FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
e earnest and active co-operation between those engaged in industry must be employed._ _... No longer must a man be supported by his union when he refuses to mind two lathes because the custom of the factory confines him to one. No longer must an employer assign as a reason for cutting prices that the man's wages are too high.... Each side must endeavour better to understand the outlook of the other._--SIR HUGH BELL. The second grievance mentioned in the _Quarterly_ article already referred to is: "The wages are too low." To remedy this grievance, increased productivity, along with greater economy in working, is the first essential in order to obtain the funds out of which higher wages can be paid; the second, to get a fair allocation and distribution of the profit made. Increased benefit will also be a stimulus to better work. For a crowded country like ours to maintain a leading position in industry is obviously a necessary condition either of welfare or progress. It is of first importance to secure work of high quality. A highly civilised and trained nation must hold its own by the superior quality of the articles produced as well as by being able to supply both its own needs and to compete in prices with others by the quantity of output. It may be possible, for example, to hold the market for fine spinning when other countries are well able to supply coarse yarns from their own factories. Hitherto this country has been able to maintain a lead in industry largely through causes which are no longer operative. Thus, we had (1) a settled Government when Germany and Italy were divided into a number of small and inefficient and often very badly governed States, when France was exhausted and unsettled, and when America was only in its infancy; and (2) the advantage due to the fact that the great discoveries and inventions which advanced industry were mostly made in Britain, when industry was developing at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Many of these inventions were made by manual workers who, by intuitive genius, saw what was needed to meet the requirements that arose in practice. There was not then that fund of accumulated scientific knowledge and experience in existence which anyone must have before he can make any advance or improvement to-day. There was an interesting print published some forty years ago giving portraits of the Englishmen
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
industry
 

longer

 

grievance

 

inventions

 

country

 

quality

 

maintain

 

prices

 

supply

 

Hitherto


States
 

governed

 
France
 

coarse

 

countries

 

infancy

 

America

 

exhausted

 

unsettled

 

factories


inefficient

 
settled
 

Government

 

Germany

 
operative
 

number

 

divided

 
largely
 

nineteenth

 

existence


experience

 

knowledge

 

accumulated

 

scientific

 

advance

 

giving

 

portraits

 

Englishmen

 

improvement

 
interesting

published

 
practice
 
developing
 

eighteenth

 

beginning

 

Britain

 

discoveries

 

advanced

 

spinning

 

century