It is essential that all classes connected with industry
should realise that increased production in established
and well-understood industries is essential, and that
it can only be obtained, first, by willing and vigorous
work on the part of the workman, aiming at producing
as much as possible in the hours during which labour
can be efficiently carried on without detriment to
health or depriving the labourer of the opportunities
of enjoying a life outside his daily routine; and,
secondly, by the increased use of the best machinery
and labour-saving appliances and working such machinery
to its fullest capacity. Instead of that, it
has often been the policy to restrict the production
of each man’s labour, one reason being lest
there should not be enough employment to go round,
and also to view the introduction of machinery which
might displace labour with hostility and suspicion.
In order to give the leisure which the workman needs
for a full and healthy life, and to provide a wage
which will enable him to secure the comforts which
he rightly desires, as well as to obtain adequate remuneration
for those who manage businesses, and interest on their
money for those whose capital is to be embarked in
them, increased production is necessary; but it cannot
be expected that workmen will realise this or desire
the result unless they know certainly that they will
obtain at once a benefit from it. It has too
often been the case that where some new invention
has been made, or new machinery introduced, or the
conditions of trade have enabled an industry to be
more profitable, the workman has not shared in the
benefits obtained until he has pressed for an increase
of wages, even to the extent of striking or threatening
to strike. The faults and jealousies leading
to restricted production are not all on one side.
Cases have arisen when a manager has let out a piece
of work to a group of workmen at a price which has
resulted in a larger output in a given time at less
cost, though the amount paid to each man has been
higher owing to increased diligence, yet the employers
raised objections, because the wages earned were “more
than such men ought to have.”
It is essential if the workers are to make it their
aim to increase production and to use every effort
with that object, that they should know that of a
certainty, and at once, they will get a benefit from
what is done. At present it is commonly the case
that in order to obtain an adequate wage the worker
works overtime, and presses to have overtime work,
because the rate of pay for overtime is higher, and
that during the normal hours of work he does less.
Cases have actually been known in which the worst
class of workmen play during the greater part of the
week, and then have gone, during the War at all events,
to work for the week-end, including Sunday, at a very
high rate of wages at some other place. In the
short time of working at abnormal rates they have gained
as high wages as the steady and efficient workman who