Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

WELFARE WORK I5I at once to improve the conditions when they had to engage a large new contingent of female workers. The second reason is that the health of munition workers has been discovered to be a matter of national importance.1 In the United States these particular reasons have naturally not come so much to the fore. There are firms who believe that their own prosperity is increased in a marked degree by having the best workshop conditions; there are firms who are already prosperous, and have a genuine philan- thropic desire to let their workers benefit by their prosperity, independent of the hope of getting a further increase in dividends. Again, some firms want to attract workpeople of a superior class. And, lastly, many firms have fully grasped the importance of attracting custom by being able to display and advertise fully the conveniences and amenities of their industrial establishments. America has certainly travelled far since 1904, when Mr. Emerson, in his paper on “ A Rational Basis for Wages,” incurred very sarcastic comment by saying that he would pay his minimum wage to a worker, “ sick or well.” One speaker in the dis- cussion observed : “ What a delightful arrange- ment, to transfer all the responsibilities of keeping 1 See Mr. Lloyd George’s preface to Miss Proud’s book on Welfare Work : " If a maximum output was to be reached— still more if it was to be maintained for a protracted period—it was all-important that the health and well-being of the worker should be carefully guarded.” And also that Welfare Super- vision is “ beneficial to the employer, narticularlv in works employing women.”