Speeding Up at the Post Office How the application of
labour-saving devices is likely to affect the workers is obvious enough, and an example is ready to hand in the case of the Union of Post Office Workers. They have noted the adoption of labour-saving appliances, and they realize that this must lead to the displacement of members of the manipulative grades. Therefore, they have put in a claim on behalf of these members for a shorter working week, namely, forty hours spread over five days. We do not pronounce on the practicability or otherwise of accepting this particular claim, which on the face of it is reasonable ; but we do assert without hesitation that the universal adoption in industry of labour-saving methods must, if it is not to produce wide-spread unemployment, either be accOm- panied by shorter hours or by higher wages to increase the consuming power of the workers. This is a truth which no one in theory denies, but which is rarely applied in British industrial practice. The claim may have now to be considered by the new Board to be instituted at the Post Office instead of the old Secretariat—a change which should make for efficiency if it means new methods and not merely a new name. * *
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