LABOUR AND INDUSTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 16

LABOUR AND INDUSTRY

BRITISH AND AMERICAN ATTITUDE COMPARED

HIGH WAGES AND INCREASED OUTPUT

(Written for THE SVN 63/ DAVID JONES. M.P.J. XIX.

The conditions o£ manufacturing and the factors that determine the rate of wages in the United States well repay careful study. I do not refer to America with the object of boosting that country, but when dealing with a subject it is foolish to shut our eyes to the facts.

In the middle of last century America was the biggest farm in the world. Like New Zealand, her wealth was in her -agricultural and pastoral products. Today it would scarcely be an exaggeration to refer to her as the world’s workshop. The growth of population has been remarkably rapid and an American authority made a forecast in 1909 that the population in 1920 would be 104,000,000; in 1950 150,000,000; and in 2100 be estimated the population of America would be 500,000,000. As . a matter of fact the population in 1920 was 107,000,000, or 3,000,000 over the first estimate. America is a vast country with great natural resources, but these are not the only factors that account for the remarkable growth. In Britain, Australia and New Zealand the trade unions and particularly the Socialist movement bitterly oppose contract or piecework. In Victoria recently certain railway workers were on piecework. The union protested and strove to get the work stopped; the workers objected vigorously, as they were earning high wages. The union’s only ground of objection was that it was against the interests of unionism. If the Interests of the workers are being sacrificed to the interests ol’ unionism, then we may expect disaster. There are many good honest workers who believe in the limitation of output. They think that the remedy for unemployment is to put two men on what one man can do; that if two men can screw wages out of a job, then why not? They overlook the fact that this puts up the price and stops many other jobs from being created.

The aim of the American workers and their leaders is entirely opposite to this. Samuel Gompers, who was for many years president of the American Federation of Labour, and probably the soundest and most able labour leader of the century, said in 1917: “We are not going to have the trouble here that Britain has had with the restriction of output. There has not been any restriction of output for over 30 years in America. We in the United States have followed an entirely different policy. We say to the employers, ‘Bring in all the improved machines and new tools you can find; we will help you to improve them still further and we will get the utmost product out of them.’ ” After Mr. Gompers’s death his successor was William Green, and he stated: “We believe that the success of industry depends on high wages and great production. With our high wages we have succeeded in bringing about the most economic production of manufactured commodities in the world.”

Mr. T. Murray, a British trade unionist, replied to Mr. Green and said they resisted increased production, “because they felt It would glut the market.”

Here we have the two points of view; one of them must be wrong. The vital necessity for New Zealand today is to find out which is right and follow it. Management and wages are the two most important things in manufacturing. I intend to deal with management later. The wage bill is usually the most Important item in the cost of manufactured goods, and although the average wages paid in America are from two to three times as high as in Britain, many American goods are cheaper than the corresponding British goods because they have found out that the thing in production that really matters is not the wages paid, but the output of the worker.

To prove that it is not the natural advantages of America that is enabling her to conquer the world, let us review her production of coal. From an export point of view she is placed at a serious disadvantage through the coal having to he hauled hundreds of miles by rail, but this handicap has been overcome by increased output. The export in IS9O was 2,324,000 tons, and in 1924 21,113,000 tons. One American miner produces as much as five British miners. They know and utilise the advantages of machinery. The United States Coal Commission made exhaustive inquiries into the comparative costs of hand v. machine loading. They proved that the output j of coal a ni in with hand loading was ; 6.2 tons, but with machines 11.2 tons a man, or nearly double. Coal and iron are the foundation of Britain’s manufacturing wealth, and she has abundance of both still. Enormous quantities of coal are needed in the production of steel, and America is pouring large quantities of steel into Britain largely because her miners with big output and high wages are defeating Britain with her small output aud comparatively low wages. In spite of this Hoover, who is an engineer by profession, when Secretary of Commerce, said: “Coalmining is the worst functioning industry in the States.” The British workers are taught the heresy that there is a danger of glutting the market and the American comes in to compete and makes not the goods, but labour, a glut. There is no danger of any glut in New Zealand with our £44,000,000 of imports. DAVID JONES. j Note.- —I am indebted for some of 1 the above facts to Mr. J. E. Barker’s i “America’s Secret.”—D.J.