DO ENGLISHMEN WORK HARD?

Waikato Times, Volume 91, Issue 14136, 13 August 1919, Page 7

DO ENGLISHMEN WORK HARD?

REAL SLOG IN AMERICA. (By Morley Roberts, in the Daily Mail.) We are told, and told truly, that we all have to work harder than we era did. Young or old, man or woman, wt must “put our backs” into it. An oidfashioned “Government stroke” will not do any more. Circumstances teli us loudly to “get a move on.” But, do Englishmen work hard r They may work harder than many, but do they really put their backs into r It will b e an unpopular opinion, but, S do not think they do. 1 have rarer seen any but coal-whippers on piecework doing half as much as the American worker.

This will make the working man angry. I cannot help that. lam not one of those who abuse him, for I know that even the Tillifiecl plumber, who comes with a bag and goes away for something he says he has forgotten, is only doing what he is told to do by his employer, who wants to get hold of mor« jobs than his staff can justify.

Hut how can a writer know what work is? Assuredly I shall Ire asked the question. I arn telling those without the knowledge of work who criticise the worker that they do not understand the subject. But do I? A critic has to show reasons for the faith in him. and I think I can do it.

I earned my living by my hands for eight years iff Australia, America, and at sea. In Minnesota 1 once worked 3(i hours without sleep. I worked on farms in lowa, in sawmills in British Columbia, and on several railways as a section hand, or platelayer, and as a mere labourer in rock-cutting. During my life 1 have learnt to handle the pick, bar, shovel, the sledge-hammer as a striker, tii € felling axe and the broad axe. to mention only a few of which I still know the tricks. I did these things for money and a living, and worked alongside men of more than twenty nationalities. I only mention these facts to show that if I pose as a critic I do know what hard work, strained muscles, and even raw and bleeding hands are like. Work at sea is sometimes incredibly hard, ami it is almost always risky. But, take it all round. British ships are not run too furiously, to put it mildly. In Australia men work wonderfully at times. But when I first landed in the United States I came to the conclusion that I had never really seen men work before.

The very first thing that drew my attention was a gang working in a street, and the impression T got was that the boss had t°ld them that if they worked very hard for a little while they might go home! I soon found out my mistake. Wherever I went I found work done hi the same way. If it was so in New York State it was the same in lowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. It is the common opinion of most American foremen or employers that while an Englishman is good material, he has to he taught how to work. When I was on a Californian ranch 1 did work which, on an English farm, would have occupied at least two men and a hefty boy. In saw-mills the pace is tremendous, and, until I became used to it. I was "ail out” and almost too tired to eat. On the Pacific Slope more work is done in a given time than anywhere else in the world. I once took a job that was too hard for a sturdy Swede who had replaced an Englishman who threw it up. This is the reason that high wages are paid. When production is large and quick as well there is more to divide It pays an American to pay a man three times English wages if he gels three times the work done. Ido not say it is always right for men to work so or to keep it up. In some, eases the pace is too hot. I once worked my passage in a Puget Sound steamboat in which few men over twenty-six could "hold down ’ their jobs. They were not quick enough at running trucks up and down gangways with a 12cwt. load. To carry n work like this may he wrong, and I think it is, hut the fact remains that many young men took on such work for a year or so and made enough money lo start at something else. An ordinary English labourer would decline a ,so!* like it at any price.

When I came hack 'to England after being through the Western “mill” d seemed to me that Englishmen took it easy, men and employers both The executive staff seemed lo think more of golf and tennis than of their business, while the worker shared his chief’s view, that the aim of life was to do as little as possible. I do not tfhink that there is a single Englishman who has lived in America for any lime and has learnt to work there who will not endorse what T say and add to it:-much that I refrain from saying.