THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1926. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL METHODS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19762, 13 April 1926, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1926. AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL METHODS.

A suggestion which the Prime Minister made in a speech at Sunderland in January, that no trade union leader could do better service in the cause which he represents than by investigating closely the methods that enable American workmen to enjoy a better standard of living than any other workers, to produce more and at the same time have so much higher wages, promptly bore fruit. Deriving inspiration from this utterance, the Daily Mail organised a mission to the United States consisting of eight working trade unionists drawn from the engineering and kindred trades. That the Daily Mail made handsome provision for the investigation will be conceded when it is mentioned that it paid all the hotel and travelling expenses of the members of the delegation, full weekly wages to the men’s wives during their absence, an allowance of £2O to each man for outfit, and a personal allowance of £3 weekly, and in addition it took out a life and accident insurance policy of £IOOO in the case of each delegate for the duration of the tour. The party comprised Mr E. H. Gill, a constructional iron-worker, of Stockton-on-Tees; Mr S. Ratcliffe, a machineman, of Manchester ; Sir T. Murray, a patternmaker, of Glasgow; Mr W. Wareing, a fitter, of Preston; Mr J. T. Kay, an iron moulder, of Birmingham; Mr C. Wilkinson, a turner, of Hull; Mr A. Browning, a blacksmith, of Glasgow • and Mr A. A. Wildman, a tool turner and fitter, of Southampton. They were accompanied by an experienced industrial adviser in Mr William Mosses, for many years general secretary of the United Patternmakers’ Association, and also general secretary of the Federation of Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades, and by Mr Fenton Macpherson. Entire freedom was bestowed on the delegates to conduct their inquiry as they should see fit. These trade union missioners have now completed their American tour, and their departure from New York has been the subject of a cable message in which opinions offered by one or tito of the delegates have been quoted very briefly. So far as can be gathered from this, they have emphasised standardisation, mass production, and high consumption as factors that enable the American workmen to secure -high wages. They seem to have said nothing that has been considered to be worth cabling respecting the output of the individual American workman as compared with that of the British workman. It is to be inferred that they did not altogether appreciate being asked if they were returning to preach the doctrine of work to their fellows in Great Britain, since one of them is credited with replying that that was unnecessary as the British workers knew how to work. The main consideration, so far as the usefulness of their visit to the United States is concerned, is that, representing trade unions as they do, the opinions based on their American impressions should carry particular weight with their fellows. The Daily Mail’s missioners were selected particularly from the engineering trade because present conditions in that trade in Great Britain are highly unsatisfactory. It

was recently stated that the Amalgamated Engineering Union alone had over 17,000 skilled men registered as unemployed and that other branches of the industry were generally in a worse case. It was affirmed also that the rate of wages paid to operative engineers was lower than the earnings of almost every class of unskilled labour. With this state of affairs has been contrasted the abounding prosperity of the engineering trades in the United States, where work is plentiful and wages are said to be twice as high as in the same industry in Great Britain. The general impression obtains that what the British workers as a class have failed to recognise is the importance of production—of increased production—and the futility of expecting high wages when production is low. The American manufacturer pays higher wages than' the British manufacturer does, yet is able to produce goods at a lower level of cost. But in the United States the individual output per man is larger, and in that, when all is said and done, lies the crux of the situation. In a letter to the Daily Mail commending the objects of the trade union mission to America,. Mr G. N. Barnes, who has been one of the most representative of British Labour leaders for many years past, and who was a member of the War Cabinet, offered some very pertinent observations reflecting upon the difference in the attitudes towards their work of the British and the American workmen respectively. Referring to Labour’s changing mental attitude to industry in the United States, Mr Barnes wrote; “I have long been convinced that this is really the key to the heart of our industrial troubles. It is a question of psychology. Our leaders of Labour have themselves been obsessed by outworn theories of class conflict. They regard Labour as a class apart, against whom the hand of everybody is always uplifted and whose hand must therefore be always uplifted against everybody. Perhaps the American workman has discarded this degrading view of life and is basing his daily doings on a sense of citizenship. That is the road we have to travel ere we can get higher wages and more work. The British workman must cease to regard himself as a wage slave, and must regard himself as a citizen.” These seem to be words of wisdom. Organised Labour in Great Britain has been a stumbling block to itself in refusing to recognise that low production must mean low wages, and that the salvation of industry, to the benefit of all connected therewith and of the nation generally, lies mainly in increased production.