Brain v. Brawn THE tendency of industry to supplant mankind
by machines has been a popular theme for the prophet, essayist and novelist ever since M. Claude Farrere wrote that brilliant novel, Les Condantnes a Mort, but no one, perhaps, has ever condensed so many hard facts into the appearance of agreeable fiction, nor held the balance so nicely between technicalities and flights of fancy, as the author of this excellent book in a brilliant series.
There are people (but they are already becoming old- fashioned, so quickly do conditions change) who still believe that our machines are going to defeat us, and that the indus- trial Moloch will demand his tribute of young men and maidens of the next decade. But Mr. Chisholm is no such pessimist. " The creative genius of the human race is presently centred on the machinery of production. The resulting mastery over materials is astonishing." Our ineluctable and delightful destiny is to have all the heavy work of the world done by machinery, thus releasing the factory worker from fatigue and poverty.
The industrial process is " simply the application of motion to materials." The Pythagorean doctrine that all is motion is as true of industry as it is of life. There is nothing " from the making of a tiny wrist-watch to the irrigation of the Eastern desert which cannot be reduced to these two terms." The machine is capable " of exercising colossal force at fan- tastic speed—and this with undreamt of precision." Very soon no one will be required to bend his back for a living— the backache will be taken out of work, literally and meta- phorically.
The new conditions will be—indeed, are already—so . strange, so different from labour as it is commonly conceived, that we cannot be surprised that the delicate adjustments of transition from old to new methods should cause some dis- turbance and a feeling of unrest. The usurpation of the machine is not confined to the factory. " Neither shop nor office can avoid its onward march. While the adding machine seizes the work of the grey-haired book-keeper, the addressing machine is undoubtedly elbowing the clerk out of existence. The very handmaidens whom the typewriter brought into the business office may eventually be dismissed in favour of the automatic dictator and typing machine. One girl should be able to check up the work of a roomful of these automatic secretaries. . . . No wonder the modern worker has a feeling of insecurity only occasionally felt by his father."
In his difficulties, the worker finds a sheet anchor in the Union. " The defter Trade Union officials," says Mr. Chisholm " normally ' wipe the floor ' with the employer—almost insensibly, inch by inch one can see the Unions winning back the lost prestige " (after the debacle of the British Miners' Federation). " Trade Union restrictions are the desperate reply of the worker to new conditions, brought about by the modern machine and modern management—truly a perfectly
insane and suicidal reply, as the merest smattering of industrial economics would tell him. Yet if that reply gives him back temporarily the feeling of security and control which he so urgently requires—can you blame him for giving it ? "
This age of Labour reprisals is merely the evil seed of our own industrial short-sightedness and selfishness. " To the liftman I am a potential enemy. What thoughts surge behind the placid brow of Jeames as he serves my soup in a cosy corner of the Club ? I hesitate to think, but I can guess." The craftsman of an elder day has indeed become a mere mechanical puller of levers, as Labour learnt to its cost when amateurs learnt the work of alleged specialists in twenty-four hours. Better wages, shorter hours, pleasanter working conditions are no remedy for becoming a human Robot. So far—and we are only half-way through the book—the picture which Mr. Chisholm has painted is undeniably dark. The factory of the future will demand monotonous employment for its workers. This is but a half-truth, none the less.
I have not space to paint the other side of the picture. Mr. Chisholm does it in some fifty small pages, with rare skil and economy of words. In a paragraph I may thus sum up his view (with which most people will agree) that although the mechanical employment in which the average man of the future will be engaged will be undeniably dull, his work will only last for a very limited time. There may not be many glittering prizes to be obtained in the world of to-morrow, but everyone will be able to enjoy the fruits of leisure and most people will have the means to gratify their taste. When this strictly mechanized and efficiently organized millenium arrives, a one-day week will probably be in operation. The other six days will be for worship, play, and the develop- ment of the finer forces latent in Man. To rise to our oppor- tunities we must first view them in their true perspective. Our author helps us to do this ; Vulcan is a little book, but between its covers knowledge and vision are pressed down and
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