ROBOTS INSTEAD OF MEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17436, 7 April 1931, Page 10

ROBOTS INSTEAD OF MEN

ECONOMIES IN BRITAIN GREAT SAVING OF LABOR CIVIL SERVICE MECHANISATION ... LONDON, Jan. 26. Ttie Treasury- is carrying out elaborate schemes of mechanisation in every department of the Civil Service. During; the present year over £IOO,OOO will be set aside for promoting this branch of rationalisation of our public services.

A special "robot" branch has been installed at: the 7 Treasury in. charge of an official "who has a gjenius and a passion for this work. Jtis room is'full of the most- weird examples of mechanical labor-saving appliances. When the various schemes are complete startling economies are expected tu result. . Wo are not fur from the time when the robot will play his part behind every post office counter, receiving telegrams, issuing stamps, and giving change. There is an immense mass of routine work in the Civil Service, and it is the ambition of the Treasury that the robot shall be installed as far as possible to do this work. Hundreds of officials have* been already displaced by machines. "• ■'■ ■/ At frequent intervals principal officers from all the departments are called together to consider the latest require-ments-'and developments. As many as 200 sometimes meet for these consultations. The Treasury itself has become an inventor, and several of the machines in use have been designed by ofHcials. Developments in the outside \\orlcl are keenly watched, and shows and business exhibitions are regularly attended. 100 MACHINES There will soon be over 100 different kinds of nrachiues in use in the depart- \ ments. The Post Office,„. ther Tensions Ministry at Aetony the Statistical Department of the Customs; the Ministry of Labor Claims and Records Office at Kevv, and the Labor Exchange* are the departments .-affording the greatest scope

for the robot. An experiment has been carried out at Manchester, where a machine pertormed in three days work which would employ two Labor Exchange clerks on full time for a week. The cost of the machine is £35, and the consequent savings £2OO per annum. In the Savings Bank the robot is seen at l.'is best. Nearly all of the old manual methods of bookkeeping have now been discarded. All the ledgerkeeping and all tin* processes of entry and calculation will soon be accomplished by electrically driven .machinery. The robot will do all the balancing, calculating of interest, handling of depositors' cards, and the like. When the transition is complete, it is estimated that there will be a saving of human labor lo the extent of 5C0.C00 hours a year. The annual saving in wages will be. about £13,000 per annum. MECHANICAL WAY TO ECONOMY A short time ago there were many departments without a typwriter. Now Whitehall is lo have adding machines, adding typewriters, calculating machines, dictating machines, folding machines, bookkeeping machines, tabulating machines, wire-stitching machines, envelope filling and sealing machines, stamp affixers, letter copiers, machines even lor opening letters. Machines will bo used for the abstract of income-tax assessments, for cost accounting at Woolwich Arsenal, for the pay-rolls of the Metropolitan Police, for preparation of pensions allowance forms, for road census statistics, for calculations in connection with rating returns by local authorities, for transcription "' verbatim reports, and for direct production of copies of incoming telegrams at. Scotland Yard. These are only a. few examples of the, important part which the robot is designed 1.0 play in Whitehall. The. Treasury has taken the robot lo its heart as the principal means of effecting economics