will be retarded because of the diminution in the rate of accumulation of new capital since the beginning of the war; there will be a certain amount of leeway to make up.  Consequently, there will be every incentive towards the greatest possible efficiency in production.  It is here that the workers are likely to be affected.  Has labour reached its maximum efficiency?  It has been shown by the application of what is called “scientific management,” that the output of labour can be increased to a remarkable extent.  For instance, instead of shovelling 16 tons a day, a man can shovel 59 tons; a man loading pig-iron increased his total load per day from 12-1/2 to 47-1/2 tons; the day’s tale of bricks laid has been raised from 1000 to 2700.  The list could be extended to cover operatives working at machines.  In the endeavour to screw up industry to a maximum of production, it is not likely that the expedients of “scientific management” will long remain untried.  Already the system is making considerable headway in the United States, and it is not altogether unknown in this country.  It is not possible to enter into a full explanation of the methods of “scientific management.”  Briefly, by a process of scientific selection it puts each worker in the job for which he is best fitted, and teaches him exactly how to use the most efficient tools with which he would be provided.  The method of teaching may be illustrated from Mr. F.W.  Taylor’s own example:  “Schmidt started to work, and all day long and at regular intervals, was told by the man who stood over him with a watch, ‘Now, pick up a pig and walk.  Now sit down and rest.  Now walk—­now rest,’ etc.  He worked when he was told to work, and rested when he was told to rest, and at half-past five in the afternoon had his 47-1/2 tons loaded on the car."[2] By elaborate experiments the exact shape and size of a shovel is determined; by long observation useless and awkward movements of a workman are eliminated or replaced by the correct movements giving the maximum return for the minimum of effort.  In this way, and by a bonus on wages, a largely increased output is obtained.  It is clear that the adoption of such methods gives the “scientific manager” great power; it also seems inevitable that the workman should degenerate into an automaton; it is obvious that in the hands of employers ignorant of the principles underlying it, and seeing merely a new and highly profitable method of exploitation, it will be open to serious abuse, as experience has already shown in America.

[Footnote 1:  Round Table, Sept. 1914, p. 708.]

[Footnote 2:  Scientific Management, by F.W.  Taylor, p. 47.]