THE PROBLEM OF INDUSTRIAL UNREST.
(To ens Emma or wiz " fesseraros."1
Sur,—The article by " Artifex " in the Spectator of October 13th, which seeks to make monotonous employment the cause of in- dustrial unrest, recalled to me a period in my early life when I was serving a three years' apprenticeship in a Lancashire cotton mill, and the answer uppermost in my mind was that all trades and manufactures are monotonous for the industrial worker. The blower, the carder, the spinner, and the weaver all perform
the same monotonous daily work, but agitation for higher rate of wages or shorter hours was never attributed to monotonous em- ployment before the war. At a first glance it does not appear that the condition of the present-day worker in the foundry, the engineer's shop, or the mill differs from that of the preswar workers, except that his holidays are lees frequent; but where the work ea now performed is organieed on a system of etandardization, end where the worker is continuously employed on one casting or forging of a fixed design, and is never given the opportunity of knowing to what useful purpose the fruits of his laborer are applied, such work spells monotony, and deadenn the life and intelligence of the individual. If tho assembling of these parts were conducted on the same premises, the workers would leave an object-lesson of educational value, and the opportunity afforded of seeing the result of his labour would Mimulate a more in- telligent interest in his work. The monotony of industrial labour might be relieved by means of drawings on the walls of the work- shops. Why should the forger of some standardised section for /I "tank," for instance, be kept in blind ignoranee of the great part he was doing to win the weer? If drawings and photographs failed to relieve the monotony of the worker, they would at leant do no harm, and might be the means of bringing out suggestions for improvements from those very workers whose intelligence is being dulled by the monotonous system of etandardization.—I am, Sir, Ac., A COLONEL OVERSEW. Jamaica, B.W.I., November loth.
Previous page
