Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/13

 the community short of some essential, he will in return extort from the community the biggest price he can get for his product. When he does that he forces up the cost of living of all the people who use his product, and they in turn require more wages. The increase is passed on and on until the whole economic structure shakes. We call this our organized system of production. It is not an organized system. It is only the beginning of a system. In manufacturing the same extraordinary haphazard conditions prevail. Nobody knows what quantity of any article the community needs. Each manufacturer makes his own guess, throws in one or two varieties as new season's patterns, and hustles his salesman out on the road to find buyers. If the market happens to be flooded with cheap Asiatic or foreign stuff, the salesman fails, the factory shuts down, the employees have to look for work elsewhere, while in the storeroom lie thousands of pounds' worth of goods not required. We laugh at the manufacturer for being short-sighted, but we should weep for him and his employees, as in the end the community has to pay for this mistaken effort of production.

It is interesting to note the action taken in other countries to cope with this problem during the war. In Great Britain and France there was an investigation into boot manufacturing. It was found that there were hundreds and hundreds of patterns being turned out, each year bringing forth a new crop. This in turn had led to thousands of shopkeepers buying quantities of each of these hundreds of varieties, and in each case they had to stock a range of sizes. The public bought a little, and then its vagrant fancy turned to other shapes and patterns. The result was that thousands of pounds' worth of boots were lying on the shelves of the boot shops, out of fashion and not required. Under war conditions this had to stop. An effort was made under expert guidance to reduce the patterns of boots manufactured to a reasonable number. This resulted in a saving of leather; also a number of those previously engaged in boot making were released for other war work. The community had conserved its stock of leather and the public got cheap boots. There is bound to be an effort made to continue this arrangement under peace conditions. The discussion in Great Britain regarding a national uniform of one pattern for all citizens to wear during working hours has shown ways of eliminating waste and cheapening production. In America the manufacturers,