PROGRESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20472, 25 January 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

PROGRESS.

WHAT SCIENCE HAS DONE.

BY T. A. BLACK, B.SC.

Tho article on "Progress" in the Supplement of January 11 surely calls for a presentation of the other side. Miss Gordon holds that progress is being overdone, though she writes with reservation and hesitancy, as if she were not sure of her ground. Evidence in quantity can be adduced to show that not only are her views erroneous, but that exactly their opposites are true. There was a time, and that not far distant, when small children worked inhumanly long hours in tho mines and mills; when they had to be shaken out of deep slumber every morning, so very early, too, to face another day of hell! When adults, too, had to be awakened each morning by the " knocker-up," and struggle out, gaunt and half-starved to toil hours so long that one recoils with horror at a realisation of it. Can any " speeding up " of the human machine to-day compare with that, when it was worked to the very limits of human endurance ? Rather has the so-called speeding-up of to-day eliminated the inhuman conditions of that not far distant past. The mass of working humanity today simply does not know what driving " is, because tho machine of steel has taken the place of the machine of flesh and blood! Past and Present.

Sentiment, religion, philanthropy, education—none of these lias been responsible for tho change. This Cinderella called science has been re&ponsible, and now some are afraid that it is evil, though it has brought them from savagery to civilisation. Tho use of power, this so-called speeding-up, has put on the back of the machine tho heavy load formerly home on the backs of human beings—and to our shame be it said so often on the backs of women and children. Without power and the machine, humanity would still bo struggling with heavy, brutalising work. >

Does the man of affairs, or his worker, bo ho ever so lowly, work longer hours or endure greater strain than in the past ? Is it not true that in these days of speeding-up almost every man can take a pride and interest in his work, while in the days of our fathers a man merely worked to exist? To-day all classes work shorter hours, are better housed, clothed and fed, and there is continuous improvement. The lot of everyone is immeasurably better in these days of " speeding-up " than it was in the days of the " knocker-up." In fact, so great is the leisure, that it is open to argument if the real danger does not lie here, rather than in the direction in which Miss Gordon sees it. Machinery and Labour. To come to the real question that gives Miss Gordon such concern. The Mirandas thrown out of work is but a temporary phase in a readjustment. Contrary to Miss Gordon's views, " Progress " has already solved the question, and that in the great school of experience and not in academic discussion; for exhas demonstrated that every labour-saving device has so increased demand and stimulated industry in other directions that the sum total of labour was greater than under the old order.

Thoso who deny this would appear to bo under an obligation to explain how the strongest believers in " speeding-up " arc the greatest employers of labour. Mr. Henry Ford has put it ou record that he glories in displacing men with machines, that ho has never discharged a man in consequence thereof, but has invariably had to take on more." Mr. Ford to-day is engaged in practically every industry under the sun, and he states it to bo equally true for every industry in which he is engaged and in every country in tho world in which he has works. After all, this " speeding-up " is an incorrect term. It is a speeding-up of the machine but it certainly is not a speed-ing-up of tho human machine. Tho fact, is, that science, speeding-up or progress —what's in a name ?—are at the beginning of a most wonderful and beneficent change in our economic system. Tho one great fallacy underlying tho views hero criticised is that tho sum total of the work to be done in the world is a fixed quantity. Science is not taking the daily bread from countless families—on the contrary science is providing the great majority — nay, all tho workers to-day—with n means of livelihood better than this old world has even known before. Who can bring good evidence for tho belief that the dictum should now be, " thus far, but no farther ? " • " Nearer to the Millenium.

Rather than a terrorising spectacle, tho world governed by automatic methods is the nearest approach to tho millenium that it lias yet achieved. It brings the cure of poverty within sight. What if it does reach the saturation point? Everyone will then hj% able to obtain and possess, and that I tako it is a better state than want. Mass production under automatic methods docs not permit of hoarding and storing—this "terrifying" automatic machinery will attend to that automatically also. " The future has some difficult problems to solve," but tho solution, of some, at least, I am glad to believe, is within sight. Automatic machinery is the prelude to a greater harmony than we have heretofore known. We are entering a new and better era, the era of tho use of unlimited power and automatic machines. which aro going to remake the world. Can anyone deny that the only serfs to-day aro tho inhabitants of t lose countries who have not learned 0 . uso power and tho machine? 1 hey perform the work of tho derided steam shovel bv incredible toil and tl.o metaphorical sweating of blood. And what is then roward—tho lowest wages, a few pa It i y pence a day, tho life of a beast ot but den, a mentality below that of the brute. Let mo assure Miss Gordon that tho industrialist to-day is a man of thought and action and happily, in the giea majority of cases, a humanitarian, and as such ho is not afraid of tho luture. lie rightly believes that though many problems remain, the times are nothing like so dangerous for the welfare of the human family as they were in the days, of the "knocker-up"; that matters are improving and give no cause for alarm; that a clearer light appears; that, the sun of knowledge is rising; that we are not drifting to extinction, but are sailing steadily toward the eastern horizon, where tho dawn heralds the brighter day.