The Real Makers of Empire.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XIV, 2 April 1904, Page 45

The Real Makers of Empire.

WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE.

(By

JOSEPH G. HORNER, A.M.I., Mech. E.)

In the character -which the struggle for existence assumes at the present period, the nations who achieve the highest industrial developments are bound to survive. The arts of peace and war alike are all dependent on the manufacture of machinery, and the engineers ■ —using the term in the most comprehensive sense —are the most indispensable men alive.

Try to conceive of the state of tho world without the work of the engineers. The picture would be that of prehistoric times. Industrial supremacy is synonymous with the growth of engineering enterprises, and the ability to carry through all other important industries — even the printing of newspapers and books —depends on mechanism. Such being the case, we want to know whereon that supremacy depends for its life and growth. A DISPELLED IDEA. The industrial supremacy of Britain was once devoutly held to be a direct result of the superiority of the British workman. This legend has descended from the days of Bonaparte, when one Englishman was believed to be a match for three Frenchmen. When this idea became sadly dispelled, most people went to the other extreme, saying all kinds of hard things against that vast body of estimable men who toil patiently in factory and mill. The only excuse for such indiscriminate slander is that the people who talk in this way know 7 nothing about the workman or of the factory system. Then we were told that it was necessary to give our workmen a "sound technical education of a more or less elaborate character. At the present time the voices of the advocates of this remedy are wholly drowned in the shouts of the missionaries of fiscal reform. Which of these is right, or are they all as right as right can be? The truth is that neither of these theories takes account of the most important conditions that make for national supremacy. Each takes but a partial view, and ignores the broarder conditions. Is the British workman the backbone of British industry ? Why do we see our shores invaded with quantities of splendid machinery from America and Germany ? The great international exhibitions have been eye-openers —notably that of Paris, 1000, where English goods were rn no wise superior to those of foreign make. The workman, moreover, is a mere cipher in a big modern factory. He is simply an obedient unit, held in the bondage of a rigid system which is controlled by his employers—a subservient of machinery, with the pace of which he must keep abreast. A walk through any big modern factory will convince the most sceptical that this statement is one of fact. .VALUE OF TECHNCAIL EDUCATION. Technical education is a subject that eannot be dismissed in a summary fashion. It is one essential element in a nation’s industrial progress, when used aright, and directed to definite ends. But industrial supremacy will nevei' be assured by squandering twenty-four millions sterling on universities, nor in teaching workmen subjects which they cannot utilise in their daily tasks. It is in such misdirection of studies that money has been, and is, wasted, and little gained beyond that intellectual grip of things which is the salt of life. But just here it is necessary to clear the mind of cant, because the question is not one of intellectual charm, but of industrial supremacy. The point is: Will a big scheme of technical education enable Britain to beat America and Germany in the struggle for supremacy? Those who know how machine production pre-

dominates over handicraft in all the principal trades will not cherish such a delusion. Why, let a man labour with all the skill born of intellectual grip of his task, he will in many branches be beaten fifty, a hundred, j>r fl. thousand to one by the latest modern machinery, attended to by a youth taken from the street, or the plough, a week or a month before. Wc therefore have to face the indisputable fact that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred of competing firms,, the one who is able to undersell the other does so by means of its machinery, in a far greater degree than by its “hands.” It is overwhelmingly true that “hands” count for less and less by comparison with machines. If I were to give some statistics of the output of some modern automatic machines I should be disbelieved.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINERY.

Machinery has developed during the past ten years at a rate absolutely unparalleled in any'previous periods, and it is the early possession of this that enables a firm to make money faster than its rivals who try to work with the older, slower machines. Those who advocate the necessity for technical education and long apprenticeship fox- workmen do not realise the fact that much machine-minding rerequires only the training of a few hours ox- days. Often no skill is required, save that of pulling a few levers, or putting material in and taking out the finished product. There are thousands of girls employed in engineer’s shops minding machines, or doing handwork that requires plodding patience but minimum skill. In some workshops, numbering hundreds of hands, the skilled men who lead—the craftsmen—may not exceed a couple of dozen or score. Technical training, then, has but a limited scope, its utilities being confined to the comparative few who design and who conduct, and not to the machine-minder, the hewers of wooxl and drawers of water. What employers are anxious to secure is the latest labour and time saving machinery. Never has there been such a rapid growth of this money-making agency as at the present, and those who are best qualified to judge believe that it is as yet not half as highly developed as it may be. WHAT WE LACK. Look at the facts squarely. The nations that survive industrially are those that possess the greatest natural advantages. These are chiefly iron, coal, and the means of transit. These attract and develop a nation of strong men; out of these grow 7 the battleships and the machinery of war, as of peace. Great Britain was in this enviable position fifty years and more ago. America? and Germany were only named with contempt. As the coal and iron fields in those countries have been developing, ours have beexx dwindling—drawn upon deeply to supply our own wants and those of foreigners. No amount of skill on the part of our men, no stores of technical knowledge, no protective tariffs, will alter these facts-

Our national supremacy, therefore, depends on our iron and coal —that is, on natural advantages, supplemented by constructive skill on competitive lines, which is a question of machinery. If these are threatened—-and they most certainly are—it is essential that we seek new worlds to conquer, and to exploit, by the arts of peace. Iron is the thing we require most of all, for we have to import most of oux- iron-ore from Spain ovex - an ocean journey of a thousand miles. We must in some way or another secure cheap iron and cheap steel, ox- yield our long-held supremacy to foreigners.