Attention is called to the unusual labour force in 1919 because the smaller numbers reported at subsequent enumerations have been widely used as a triumphant demonstration that technological Progress has resulted in decreased employment.
A more correct view of the influence of machinery on produc tion and employment results from a comparison of the 15 years from 1914 to 1929 with the preceding 15-year period. The in crease both in wage earners and the general population was less, but the manufacturing wage earners gained a little on population.
Most conspicuous was the greater increase in manufacturing pro duction, combined with a slower increase than in the preceding period in wage earners, man-hours and horse-power.
This substantial advance in the volume of manufacturing output is reflected in a marked advance in the output per worker and a still greater advance in the output per man-hour. That these re sults were attained with a smaller increase of horse-power installed would appear to indicate the significance of other factors not previ ously considered.
The two possible explanations are an improvement in the ef ficiency of the individual worker and an improvement in organ ization and management. The vogue in the '20S of what were then designated as systems of scientific management seems to point to the last named as the probable cause of an increased productivity in the manufacturing process.
The period since 1929 witnessed in the first instance a marked decline in physical production, with a subsequent recovery that brought its volume in 1937 to a point only 12% below that of 1929. In like manner the number of wage earners fell off to a point that in 1933 was lower than in 1909.
Thanks to a marked reduction in the hours of work as well as to the increase in physical output, the number of wage earners in 1937 was practically the same as in 1929. However, each of them gave less time to his work and the aggregate man-hours were one fif th less than eight years before.
No record was kept in this period of the horse-power installed, and what happened in the field of technological invention and its application is largely a matter of conjecture.
Reports of technological achievement in particular fields were rife, but the lower level of machine tool production did not indi cate any expansion.
Indeed, it was highly probable that the efficiency of industry's mechanical equipment was not being maintained. There was on
the contrary much evidence of impairment. In the early days of the depression, when production was much curtailed, it seems likely that there was a selection of the existing equipment that increased the average efficiency of this factor, just as there was a selection in the working force that retained the most capable workers in their positions. In consonance with this view it may be noted the index of output per man-hour continued to increase and reached its highest point in 1933.
To attribute such a change to increasing mechanization seems to mistake certain fundamental conditions. With the recovery noted in the years 1933 and 1935, the workers increased in num ber. This meant, other things being equal, (I) a lowering of the average capacity of the worker, and (2) an increased use of existing equipment bringing into operation its less effective ele ments. Under these conditions a lower output per worker and per man-hour after 1933 is clearly explicable.
The net result of the entire period 1929 to 1937 was a lowering of the output per worker and an increase of the output per man hour. In such changes machinery has played a part that is far less important than in previous years.
The general effect of the introduction of machinery in increas ing the volume of product for a given application of human effort is unquestioned. Equally unquestioned is the correlative effect of reducing the amount of human effort necessary to produce a given volume of output.
There have been times when this latter effect has been widely held as a menace to human welfare. The fears of social distress as a result of improved technical processes have until now proved themselves illusory.
Those fears rest on an apprehension that changes will take place suddenly and throw numbers out of employment. They miss the fact that economic changes occur slowly, that there is a gradual adaptation to them.
They miss the fact that if as a result of machinery the same goods can be made with less labour, it is equally true that the same labour can product, more goods. Thus far the introduction of machinery has vastly increased the output of manufactures and has shortened the customary hours of labour.
It has not, by and large, reduced the number of persons re quired to do the world's work. (R. P. F.)