THE AMERICAN INVASION

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4646, 26 April 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE AMERICAN INVASION

The past year has been chiefly remarkable for an exaggerated feeling of alarm created by the well-advertised “American Invasion” of England. It is impossible to forecast the history of the next twenty or thirty years, and there are undoubtedly many elements in the “invasion,” which are regarded with anxiety by careful observers; but, on the whole, we are inclined to take an optimistic view of the situation in the near future! The outlook of trade for the current year gives no cause for alarm, and the likelihood of the war being finished within a reasonable length of time will have a beneficial efi feet»upon every department of commerce. We think the present is a not unsuitable occasion to quote from a letter we have recently received from Professor John Perry, dealing with the proposed National Industrial Association, that bears prominently upon the present situation. Professor Perry writes: “The masters are uneducated; their common sense has been carefully taken away from them by our wonderful school system. They reach their wretched old-fashioned shops at 10 a.m., they lunch at their works and leave at 2 p.m. for their clubs. They have given their workmen the impression that there can be no sympathy between masters and men. Let them go abroad with their eyes open, with more modesty and a desire to learn. One. or two model masters, good men, blame their workmen, forgetting that the attitude of the workmen is duo to generations of stupid masters and higgledy-piggledy workshops. For one clover, sympathetic master like Sir Hiram Maxim, or Colonel Crompton, or Mr Mark Robinson, think of'the thousands of masters who know practically nothing of what goes on in their works. What we want is common sense developed in masters and men in schools, so thkt all are more efficient, and see that their interests are in common.” If such a communication as that which we have quoted had reached us from a less important authority than Professor Perry, we should not have printed it; but, though his utterances on the subject must always command attention, we think he has greatly exaggerated the case against the masters. In the course of the last few years, the writer has visited fully eighty per cent, of the large engineering works in the United Kingdom and a considerable number in America and on the Continent, and closely investigated workshop methods and management, and his resultant opinion is this —viz., that America is certainly ahead in workshop equipment, methods and management, but the regeneration of the British workshop commenced several years ago, and, though by a more gradual process than obtains in has now made so much progress that “oldfashioned” and “higgledy-piggledy workshops are now the exception rather than the rule. Professor Perry’s statement that the masters reach their works at 10 a.m. and leave at 2 p.m. is so plainly in error that we need not comment upon it. As to the want of sympathy between masters and men this is a point which must be remedied. There is no doubt that English employers are out of touch with their men. Nineteen hundred and two is likely to he a year of fierce competition in every branch of trade and commerce, and if Great Britain is to maintain her present position amongst the nations of the world, it is vitally important that_ all antiquated methods cf doing business should he given up, that the reorganising and refitting of works - should he pushed on apace, and that there should he more harmony in the relations of employers and employed. The National Industrial Association will he an important factor in this last connection in the near future.—“ Engineering Times.”