The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

 THE MECHANICAL HANDLING AND STORING OF MATERIAL CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Since the introduction of mechanical devices as aids to human effort, there has ever existed a controversy concerning the influence of machinery upon the welfare of the human race. The workman’s cry has always been that the substitution of manual labour by mechanical means has diminished his opportunities of employment, and although the fallacy of this argument has been demonstrated from many quarters, the leaders of the men have opposed, as inimical to their interest, those improvements which play a vital part in national economy. In addition to their adverse attitude concerning the use of labour-saving machinery, the restriction of output has been advocated by the leaders of the Unions as a remedy for unemployment, but this again is unsound reasoning—plausible as it may appear at a casual glance because the cost of production must be increased by such a policy, and enhanced cost spells diminished sales, which in turn causes diminution of employment. So the advocates of restricted output find that instead of providing a living wage for a greater number of men, the employment becomes more limited, and that the actual effect is detrimental instead of beneficial to the workers. The spirit of commercial unrest which is abroad to-day finds expression in the new Syndicalism which teaches that all manual wage earners belong to one class, and all the rest of the community to another class. . In their crude conception it does not seem to have occurred to the intellectual leaders of the Syndicalist movement that it is only possible for a capitalist to renew his capital by selling the goods for the production of which he has paid wages, and that most of the buyers are themselves wage earners. The capitalist is, in fact, the channel for conveying goods from one wage earner who is paid tor the labour of producing them, to another wage earner who pays for the pleasure of consuming them. Ihere can be no doubt in the minds of those who study the laws of national economy that the lower the cost of production the greater will be the sale of almost all commodities of life, as they become accessible to a larger circle, and the greater the progress of modern civilisation. H. J. Brackenbury says in an interesting article on “Men and Machines” in Casster's Magazine: “ Methods of manufacture and machinery may be brought to such perfection that what now takes a hundred hours of human labour to produce, will in future take only fifty, or even twenty-five. If, then, the people be satisfied with their standard of living, the benefit of rapid production will be felt in the direction of shorter i