The Rationalisation Of Industry.

Northland Age, Volume 28, Issue 27, 21 March 1928, Page 2

The Rationalisation Of Industry.

What Will It Mean To The Empire.

By A E Tomlinson.

The future nf empire is a future ot empire trade. That is a truism which many far-sighted men have striven to carry into practice in the past, and which all equally far-sighted men realise to-day. Trade is the backbone o f Empire, and it is essential that every thinking person in the British Commonwealth of Nations should understand the transitional period through which industry is passing to-day. Only through such understanding can we hope to progress to the ultima id- al ot the Empire as the greatest single economic unit the world has ev-r seen or traded with. British industry to-day is in a state of transition —transition from the old played-out theories of cut-throat competition and the so-called free piay of economic laws to the new ppa of co-op 'ration, regulation of output to consumption, and unification on a national and Imperial basis; transition from the methods of rule-of-thumb, and muddle through to the new era of science and scientific organisation—and the outstanding feature of this process or transition is what is called rati onisation. Manv people may confust rationalisation <v!‘h nationalisation, Which is about as near the mark is contusing efficiency with deficiency. As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to give an exact definition of rationalisation, because it is so many-sided anu tnanitests itself in so many different forms ard procc cc .c«. A fairly comprehensive definition is:—“the fuil application ot science an,-J scientific method 10 industry secured by unification of all the processes ot production and distribution.” In short, rationalisation is simplv the best ust of brains and cooperation. It is the veiy latest phase in the natural evolution ol industry. Cut-throat competition amongst all the warring tribes of commerce is as dead as the feuda : system. The old order of things when every manufacturer was out to beat his neighbour and to hustle him into liquidation if possible, when your neighbour’s prohis v ? ere supposed to be youi losses, has gone the way of the Saxon Heptarchy. “Lunatics never combine,” said Mr Keynes, the famous economist and he fu.thcr pointed cut that the old beggar-my-neighbour policy was so devastating tin t every go-ahead and prosperous industry spent half its time trying to gel rid ul it. Combines and amalgamations, which we see sprouting so vigorously in the fields of industry, are but one step, a very important step, in the process of rationalisation. Combines by bringing the whole of an industry in all its branches, raw material, manufacture, research, sales nd distribution, finance, under central control facilitate the full use of scientific method which is the essence of rationalisation. (To be Continued)