The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

INTROD UCTOR Y 3 1 he frequent strikes of workmen, generally used as levers to raise their wages, which disorganise and sometimes totally paralyse all branches of industry, naturally suggest to the employer the use of mechanical means for handling his raw material and fuel supply, and also the advisability of storing where possible large supplies of these materials in mechanically equipped stores, thereby making himself independent, for a time at least, in that department of his establishment. From the economic standpoint the introduction of machines for the mechanical handling of material is essentially a question of rentability, z>., whether the labour saved by the machinery justifies the capital outlay for the plant. If labour is to be had at a low rate and in sufficient quantity, it might be, under efficient supervision, more economical to employ hand labour than to invest large sums in machinery. Such conditions obtain, however, only in new countries, and there only till the standard of living of the natives has been gradually raised through intercourse with, and by the example set by, Europeans. One of the results of cheap labour is that less inducement is held out to introduce labour-saving machinery. The wages of the unskilled labourer have so much risen of late, that the substitution of the mechanical conveyor for the man with the wheelbarrow and shovel becomes more lucrative. The application of machinery to both the handling and conveying of heavy and bulky material has of late years assumed a paramount interest. No branch of engineering has so rapidly developed in modern times as the construction of appliances for conveying, loading, and unloading heavy goods, more particularly coal and ore. In the case of grain and seeds, again, the construction of granaries and silo-houses on a large scale has been undertaken, and the aid of automatic machinery more or less sought to provide means of handling this material as far as possible without the assistance of hand labour. The increased competition met with in all branches of manufacture has forced upon capitalists the necessity of economising in every department. The exaggerated importance attached by the followers of Ruskin to hand labour has passed into the region of obsolete and unworkable theories, and labour-saving appliances are everywhere regarded as being absolutely essential to the progress of all industries. 'I'he mechanical handling of grain is of prior date, and it was not till comparatively recent years that the engineer was able to render any effective assistance in the handling and automatic conveying of coal and ore. It was not until towards the latter end of the nineteenth century that the growing demands of industry made it imperatively necessary to store coal on a large scale, and so brought about this mechanical revolution. 1 his movement received greater impetus from the many electric power stations and the extensions of gasworks which have marked the industrial history of the past thirty years. The loading and unloading of bulk cargoes in and out of vessels and railway trucks used to be effected entirely by hand. In some of the harbours and docks of Africa, India, South America, in the West India Islands, and also in the Far East, this process is still sometimes in vogue for loading vessels, or has been till within the past few years. This primitive mode of handling material is, however, disappearing to make room for mechanical appliances. The annexed illustration depicts such an instance during the Russian and Japanese War, and shows the coaling of a battleship at Nagasaki, the “ Portsmouth ” of Japan. Gangs of 50 to 150 natives, both men and women, used to carry the coal in baskets on their heads to and from the ships, the result of their toil being about 3 to 4 tons of coal per carrier per day.