WORLD AFFAIRS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20454, 6 November 1934, Page 9

WORLD AFFAIRS.

Productive Capacity m America. . 30 YEARS' INCREASE. A nf 30-I-Par cenocl. 1809 to 1929. in the United States br*c produced remarkable ®vi•Vncc of mrreesine oroduc*iv*» r» n ''f’ , tv. Th® OV nm-ntio n wpc made bv Professor F. r. >r;ib. of rniumhia UmVe-sitv. Pnd on® of th« "'hich he draws from it ic o V m- fb e e»"ht-v-car period. 1922 to 1929. the American rat® which a potential doubling r '< the physical income of the oY-erpo-e ci+izen once everv 29 years. This rpte. has. perhaps, never been sur-ppe-^erl. Fr o fes«or A Til Is has constructed a +niile of indev numbers based noon I.QOO as ino wb’ch shows the relative volnme of phvsical production and of production ner wa"e-eamer in all manufacttirine in' , ust.r , ’ / ' c in each census vear from 1899 to 1929 Over the whole period, the total increase in phvsical volume of production was 231.4 per cent, an average of 7 n°r cent a vear while the increase of pH population was but f>l.s per cent, which seems to dispose of the assumption that purchasing now°r was not increasing. The increase in the number of wage-earners emnloved in the industries was 2 per a sh’ghtlv higher rat® than that for the increase in Population, and appear? to dispose of tbp theorv that the in creased productive capacity was cans ing unemplovment. The increase ol phvsical product per wage-earner wa? 3 per cent a vear. and the product? were moving into consumption. The National Citv Bank of New York commenting on the investigation, sav? that nobody will want to withhold from the manual labour wage worker? the share of credit which properlv be longs to them for the remarkable re cord of these years. But this achieve ment was accomplished bv the economic svstem as an organisation including the workers of every class the thriftv people whose self-denial pro vided capital, the research workers ir every field of science, the inventors and planners, the organisers, the manage ment, and all the staff—in short, bv team work. The gains were accom panfed by a general reduction of the weeklv hours of labour in the urban industries from an average close to 00 in 1900 to between 48 and 49 in 1929 Another significant feature of the period was the increased emplovment of power in the manufacturing industries from an average of 2.4 horse-power per worker in 1900 to 3.8 in 1930. Tt cannot be reasonably qiiestioned. the bank adds, that management, scientific research. inventive genius, and increasing supplies of capital were the principal factors in this increase of productive capacity.