AMERICAN INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12071, 15 September 1902, Page 6

AMERICAN INDUSTRY.

THE SECRET OF ITS .SUCCESS. Mr.. Cabkoll D. Weight, the Commissioner of Labour for the United States, is 3 now at work upon an investigation as to ' tho real difference between the American ' worker and the European worker, with, the purpose of discovering, if possible, the. reason for supremacy of the former over the ' latter, if such supremacy really exists. . Mr. Wright has already decided that j profit-sharing and bonus-paying have practically little or nothing to do with the cam- ' menial and industrial strength of the United Suite*, for the reason that these systems are nut employed except in isolated cases, and in many of these eases have proved absolute failures. Certain it is that they are not sufficiently \ general to be taken into account in esti- [ mating the force of the American workman in competition with foreigners. There is practically to-day no limit to the amount of 1 work one American workman is allowed to do '■ by his associates. Tin's fact, taken in connec- ' tion with the readiness of the American ' employer to adopt new methods and spend ,' money for labour-saving machinery, is at 1 the bottom of all the success which American industry may have attained in eomnetifjou with tho world for the trado in manufactured goods. There arc) signs on the horizon, however, that this condition is not going to last. i Tho great buildings and trade strike of I Chicago last" year, whieh cost £5,0C0,009 in | wages, and lest to that city the construction of £10,000,000 worth of buildings, was over the contention that the union had a. right to limit the amount of work which I should be done by a single man in eight hours. This strike failed owing, to the vast financial resources of five- or six of tho largest contractors. The end is not yet, however, for the union leaders still cling to the idea, which has been imported from Europe, that in time they will be able to say how much a man shall do in a day. The situation is so critical in this respect that capitalists who put their money into great skysorapinf? structures will no longer build them under tho old rule of partial payments as the work progresses. The- contractor must be able 10 say, '* I wiU build your building for £500.000 ami not ask a, cant until I can hand tho keys of the completed structure over to you, and I will give bonds for tho faithful carrying out of my contract." Not many contractors are able to do this, hence in the one city of Chicago hundreds of smaller concerns have been driven to the wall, and tho business throughout the country is now in the hands of a few well-known firms who have unlimited financial resources. Their operations are so wide, and they arc so determined to prevent the control of their business by the union, thai if a strike interfores with their operations in one city they simply close up shop in that place for a year, if need be, and carry en their work in other places, pending th& surrender of the labour interests. Wages are high and work is plentiful in the United States to-day. The conflicts between labour and capital which occur intermittently are nearly all over questions of rights and privileges and the limitation of the day's work. It is believed by some of the more conservative American labour leaders that their fellow-workmen are making a fatal error in attempting- to restrict individual output, as there is no other deduction to be made from tho present situation than that in this individual competition between men making the same wage lies the greater part of the strength of American industry in tho matter of cheap production.