MEN OR MACHINES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 14 December 1932, Page 9

MEN OR MACHINES

DIFFERING VIEWS ‘•Machinery has been for many years visibly displacing men from employment in all industries. No 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, lint the mechanisation process will inevitably continue and be intensified.” These conclusions were challenged by Mr P. Sargant Florence professor' of commerce in the Birmingham University. “Though in some manufacturing trades machinery appears to be displacing men, this it 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 and 1929 increased about proportionately to population, the numbers employed in building, transport, distribution and services increased from 3,549,000 to 4,148,000, well in excess of population growth. 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 introduction of machinery are not, in my opinion, 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 he 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 he paid to labour as before.”