairs of shoes. A modern straightline continuous brick plant will produce 400,000 bricks a day per man. . In 1929 we mined on the Mesabi Range at the late ox 20 000 tons per man per year and in four weeks moved a greater tonnage than that of the Khufu Pyramid at Gizeh while our modern blast furnace technique has made it possible for one man to-day to produce 4,000 tons of pig. iron per annum. A photograph of a modern steel rolling mill in full opeiation will show a large plant without a human being on the floor. . , ' , . Take the manufacturing of cigarettes. Machines were recently installed which produce from 2,500 to 2,600 cigarettes a minute compared with the previous maximum of 500 to bUU cigarettes a minute. Obviously the tobacco company using these new machines cuts production costs markedly, but the important factor is that it permanently eliminates employment. A still more fantastic illustration is in incandescent lamp manufacture, where one man is doing to-day in one hour as much as it took him 9,000 hours to do, only so short a time past as 1914. _ . In agriculture one man can do in one hour what it required 3,000 hours for him to accomplish .in 1840. A still more striking example is a Milwaukee plant with its daily out-put capactiy of 10,000 automobile chassis frames and 34 miles of pipe lead with a total of 208 men in the plant. One man riding in the control cab can do all of the loading of the freight cars which are shunted up to the siding of this factory. Commenting on these facts a noted English writer sajs the American situation is astounding. The facts speak for themselves i—--1 She has an enormous area, with a comparatively small population (some 123,000,000). 2. She produces almost every raw material. 3. Her industrial equipment is the largest and most complete in the world. . 4. Her people are energetic, resourceful, and enterprising. 5. She is highly protected both as to commodities and immigration. P 6. She owns a large and almost overwhelming share ot the world’s gold. 7. She possesses vast foreign commercial loans, to say nothing of her war debts, and yet 8. She is poverty-stricken, and has 15,000,000 unemployed. 9. Despite birth control and the widespread practice of abortion, her population is increasing at the rate of a million per annum. . , 10. Every industrial improvement she makes involves tne employment of less labour and, therefore, a reduction in the number of potential buyers of commodities. . It may well be asked, “What is the solution . The engineers above referred to criticise what they call the price system.’’ What they propose to put in its place does not appear. It looks as if what is wanted is a revaluation of human effort so as to increase the buying power of the lower-paid members of the community. As it is, too much money is tied up awaiting investment in permanent securities, and not enough is available to buy perishable things. . But it must be remembered that America has prejudiced her position by constructing plants on an enormous scale with a view to supplying foreign buyers. So long as she was prepared to lend her customers the wherewithal to pay for her exports she did a roaring business. But when the borrowers ceased to fulfil their obligations’ and she stopped her loans her jxas largely, reduced