Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Current Economic Affairs (1924).pdf/39

Rh only at intervals, with considerable rest periods intervening. Much of the work on continuous 12-hour shifts is done under such conditions.

Now, if the machine or the furnace be operating at maximum efficiency, and if the arrangement of personnel be also designed for maximum efficiency, it is manifestly impossible for three men per 24 hours to effect a unit cost of production so low as two men. If something of that kind appears to result it is obviously ascribable to something offsetting that is introduced by management. For example, the shock of having to put three men on a job previously done by two may lead management to substitute an improved machine, or an improved arrangement of personnel.

Improvement of industrial practice by shock is efficacious occasionally, just as a boy may sometimes be taught to swim by pushing him off a boat. There are conditions however when shocks may not be beneficial, and the higher we move toward perfection in our industrial arts, the less likelihood is there of any benefit. When the silver-lead and copper smelters of the West were arbitrarily constrained to change from two 12-hour shifts to three eight-hour shifts, 20 to 30 years ago, they quickly responded to the force of circumstances, being well able to do so by virtue of the wide room for improvement that then existed. If they were now constrained to change from three eight-hour shifts to four six-hour shifts they would have far more difficulty. The doctrine that men in general can perform as much work in eight hours as in 10 hours, by virtue of their greater freshness, or that they will have the will to do so, is contradicted by common experience both in America and Europe.