WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

Southland Times, Issue 17486, 29 July 1915, Page 7

WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION

THE LABOUR QUESTION. I The lecture at the Economics class of I the local branch of the Edueaf mil AssoI ciation. which met on Tuesday evening / at the Technical School, dealt with the I Labour Problem. In discussing the 1 problem, the leader of the class, the Rev. J. K. Archer, began by pointing out that originally hired labour usually took the form of what is called manual labour, but might be called muscle labour. Hence arose the idea that this kind of labour only should be regarded as labour, and that the labour cause is 1 simply the cause of the manual worker. In reality it is much more than that. With manual labour at the base it rises to all forms of useful service. The expenditure of energy in productive enterprises, whether it be energy of muscle, brain, or nerve, is labour, and, indeed, all labour involves the expenditure of those three kinds of energy, though in different sorts of labour varying amounts of these kinds of energy are consumed. Care must be taken to distinguish between skilled and unskilled labour, for all work that is well done necessitates skill. Digging requires less learning than dentistry; but the use of a spade is not a mere matter of bullock strength. Moreover, it ought not to ho said that labour is unproductive unless it yields money, or some other material object. Women workers, whose duties lie at home, and command no wages, are labourers, and. If rightly done, their work is highly productive. Shaftesburg, with his philanthropy, is quite as great a creator of national, wealth as Bass, with his brewing. How can the labour power of a community be brought to its maximum efficiency? Only, it is claimed hy economists, by perfecting the powers of the individual worker, and organising the activities of the whole of the workers. The former involves many considerations. To begin with, it goes back to the influence of heredity. Badly born children are handicapped from the start, and the handicap can never be wholly overcome. Then, there is the question of food, which, in quantity and quality, is as important as fuel for the ; engine, or fodder for the milch cow. Next, comes the influence of sanitation, only it must be remembered that this means much more than drainage. It means air, and housing, and all other things which encourage health, and discourage disease, especially the large family of preventable, but communicable filth diseases, such as typhus, typhoid and diphtheria. Education must also be attended to. This not only supplies knowledge, but it raises the whole character, and the best work cannot be done by people of bad character. Nor is that ail, for means must be found of creating and sustaining the workers’ interest in their work. The mere drudge is little better than a machine. Slave labour, even under the stimulus of the whip, has always been second rate labour. A direct relation between work and participation in the products of work is the only economic incentive which is effective, and, therefore, the modern tendency toward co-operative and often profit-sharing industries is scientifically sound as well as morally just. Thus far for the perfection of the powers of the individual worker. To this must be added the proper organisation of industry as a whole. The days of individualism are numbered. Division of labour, and the amalgamation of small industries into large ones, with the view of proportionately reducing the cost of production, is the trend of things. Scientific management, that is the adoption of the device of giving workers brief spells of toil and rest, and placing in their hands the best type of tools, has made its appearance in America, and seems likely to spread through the industrial world. It will be a good thing, if it shortens the hours of labour for the average man, without diminishing his earnings, but, unless it is closely watched, it may result in giving enhanced power of exploitation to masters of industry. The idea of useless labour opens tip many lines of thought, of whicli one applies to the problem of the expenditure of energy in producing luxuries instead of necessities. Another applies to the habit of allowing a poor man’s son to grow up a labourer when he has the inborn capacity to become a doctor, or a professional man of some other kind. “There is no extravagance,” says Professor Marshall, “more prejudicial to the growth of national wealth than that wasteful negligence which allows genius that happens to be born of lowly parentage to expend itself in lowly work.” The lecture closed with a reference to the question of "The Right to Work.” Next week's subject is "Capital.” •