MACHINES DISPLACE MEN.

Putaruru Press, Volume XI, Issue 252, 18 May 1933, Page 1

MACHINES DISPLACE MEN.

EFFECT ON THE PEOPLE.

Absorbing Greater Production,

> “ One of the earliest results of the introduction of machinery was the ruin of a number of small trades 1 which were carried on at home and the pauperisation of families who relied on them for support” (says J. R. Green in his “Short History of the English People”). “In the winter of 1811 the terrible pressure of this transition from handicraft to machinery was seen in the Luddite, or machine-breaking, riots which broke out over the northern and midland counties, and which were only suppressed by military force.” Four Times as Well Off. That was the beginning of the century in which machinery worked so well for England and the rest of the world that at the end of it, in spite of an enormoils increase in population, all classes of the British community were, according to Sir Josiah Stamp’s well-known calculation, just about four times as well off, in actual command of commodities and comforts, as their forebears had been when it began. Increased consumption by a larger population with a rapidly-raised standard of living had put machinery to its right use and made it a useful servant. j According to a recent article in the London Times, a farmer using modern machinery can now do in one hour what took him 3000 hours to do 100 years ago. In the manufacturing industries results even more amazing are recorded. A rayon plant lately erected in New York runs for 24 hours a day without any human aid. Pig iron that 100 years ago was produced at the rate of 25 tons per man per year can now be produced at- the rate of 4000 tons per man per year, and so on, till the conclusion is reached that “ barely half the present army of unemployed, now calculated to embrace a quarter of the entire working population, would be reabsorbed in industries even if the American factories resumed their peak production of 1929.” Room for More Consumption. 1 ' i 1 : i 1 1 i ; i , 1 ' j ; j | i i j

Such statements are startling. But there are some things to be considered before they, are accepted as a reason for scrapping all the economic arrangements of society. The high peak of 1929 did not by any means represent the best that was, or could be, wanted from productive capacity. Even in the United States, though the general level of prosperity was higher than had ever been seen in the world, there were some ugly gaps in it. Farming and the textile industry were far from sharing in the general wealth, and a lot had still to be done before every citizen of America was as well fed and clothed and housed as he or she would have liked to he. In other parts of the world

the mass and number of unsatisfied wants was immense. Given the conditions that prevailed in the greater ' part of the nineteenth century—peace, comparatively free trade, and a wide-open international capital market—the world has yet to see what expanding consumption can do to absorb an immensely-greater volume of production. To Distribute More Goods. Moreover, mechanisation effects only articles that can be turned out

in mass. As these are provided more cheaply by machinery, people will have more to spend on hand-made articles, and the craftsman may come into his own again. Instead of being produced by the yard by

machinery, clothes and furniture will be made to fit bodies and tastes. Another thing to be remembered is that, fast as machinery turns out goods, still faster does the need grow to distribute them and set them out before buyers, which is a matter that cannot be left to machines, Finally, as machines release people

from long hours of toil and give them more leisure they will have more needs to satisfy. When one is at work one spends little or nothing.

People spend in leisure hours, and the more leisure people have the more will they call on their fellows to furnish them with goods and services.