CANADA'S EXAMPLE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1211, 28 February 1922, Page 6

CANADA'S EXAMPLE.

INCREASE!) PRODUCTION.

LOWER WAGE RATE

The wage rate has decreased 30 per cent in Canada, following a post-war boom, and production has increased by from 35 to 40 per cent, according to Mr R. M. Scrivener, a son of Mr C. R. Scrivener, formerly Director of Commonwealth Lands and Surveys, who has recently returned to Sydney. "I will say this for labour in Canada: it is now taking a sane view of the situation .and facing facts," Mi Scrivener told a representative of the Sydney Morning Herald. Mr Scrivener, who served his articles in surveying in Australia, left for Canada in 1907 to graduate in engineering at the McGill University. After graduation, in 1911, he went to the United States for a year and a half, and then" returned to Canada as sales manager of the Sangamo Company of Canada, at Toronto. "'They have got absolutely back to work," continued Mr Scrivener, "and production is equal to the pre-war standard. This is due to some extent to improved methods. Eighteen months ago the position was serious. There was a false prosperity, and a perfect orgy of spending. It was not confined to the workers, for every class ispent freely, with the result that the business done by motor-car and clothing manfuacturers increased enormously. In the summer of 1920 the men practically ran the manufacturing plants, and many of the mushroom firms produced by the war closed down. Even the executives lost heart, and wondered what the end would be. However, later on, the boom began to collapse, as I said, and the workers sianely faced the facts." As an instance of remarkable increase in production, Mr Scrivener quoted the case of his own firm. When things were at their worst the company made 2500 electric meters monthly. With alO per cent increase in the plant, conditions so improved that the production was about 5500 a month.

One of the factors in the depression which led to an increase of production, went on Mr Scrivener, was what was known as the "buyer's strike," in September, 1920. It was not organised, but people simply would not buy anything that they could possibly do without. The wholesale people had now practically liquidated all their high-priced stock. The retailers held up prices as long as they possibly could, but they are now recognising the inevitable. The transport systems, both in the United States and Canada, were now also getting back to normal, except for the shortage of rolling stock; but at one time demoralisation, due to the same causes as the low production, was general. Men simply did not care. You might ship ten cars, and find that eight had arrived safely. If you were lucky the missing two might turn up after six or twelve months! or might not turn up'at all. Wages have come down on an average 30 per cent in the last eighteen months, continued Mr Scrivener, and may probably go down further this winter. In the metal industry the bonus and piecework systems were in operation. In the former a workman got a minimum wage, and anything produced over that was shared with the manufacturer on a fifty-fifty basis. A firslt-class man on piecework could make very high wages.