INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY.*
ONE of the leading problems of our time is to discover what makes industrial communities prosperous, and what keeps them so. Such real value as can be found in the "fiscal campaign" of the past three years consists in its occasional contributions to the study of this problem as it is affected by the fiscal policy of a nation. Dr. Shadwell, who is already known as one of our mbst scientific and impartial investiga- tors of social questions, has attacked it from the other side, and in these delightful volumes makes one of the most valuable of modern contributions to its solution. We say "delightful" of set purpose, because the application of this unusual adjective to a work on an economic subject rather happily indicates the first and most obvious of Dr. Shadwell's qualifications,—the broad human aspect in which he sets the problem that he has studied so carefully. He has undertaken "to examine the conditions under which industries are carried on in the three leading industrial countries "—England, Germany, and the United States—and he has made the resultant book as read- able as a novel, and considerably more interesting than time average novel, because it is literally a transcript of life. In closing these volumes, what lingers most forcibly in the memory is a series of little vignettes in which Dr. Shadwell has incisively etched various contrasting communities,-- Lancashire working people in Bolton, the Krupp establish- ment at Essen, the "hell with the hatches" on from which the Pittsburg millionaires have extracted their great wealth, and the like. And these vignettes are not mere purple patches sewn on the general fabric ; they bear directly on the main subject, and help us to understand the conditions of industry in the three countries better than any collection of statistics. The first volume is composed of descriptions of typical centres of industry in England, Germany, and America ; whilst the second contains Dr. Shadwell's generalisations, arranged in a series of chapters, on factory laws and conditions, hours, wages, housing, social and physical life, Trade-Unions, and education. Every page is luminous, and no one can profess to speak or write of the great industrial problem henceforward without showing that he has read and digested this truly admirable book, for which all who desire to understand the real meaning of "that blessed word efficiency" are deeply indebted to Dr. Shadwell.
In an introductory chapter of "General Comparisons and National Qualities," and in his concluding summary, Dr. Shadwell has crystallised the result of his conscientious labours. Those who have not leisure to grapple with the whole eight hundred pages will find that these two chapters throw an immensity of light on the subject ; and it is very probable that by the time they have read them they will find them- selves determined to read every word that Dr. Shadwell has
• Industrint Efficiency. By Arthur Shadwell. 2 rola, London Longman* and Co. [26s. net.]
written. We need not apologise for making a somewhat lengthy quotation at this point, as Dr. Shadwell's own summary of his case is better than any paraphrase which we could offer. The essential feature of the modern industrial battle, from our point of view, is that England, which for so long held an unquestioned supremacy in nearly all departments of industry, has of late years been run close, if not, indeed, outstripped, by her younger rivals, Germany and the United States. It behoves us to find out how this has happened, as a precedent condition towards holding our own, if not resuming our old pride of place. That was partly due to the physical advantages consisting in the great adjacent deposits of coal and iron, which were first developed in this country. But there is also a human element involved, and this is how Dr. Shadwell sums it up :—
"The American method of work in the industrial sphere is distinguished by the following features : enterprise, audacity, push, restlessness, eagerness for novelty, inventiveness, emulation and cupidity. Employers and employed have exhibited the same in their degree. The manufacturer aims at extending his busi- ness, he takes up novelties, encourages invention, studies the market, tries devices to increase output and diminish cost. Hence, for instance, the standardisation of products, tho organisation of the workshops, the demand for highly educated officers, and the alert control exercised by large combinations, which enable a central authority to check the management of each component by the results of the rest, and to screw up any that are growing slack. The employed are eager to earn as much as possible and to better themselves. Both are absorbed in their occupation, and bend all their energies to it. I do not mean to say that all these qualities are invariably present; I have shown that in some trades and centres they have been conspicuously absent. But they are the distinctive qualities and methods that have won success; and broadly speaking, they have been exercised without either help, save the tariff, or hindranco from outside. The industrial expansion of Germany presents another picture. It has been achieved by equally hard work, but the adventurous audacity and restless search for novelty of America have been replaced by steady and watchful effort. The circumstances of the country, not less than the national character, have imposed this difference. But there is another, not less striking, to which every subject handled in this book bears witness. The industrial population has not been left to carve out its own destiny, but has been guided and helped at every step. All sections of the com- munity, from the throne to the workhouse, have contributed something. Laisser fairs, or Manchesterthurn, as they say in Germany, is dead ; ordered regulation is accepted and applied with infinite pains by the legislature, Government departments, municipalities, and private citizens. It is seen not only in the scientific tariff but in the careful and judicious factory code, the state system of insurance, the organisation of traffic and transport by railway and canal, the fostering of the mercantile marine, the educational provision, municipal action and poor- law administration. So the edifice has been built up four-square and buttressed about on either side. It is a wonderful achieve- ment in which every unit has played a part, and the spirit which has brought it about is the spirit of duty and work England is like a composite photograph, in which two likenesses are blurred into one. It shows traces of American enterprise and of German order ; but the enterprise is faded and the order muddled. They combine to a curious travesty in which activity and perseverance assume the expression of ease and indolence. The once enterprising manufacturer has grown slack; he has let the business take care of itself, while he is shooting grouse or yachting in the Mediterranean. That is his business. The once unequalled workman has adopted the motto, Get as much and do as little as possible ' ; his business is football or betting. Each blames the other Then the manufacturer complains of being handicapped in various ways ; and he is justified. He is handicapped by laws and by-laws and obsolete regulations, which have the effect of hindering him in some respects without any set- off in the way of help. And what do all these mean but careless- ness and neglect on some one's part ? Legislators who pass laws without taking the trouble to ascertain the facts, or understand what they are doing, or who fail to alter obsolete and detrimental ones, such as the patent laws and the tax on industrial alcohol ; Government Departments too iudolent to watch events and adapt regulations to changing conditions; local authorities applying by-laws without discretion, piling up rates without thought and administering the poor law without care; everybody bent on pleasure and amusement. That is the universal business. No one is in a position to abuse the rest ; they are all in the picture, and wear the same expression from top to bottom of the social scale. Not every individual, of course, but every class. We are a nation at play. Work is a nuisance, an evil necessity to be shirked and hurried over as quickly and easily as possible in order that we may get away to the real business of life—the golf course, the bridge table, the cricket and football field, or some other of the thousand amusements which occupy our minds, and for which no trouble is too great."
In this terribly instructive passage Dr. Shadwell lays his finger on the dangers which threaten England in the world of industry : we are "a nation at play." Call it slackness, or the effects of fat prosperity, or what you will ; the cause is there, only too perceptible. We cannot recall our monopoly of coal and iron, but we can reform our attitude to work ; and unless we do that as a nation, our industrial supremacy—perhaps even our industrial existence—is doomed. This is the moral that Dr. Shadwell impresses on us, and it is to be hoped that his scientific method may call attention to a truth which has too often been reiterated of late by voices crying in the wilderness of fiscal controversy.
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