BARNETT HOUSE PAPERS. No. 7 
 
 Scientific Management 
 
 and 
 
 Phe Engineering Situation 
 
 SIDNEY BALL MEMORIAL LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 28 OCTOBER 1922 
 
 BY 
 
 sm WILLIAM ASHLEY 
 
 JE-PRINCIPAL AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF COMMERCE OF THE UNIVERSITY Or 
 ftMINGHAM, SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC HISTORY IX HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 HONORARY FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXfOHD 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 ONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN 
 NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN 
 BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI 
 
 1922 
 
 Price One Shilling 
 
, OXFORD 
 
 Visitor: 
 
 (Vacant.} 
 
 Honorary Associates: 
 
 Miss JAKE ADDAMS. 
 MRS. SIDNEY BALL. 
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 LONDON. 
 
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BARNETT HOUSE PAPERS. No. 7 
 
 Scientific Management 
 
 and 
 
 The Engineering Situation 
 
 SIDNEY BALL MEMORIAL LECTURE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 28 OCTOBER 1922 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WILLIAM ASHLEY 
 
 '/ 
 
 VICE-PRINCIPAL AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF COMMERCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC HISTORY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 
 
 HONORARY FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN 
 
 NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN 
 
 BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI 
 
 1922 
 
A 7 
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND 
 AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND THE 
 ENGINEERING SITUATION 
 
 IT is now forty-two years since I first saw Sidney Ball. I had 
 gone to Gottingen to listen to Reinhold Pauli, the historian 
 of the English Middle Ages. On Pauli I called upon my arrival. 
 ' What you must do ', he at once exclaimed, ' is to see Herr Ball : 
 he'll tell you everything about Gottingen. We'll go and find 
 him '. Fortunately Gottingen is not a large place ; but it took 
 some time to run Ball down, my genial companion muttering 
 strange oaths as we went, to put me at my ease by his command 
 of colloquial English. We found Ball at last, and he ' took over '. 
 Then and there I had my first experience of his prompt kindness, 
 his delicate consideration, his abounding vivacity. ' You must 
 come and have supper with me : but perhaps I had better get 
 some Fleisch.' So he hurried me off to a shop, and bought some 
 slices of bully beef, and carried it in his hand to his lodgings, 
 wrapped up in paper. How often since have I recalled that 
 bright figure, with its charm and ease and confidence, so infinitely 
 attractive to an awkward and timid junior ! 
 
 Ball had taken his degree the year before, and was then 
 sitting at the feet of Lotze. I took my degree the year after. 
 For the next four years I was maintaining myself as a coach, 
 uncertain at the opening of each term whether I should have 
 enough pupils to pay for my lodgings : Ball had soon an 
 assured position as Fellow and Tutor of a college. It may 
 readily be imagined what the comradeship, the eager outpouring 
 of ideas, the ready hospitality of such a man meant to one whose 
 social opportunities had been as limited as mine. 
 
 It is now so long ago that it can hardly be indiscreet to add 
 that, if Ball could have had his way, we should have become 
 colleagues in college work. It was not to be. No sensible man 
 who has gained from Oxford what I have gained could think 
 of grumbling because in earlier years hopes more than once 
 
 A 2 
 
AND 
 
 went astray ; but he may feel as I do the warmer gratitude 
 gratitude which grows as he looks back over the perspective 
 of four decades to the college which did show sufficient confidence 
 in him to invite him into its society. 
 
 The intimacy of those early days was broken by my removal 
 across the Atlantic ; and Ball's subsequent career as a leading 
 Oxford tutor I was too far off to watch. With passing years, 
 I suppose we tended to diverge not in social ideals but in our 
 views as to their realization. I have sometimes wondered whether 
 a classical culture, largely occupied with Greek political philo- 
 sophy, may not predispose a scholar to think too readily of 
 economic conditions as plastic to ideas, as susceptible of large 
 and rapid modification by the will of the legislator; while an 
 historical training, on the other hand, may predispose a student 
 to emphasize perhaps to over-emphasize the slowness of social 
 evolution. Ball, I think, always had more respect for orthodox 
 economics: he regarded the just claim of Marx that he built 
 on Ricardian foundations not as an argument against Ricardo, 
 but as an argument in favour of Marx. Individualism and 
 Socialism are, in truth, spiritually akin ; they are both examples 
 of abstract thinking; and of abstract thinking which goes for 
 a considerable distance along the same lines. The admiration 
 I felt for Schmoller and the historical economists called forth 
 from Ball, I have to confess, only good-humoured badinage. 
 
 There is an aspect of my friend's life on which I should like 
 to dwell for a moment. Coming back to Oxford, from time to 
 time, from Toronto and Harvard and Birmingham places 
 where, from the nature of the situation, the teacher has 
 commonly to deal with students in the mass it was a constant 
 surprise to me to see the intimate and personal interest Ball 
 took in the work of the individual undergraduate. It is not 
 every one who is able to rise, so spontaneously and happily, to 
 the fine ideal of the Oxford tutorship. But, if I may trust 
 what the men of his college have repeatedly told me, that is just 
 what Ball did. They might smile at some of his characteristics ; 
 but they respected him as a scholar, and they were grateful 
 to him as a friend. 
 
 Not only was he true to the best tutorial tradition ; he was 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 5 
 
 intensely devoted to Oxford. To my mind in later years, bent 
 as I was on helping to create centres of scholarship and research 
 right away from Oxford, Ball's academic horizon, in spite of his 
 humanitarian ardours, was perhaps just a little restricted. If his 
 contemporaries here were sometimes disturbed by his eagerness 
 to widen the range of Oxford studies and to extend the 
 University's appeal to the less fortunate classes, they must 
 surely have half forgiven him when they saw how whole-heartedly 
 he believed in the national mission of this ancient seat of learning. 
 His vision of Oxford was the prophet's vision of Jerusalem : 
 1 the mountain of the Lord's house shall be exalted above the 
 hills ' and plains of the Midlands and Lancashire and Yorkshire ; 
 * and all nations ' or, as Disraeli would have said, both ' the 
 two nations ' ' shall flow into it '. 
 
 It is sadly true that concentration on the tutorial work of one 
 college and the limitation of active interest to one university 
 are attended by a grave risk that professional disappointment, 
 should it come, will be acutely felt, however bravely and smilingly 
 it may be borne. Such a trial my friend was not spared. The 
 more fitting it is that his memory should be kept fresh by this 
 Memorial Lecture in the university which he adorned and 
 loved. 
 
 My subject is what is known as f Scientific Management '. 
 This is a term of which much has been heard in the United 
 States for a dozen years past ; since the time when a leading 
 advocate who has since become one of the Judges of the 
 United States Supreme Court made unexpected and conspicuous 
 use of it in certain hearings before the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission. That was in 1910. It is characteristic of America 
 that, when a new idea once begins to take hold, it spreads with 
 amazing rapidity; propaganda societies are formed, national 
 conventions held, journals started, courses planned at the 
 universities. And this has been the case with f Scientific 
 [Management'. The movement which the term denoted had 
 lost some of its early fervour and confidence in the land of its 
 birth ; it had somewhat changed in character, when it reached 
 England toward the end of the War. Here it has already 
 
6 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 attracted a great deal of attention from the younger generation 
 of workshop managers, especially in the engineering and kindred 
 trades. The conditions have been favourable for its reception. 
 The War did much from the first to stimulate tendencies in 
 manufacturing methods which had long been making headway ; 
 but the changes continued to be dictated by immediate expediency; 
 they were little theorized or made the conscious subject of 
 reflection. But during the last three or four years the counters 
 of the booksellers in the great cities where engineering finds its 
 centres have been laden with ' Management ' and ' Efficiency ' 
 literature from across the Atlantic. In the writings of 
 Frederick Winslow Taylor and of his disciples and successors, 
 America has offered English business men a body of teaching 
 for which they were to some extent predisposed, but which it is 
 doubtful whether they would have constructed for themselves. 
 I will venture to add, and I think I shall be able to show, that 
 it is teaching which, in important respects, is out of harmony 
 with the best English traditions. 
 
 In studying < Scientific Management ' we may follow one 
 of two courses. We may examine it historically. We may 
 ascertain what were the special ideas which the man who, 
 more than any other, gave to current tendencies the shape of 
 a conscious policy, namely the American engineer, Frederick 
 Winslow Taylor, put in the forefront ; how he defined Scientific 
 Management ; and how far, if at all, he afterwards shifted his 
 position. Or, still pursuing the historical order, we may take a 
 wider range, and include with Taylor the three men, Gantt, 
 Emerson arid Gilbreth of whom the two latter are, I believe, still 
 living who have won for themselves reputation and business 
 success by the advocacy and application of derivative or supple- 
 mentary ideas ; and we may notice similarly with them how 
 definitions have varied and emphasis been redistributed. Or 
 we may take the other course of examining Scientific Manage- 
 ment analytically. We may look at the body of teaching and 
 the mass of experiment as a whole, and seek to disentangle in 
 our own way the various elements of which it is composed. It 
 is the last course I propose to adopt. 
 
 Scientific Management may be defined as the conscious 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 7 
 
 application of directing intelligence to given manufacturing 
 operations as distinguished from Commercial Policy which de- 
 termines the nature and scale of manufacture, and Technology 
 or ' Applied Science ' which determines the most appropriate 
 machinery. In actual business practice these three things can 
 never be kept apart ; each impinges on the others. Nevertheless, 
 the distinction is important for our purpose. Among manu- 
 facturing operations I shall have in mind chiefly engineering 
 and the cognate metal trades. 
 
 The task of Scientific Management is, in the first place, simply 
 that fundamental problem of Administration which arises in all 
 human undertakings when complex and interrelated operations 
 are carried on in a limited area by a large number of persons. 
 It makes its appearance as the result chiefly of the growth in 
 the size of our manufacturing establishments. And it is not to 
 be wondered at that, until recently, the two other fundamental 
 questions of business activity, viz. Machinery and Markets, 
 have seemed more pressing. In a small shop, it may hardly 
 seem to matter just where the machines are placed, or in what 
 order certain operations are done. It is only when there are 
 many employed with diverse duties, when they begin to jostle 
 against one another, that the situation has to be consciously 
 faced. Let me take an example outside the field of manu- 
 facture. Early in the War there grew up in one of the large 
 provincial cities a great office, occupying a whole floor of the 
 municipal building, where several scores of workers, paid and 
 voluntary, were occupied with the distribution of allowances to 
 soldiers' dependants, and with the relief of civilian distress. The 
 accounting technique was soon most carefully thought out; 
 there was an adequate supply of typewriters and telephones. 
 But as the work grew, fresh workers were brought in and 
 planted down just where there happened to be room, and as a 
 result there was soon something like chaos. Somebody had to be 
 found and fortunately a calm and competent man was avail- 
 able who could grasp the situation as a whole, divide the staff 
 into departments according to its particular job, divide the floor 
 space among the departments in the way most convenient for 
 the dispatch of the business, and put each under clearly defined 
 
8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 and responsible superintendence. This seems simple enough 
 when it is done ; but, if rumour is not grossly unjust, one if not 
 more of the new government departments hardly succeeded in 
 getting even so far during the War. 
 
 It is precisely this matter of the internal order of manu- 
 facturing establishments and of their several shops which has 
 come to the front during the more recent course of the Scientific 
 Management movement. That the work should be carried on 
 by the several departments in sufficient, and sufficiently segre- 
 gated, space that the areas assigned should be related in such 
 a way as to economize the labour of internal and external trans- 
 port and facilitate costing ; that work which is to be subjected 
 to several processes should be ' routed \ i. e. definitely directed 
 by schedules or otherwise, in its passage from machine to 
 machine ; that tools and supplies should be systematically 
 stored, catalogued, distributed, and checked ; that the orderly 
 sequence of processes should be expedited by mechanical 
 conveyors, and so on : all this seems very obvious. But in 
 this country so many works had grown up from small beginnings 
 without ever stopping to consider administrative problems, that 
 it required the opportunities furnished by the vast new munition 
 works to force such problems upon the attention of business 
 men. I have seen a great works which has a deserved reputa- 
 tion for being ' scientifically managed ', and where an American 
 ( efficiency expert ' had been highly rewarded for ' installing ' 
 his ( system ', where all the really important new features were 
 of this purely administrative order. And there is this advantage 
 about such measures : that they need never, if carried through 
 with average common sense, arouse the antagonism of labour. 
 
 This is, unfortunately, not so generally true of that second 
 element in what is known as Scientific Management to which 
 we must next turn ; and that is the effort to improve the Method 
 of Remuneration of Labour in the interest of economy of pro- 
 duction. This requires some preliminary explanation. 
 
 There was a time when the mere substitution of piece wages 
 for time wages was supposed sufficiently to secure a due degree 
 of application on the part of the workman. It did of course, 
 when first introduced, bring about in most cases a great increase 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 9 
 
 in output per day or week : the fear indeed in some minds was lest 
 piece wages should stimulate individual workpeople to an extrava- 
 gant and self-injurious zeal. Even when the reward of the 
 workmen was increased in just the same proportion as the 
 output and it need hardly be said that this was seldom the 
 case the more rapid performance of work almost invariably 
 caused a reduction of ' overhead charges ' per unit of output. 
 And cheaper production, in the absence of combination among 
 producing concerns, might and did conduce to the advantage of 
 the ' consumer ' in the form of lower prices. 
 
 Experience, however, has demonstrated that piece wages do 
 not, in fact, work out in anything like so satisfactory a way as 
 was anticipated : that they have led, hardly less than the 
 method of payment by time, to conscious or unconscious re- 
 striction of output. Rates of piece wages have been so often 
 cut by the employer when workmen have shown themselves able 
 to earn unusually large sums that workmen take care, speaking 
 broadly, to work well within the speed easily possible for them, 
 unless they feel sufficient confidence that the rates are reasonably 
 permanent. That f restriction of output ', or ' ca' canny ', is not 
 mere laziness or malice on the part of workmen; that it is the 
 inevitable result, human nature being what it is, of the general 
 industrial situation is, of course, recognized by every intelligent 
 and frank business man ; and it was one of the merits of Mr. 
 Taylor that he asserted this in the clearest and most emphatic 
 way. 
 
 The objective of Scientific Management is the removal of 
 this enormous psychological obstacle to economical production. 
 Let me say at once that, in my judgement, the most hopeful 
 direction in which we can look is the growth of complete com- 
 bination on both sides of the wages contract; with. a ' straight' 
 piece-wage system where there is sufficient repetition to make 
 that possible; and, where there is not, with some method of 
 joint rate-fixing in the shops, based on collective bargaining as 
 to normal time-earnings between bodies representing the whole 
 trade. I do not for a moment pretend that this is an easy road 
 to follow; there are difficulties, as we all know, in getting 
 agreements honoured, though I do not think they have arisen 
 
 A3 
 
10 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 in the engineering trades ; and it is hard to find umpires 
 sufficiently trusted by both sides to help a trade out of a dead- 
 lock. Still, it is the only road in the long run compatible 
 with a diffused democratic sentiment, so long as the manual 
 work is of such a kind as to cause the workpeople to fall 
 spontaneously into more or less homogeneous groups. That, in 
 my opinion, is likely to be always the case ; though mechanical 
 progress may necessitate from time to time a re-grouping. 
 
 But the earlier American apostles of Scientific Management 
 thought they had discovered an easier solution. They hit upon the 
 device of the bonus system ; herein they found, as they believed, 
 a stimulus to production free from the defects of a mere piece 
 wage ; with the further advantage that it enabled them, for the 
 benefit, they held, of society in general and of the workmen them- 
 selves, to avoid collective bargaining and entirely individualize 
 the labour contract. 
 
 The method of remuneration was not a matter in which 
 Taylor was himself at first particularly interested : what he 
 cared for most was the actual manner of performing the manual 
 work. But he took over the bonus idea from others, and soon 
 gave it a prominent place in his system, laying great emphasis 
 on the contrast, which in his eyes it involved, with anything in 
 the way of a corporate arrangement. 
 
 'The directors . . . should be informed of the leading 
 objects which the new system aims at, such as ... the 
 gradual selection of a body of ... picked workmen who will 
 work extra hard and receive extra high wages and be dealt 
 with individually instead of in masses. 3 (Shop Management, 
 p. 129). 
 
 'The writer believes the system of regulating the wages 
 and conditions of employment of whole classes of men by 
 conference and agreement between the leaders of unions and 
 manufacturers to be vastly inferior, both in its moral effect 
 on the men and on the material interests of both parties, to 
 the plan of stimulating each workman's ambition by paying 
 him according to his individual worth/ (Shop Management, 
 p. 186.) 
 
 English engineering employers, however, have never been 
 such thorough-going individualists as the American advocates of 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 11 
 
 Scientific Management. It is interesting to observe that, in 
 the very latest statement with regard to ' Payment by Results ' 
 recently put forward by the Engineering Employers Federation, 
 they propose that 
 
 ' Piece work prices and bonus or basis times shall be such 
 as will enable a workman of average ability to earn at least 
 33J per cent, over time rates ', 
 
 these time rates being, of course, fixed by collective bargaining 
 between the two bodies representing the trade ; that, subject to 
 this guiding rule, 
 
 ' Piece work prices and bonus or basis times shall be fixed 
 by mutual arrangement between the employer and the 
 worker ' ; 
 
 and that, failing agreement, 
 
 'the matter shall be dealt with between the management 
 and a deputation of workpeople } . 
 
 English employers recognized the principle of collective bar- 
 gaining even in the midst of their triumph in 1898, and have 
 never, to my knowledge, since then assailed it as one, at any 
 rate, of the principles to be jointly applied to the labour contract. 
 
 Taylor's own pet method of bonus his followers soon abandoned : 
 but some form or other of bonus has usually characterized 
 Scientific Management or Efficiency schemes in America. In 
 fact, it has often been the most conspicuous feature of a newly 
 introduced ' system ', and we must pause now to describe it in 
 a little more detail. 
 
 The Bonus policy is briefly this. A time is allowed for the 
 performance of a job or ' task ', and a wage fixed for the work 
 when done in that time, at the rate of so much per hour. If 
 . the work is done in a less time, the man is paid at the agreed 
 time-rate for the time taken ; and given, in addition, something 
 extra. If he were paid the whole of the time wage for the 
 time allowed but not taken, that would be simply a piece rate. 
 Accordingly, he is given a part only of the wage for the time 
 saved. His remuneration is raised; in the sense that, if job 
 succeeds job without loss of time, the man earning bonus carries 
 home a larger sum of money at the end of the week and it 
 may well be with no greater fatigue. But, at the same time, 
 
 A4 
 
12 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 his total remuneration per job or piece is of coarse in this way 
 reduced: the more he turns out in a given time the less the 
 payment to him per piece becomes. This is a quite legitimate 
 object of business management ; it may well be in the public 
 interest, and where the work becomes progressively less laborious 
 it may be fair to the workman : but it is not always as clearly 
 stated as candour might suggest. 
 
 It is evident, however, that there is nothing in the bonus 
 system to make the remuneration of labour any the less a matter 
 for bargaining between the parties concerned than there is in 
 a straight time or piece rate method. All it does is to break up 
 the bargain into three stages : first, the determination of the 
 wage per hour : then, of the time allowance for a particular job 
 or 'task': and then of the bonus itself, i.e. of the division 
 between the parties concerned of the saving effected by the 
 performance of the work in less than the allotted time. To 
 take the third part first. It is often vaguely thought that, 
 somehow or other, a bonus rate can be devised so inherently 
 right in its division of the savings of extra labour efficiency as 
 to remove the matter beyond the scope of argument or negotia- 
 tion. That it is strange that it should need to be said is 
 not so. The bonus or premium, though it may sound like it, is 
 not a present ; it is a part of the return to the workman for the 
 effort of labour. There is no reason, in the nature of things, 
 why the price of the saved time should be divided exactly half 
 and half between employer and employed, or in any other pro- 
 portion. A perception of this fact has been one of the reasons 
 for the general substitution in the engineering shops of this 
 country, for the American type of bonus earlier adopted, of the 
 Glasgow device known as the Rowan method. According to 
 this arrangement, whatever proportion the workman saves of 
 the time allowed, he receives as bonus the same proportion of 
 the wages for the time taken. Thus, if, suppose, the rate is 1O/. 
 an hour and the time allotted is 10 hours, and then the work 
 is done in 8 hours, and, therefore, with a saving of one-fifth of 
 the time allowed, the workman gets his 80 pence for the 8 hours 
 actually worked, plus a bonus of one- fifth of 80, i. e. 16 pence, 
 making a total earning of 96 pence for the 8 hours. But a moment's. 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 13 
 
 reflection will show that the verbal jingle ' the same proportion 
 of the time taken as of the time saved ' contains within it no 
 rationale, no logical explication, of the justice of such an arrange- 
 ment. The Rowan method, indeed, is now rather declining in 
 popularity among employers : it was originally introduced as 
 giving just the right amount of incentive to the workman; 
 it is being modified because, in the judgement of some experienced 
 employers, it does not give enough. But any and every bonus 
 system has necessarily the same characteristic : in essence it is 
 a matter not of an economic principle which can be put into the 
 form of: an arithmetical formula, but of the working of human 
 judgement, which must be either a one-sided affair or the result 
 of joint agreement. 
 
 And now we must return to the two prior elements : the basic 
 hour rate and the time allowance. In introducing the bonus 
 plan employers have commonly accepted the hour rate already 
 current. The crucial point, therefore, is the time allowance. 
 And, unfortunately, the time allowance has been found by 
 experience to bring back precisely the same evil as it was 
 intended to obviate. For the most ingenious methods for com- 
 puting the bonus do not remove, though they may lessen, the 
 temptation to cut the time allowance. It is not, in fact, so 
 commonly done as the cutting of piece rates, largely because of 
 the growth of concerted action among large employers, and of the 
 greater caution which has been taught by experience : but it 
 has been done often enough by some of the smaller and less 
 scrupulous employers to keep alive the spirit of distrust. It 
 should in fairness be added that it is not always easy to make 
 workmen recognize the justice of a reduction even when the 
 original time allowance was really excessive. 
 
 With bonus systems we have for several years been growing 
 familiar in this country. It is necessary to call your attention 
 now to an element in the Scientific Management or Efficiency 
 movement in America which has there been closely associated 
 with the bonus plan, but which is only beginning to make its 
 way in any conspicuous degree into Great Britain. And first 
 I may be allowed one preliminary remark. The Scientific 
 Management movement in America has been led by engineers. 
 
14 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 Now engineering is a matter of exact formulae a matter of 
 exactly measurable pressures and strains. And the tendency 
 of an engineer when he turns to the labour problem is to 
 imagine that there also formulae are ascertainable which will 
 substitute cold and impartial science for mere opinion and bias 
 and controversy. This was Taylor's evidently sincere convic- 
 tion. And let us see how he and his followers propose to do it. 
 
 The method proposed is that of Time Study : and in the United 
 States the idea has spread like wild-fire ; I suppose there were 
 soon some hundreds of f time-study men ' employed in the various 
 American factories. For the present we will keep Time Study 
 apart in our minds from Motion Study, which often goes with 
 it. Motion Study aims at improving the motions employed in 
 a certain operation : in practice it is chiefly interested in 
 unskilled labour. Time Study, taken by itself, does not aim at 
 altering the motions by which the operatives do their work, but 
 seeks to ascertain just how long it takes some standard type of 
 workman to get through a particular job. For this purpose the 
 whole operation is broken up into the units, the several move- 
 ments, of which it is composed. After the unit-times and the 
 total- operation-time have been ascertained by observation, the 
 unit-times can be utilized, it is held, without fresh observation, 
 in calculations for other jobs, to the extent to which they are 
 composed of the same elements. 
 
 At once two questions arise. Can such standard times be 
 ascertained with such accuracy and impartiality as to deserve to 
 be called ' scientific ' ? And supposing they can be, what is 
 their bearing on the problem of remuneration ? 
 
 It may be granted that, theoretically, standard times can be 
 ascertained, although we may doubt, as I shall show later, as to 
 their value when obtained. There will arise not altogether 
 negligible questions as to the number of observations, the 
 statistical technique, the type of man to be selected for study ; 
 the inducement, if any, to secure his co-operation ; the conditions 
 as to environment, &c. ; but with a highly trained staff of time- 
 study men and sufficient expenditure of time and money, the 
 difficulties can, in theory, be overcome. In actual practice, 
 however, the ascertainment of standard times in American 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 15 
 
 ' scientifically-managed ' shops has been far from satisfying the 
 requirements of impartial science. Side by side with the two 
 treatises of Mr. Taylor, presenting the ideals of Scientific 
 Management, we may place the treatise of Professor Hoxie, 
 presenting the conclusions of the Commission appointed by the 
 United States Government to investigate what professed to be, 
 and was explicitly stated by the experts to be, Scientific Manage- 
 ment in practice. I should advise any in this country who 
 desire to look into Scientific Management to begin with these 
 three books. As the Hoxie Commission made abundantly clear, 
 time study as actually practised has been generally made the job 
 of officials of a poor calibre ; it has been done hastily ; and it has 
 included large elements such as allowances for interruption, 
 and the like which were necessarily somewhat arbitrary. In 
 effect it has been, in many cases in America, a mere device to 
 obtain * scientific ' justification for the rate-fixers' otherwise- 
 determined presumption as to the proper time allowance ; and in 
 many more it has naturally looked like that to a critical work- 
 man, even if it were not. 
 
 But grant to time study all that the most enthusiastic efficiency 
 experts claim for it, all that it can do is to furnish one element 
 in the adjustment of wages, viz., the time a job should take. 
 It does not touch the question how much it shall be paid, 
 whether with or without bonus. How are we to effect the 
 transition from the ( task ', thus ex hypothesi scientifically 
 ascertained, to the remuneration? Let Mr. Taylor himself 
 answer. 
 
 1 The writer has found, after making many mistakes above 
 and below the proper mark, that to get the maximum output 
 for ordinary shop work requiring neither especial brains, very 
 close application, skill, nor extra hard work, such, for instance, 
 as the more ordinary kinds of routine machine shop work, it is 
 necessary to pay about 30 per cent, more than the average. 
 For ordinary day labour requiring little brains or special skill, 
 but calling for strength, severe bodily exertion, and fatigue, 
 it is necessary to pay from 50 per cent, to 60 per cent, above 
 the average. For work requiring especial skill or brains, 
 coupled with close application, but without severe bodily 
 exertion, such as the more difficult and delicate machinists' 
 work, from 70 per cent, to 80 per cent, beyond the average. 
 
16 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 And for work requiring skill, brains, close application, strength, 
 and severe bodily exertion, such, for instance, as that involved 
 in operating a well run steam hammer doing miscellaneous 
 work, from 80 per cent, to 100 per cent, beyond the average. 
 It is the writer's judgement that for their own good it is as 
 important that workmen should not be very much over-paid, 
 as it is that they should not be under-paid. If over-paid, 
 many will work irregularly and tend to become more or less 
 shiftless, extravagant, and dissipated. It does not do or 
 most men to get rich too fast/ (Shop Management, pp. 26, 27). 
 
 It is rather unfortunate that Schmidt, Mr. Taylor's pig-iron- 
 carrying model man, finally took to drink. But you perceive 
 the engineer's point of view : the human machine wants just 
 so much fuel, the human animal wants just so much oats, 
 to reach the optimism of efficiency; and it is the engineer's 
 business, like the coachman's, to determine the amount. The 
 proper wages, necessary to secure the desired results, were 
 'demonstrated' to Mr. Taylor, he tells us, by f a long series 
 of experiments, coupled with close observation.' (Principles, 
 p. 74). 
 
 When he speaks thus, be it observed, he conceives himself 
 to be speaking not as a biased employer but as an impartial 
 man of science. He expressly says that not only the task and 
 the length of the day but also ' what constitutes proper pay for 
 this work' 'can be much better determined by the expert time 
 student than by either the union or a board of directors.' (SJiop 
 Management, p. 186.) 
 
 But suppose the machine, the animal, has a will of its own, 
 and differs from the engineer, the coachman, the time expert. 
 Suppose its desires are not limited to the pay-roll. Suppose, 
 wisely or not, it wishes to sacrifice its own immediate interest 
 to the interests of the other machines, the other animals ? And 
 this suggests one final observation. 
 
 However perfectly f scientific ' a wage system may be, organized 
 labour is compelled by its most essential principle to resist any 
 wage system which in its eyes endangers the solidarity of its 
 combination. For its object is the maintenance, and, if possible, 
 the raising, of the standard of living of the whole body of those 
 employed in the trade. It may seek this end in unwise ways ; 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 17 
 
 but that is its end. Any plan which, in effect, makes a minority 
 of the workpeople in a trade, as for instance those employed by 
 a particular firm or some of them, so well contented with their 
 earning^ without a similar improvement in the earnings of 
 others, that they no longer care to take part in efforts to safe- 
 guard or improve the position of the majority, must be opposed, 
 however regretfully, by labour leaders; just as a general will 
 sacrifice some .of his men for the benefit of his operations as 
 a whole. 
 
 We come now to the third element in what is known as 
 Scientific Management, and that is the Regulation of the Manual 
 
 as a 
 
 ERRATUM , b Ur - 
 
 a you 
 
 PAGE 16, line 15 for optimism read optimum that 
 
 : just 
 
 liantett Home Papers, No. 7. 
 
 lUght 
 
 just how much to lift in their nanas, jusi now rar to waiK, just 
 how frequently to rest, &c., &c. ; though the securing of a body 
 of men sufficiently fit physically and docile mentally to do this 
 for the greater wages which followed on greater performance 
 would naturally take time. Mr. Taylor proved that a selected 
 body of men, possessing the necessary ox-like qualities (as he 
 described them) and working and resting as prescribed, could 
 carry almost four times as much pig-iron in the course of the 
 day, under the stimulus of a 60 per cent, increase of wages ; and 
 thereby save the employers 54 per cent, of the cost. All that 
 was in the '80s ; the observation which would naturally occur 
 to a really up-to-date works manager of to-day is that labour 
 capable of being reduced to such unvarying muscular elements 
 could now probably be taken off human muscles almost entirely. 
 But to return to the development of Mr. Taylor's thought. 
 The conclusion suggested to him by common labour he went on 
 to apply to all employment ; and in this he has been followed 
 by Scientific Management theorists generally. It is that large 
 economies could and should be effected by the assumption by the 
 management of a far wider and far closer control than has 
 
16 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 And for work requiring skill, brains, close application, strength, 
 and severe bodily exertion, such, for instance, as that involved 
 in operating a well run steam hammer doing miscellaneous 
 work, from 80 per cent, to 100 per cent, beyond the average. 
 It is the writer's judgement that for their own good it is as 
 important that workmen should not be very much over-paid, 
 as it is that they should not be under-paid. If over-paid, 
 many will work irregularly and tend to become more or less 
 shiftless, extravagant, and dissipated. It does not do for 
 most men to get rich too fast/ (Shop Management, pp. 26, 27). 
 
 It is rather unfortunate that Schmidt, Mr. Taylor's pig-iron- 
 
 carrying P n J---U +n ,1,.;,.! 
 
 the eng 
 so muc 
 to read 
 business 
 proper 
 1 demon 
 
 of expfciimeuvo; ^~ r 
 
 p. 74). 
 
 When he speaks thus, be it observed, he conceives himself 
 to be speaking not as a biased employer but as an impartial 
 man of science. He expressly says that not only the task and 
 the length of the day but also ' what constitutes proper pay for 
 this work' 'can be much better determined by the expert time 
 student than by either the union or a board of directors.' (Shop 
 Management, p. 186.) 
 
 But suppose the machine, the animal, has a will of its own, 
 and differs from the engineer, the coachman, the time expert. 
 Suppose its desires are not limited to the pay-roll. Suppose, 
 wisely or not, it wishes to sacrifice its own immediate interest 
 to the interests of the other machines, the other animals ? And 
 this suggests one final observation. 
 
 However perfectly ' scientific ' a wage system may be, organized 
 labour is compelled by its most essential principle to resist any 
 wage system which in its eyes endangers the solidarity of its 
 combination. For its object is the maintenance, and, if possible, 
 the raising, of the standard of living of the whole body of those 
 employed in the trade. It may seek this end in unwise ways ; 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 17 
 
 but that is its end. Any plan which , in effect, makes a minority 
 of the workpeople in a trade, as for instance those employed by 
 a particular firm or some of them, so well contented with their 
 earnings, without a similar improvement in the earnings of 
 others, that they no longer care to take part in efforts to safe- 
 guard or improve the position of the majority, must be opposed, 
 however regretfully, by labour leaders; just as a general will 
 sacrifice some .of his men for the benefit of his operations as 
 a whole. 
 
 \Ve come now to the third element in what is known as 
 Scientific Management, and that is the Reynlatum of the Manual 
 Processes. It was with this that Taylor began his career as a 
 Scientific Manager in the first instance of unskilled labour. 
 I spare you the details of the pig-iron loading episode, which you 
 will find in all the books. The principle asserted was this : that 
 labourers should not be allowed to perform a manual task just 
 as they please, but the one best method of doing it should be 
 ascertained by Motion Study, and then they should be taught 
 just how much to lift in their hands, just how far to walk, just 
 how frequently to rest, &c., &c. ; though the securing of a body 
 of men sufficiently fit physically and docile mentally to do this 
 for the greater wages which followed on greater performance 
 would naturally take time. Mr. Taylor proved that a selected 
 body of men, possessing the necessary ox-like qualities (as he 
 described them) and working and resting as prescribed, could 
 carry almost four times as much pig-iron in the course of the 
 day, under the stimulus of a 60 per cent, increase of wages ; and 
 thereby save the employers 54 per cent, of the cost. All that 
 was in the '80s; the observation which would naturally occur 
 to a really up-to-date works manager of to-day is that labour 
 capable of being reduced to such unvarying muscular elements 
 could now probably be taken off human muscles almost entirely. 
 
 But to return to the development of Mr. Taylor's thought. 
 The conclusion suggested to him by common labour he went on 
 to apply to all employment ; and in this he has been followed 
 by Scientific Management theorists generally. It is that large 
 economies could and should be effected by the assumption by the 
 management of a far wider and far closer control than has 
 
18 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 hitherto been the practice of all the actual steps in any 
 mechanical operation ; in other words, that, the job being 
 prescribed, it should be left far less to the workman's discretion 
 how it should be performed. How the management shall 
 gather the requisite information whether by simple observation 
 of a number of workmen and the selection of the quickest method 
 actually followed by any individual workman, or by elaborate 
 ' Motion Study ', beginning with the stop watch (concealed or 
 visible) and ending with stereochronocyclegraphs on this a 
 good deal will depend in the actual introduction of the new 
 policy. 
 
 I would remark indeed, by the way, that some of the main 
 principles of the particular method of Motion Study which 
 has been advocated and practised by its best known American 
 exponent, Mr. Frank Gilbreth, are now being seriously called in 
 question by psychologists. They gravely doubt whether there 
 is always a single ( best way ' of doing a job, irrespective of the 
 physical and mental make-up of the several workmen. They 
 are not at all satisfied with Mr. Gilbreth's procedure to get at 
 the supposedly best way. Gilbreth, with Taylor's warm approval, 
 seeks, as I have said, first to break up each particular operation 
 into a series of constituent motions; then to ascertain the 
 quickest way in which any one workman has achieved any one 
 of these motions; then to collect these quickest unit motions 
 into a new series making up the whole operation ; and then to 
 teach this as the ' standard ' method of work to be followed by 
 every workman. But psychologists and physiologists alike may 
 well question whether the best whole can, in fact, be thus 
 constituted out of best parts ; whether there is not often a unity 
 about a whole action, based on a man's general physical and 
 mental constitution, which defies such linear analysis and defeats 
 so crude a synthesis. They go further and question whether the 
 rapidity even of a whole operation is anything like so generally 
 as the followers of Gilbreth suppose the best criterion of 
 productive efficiency. English Works Managers, before they 
 make their plans to follow Mr. Gilbreth's lead, would do well to 
 consider the writings of Dr. Charles Myers, based on enquiries 
 at the Psychological Laboratory at Cambridge, and to take into 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 19 
 
 account also the examples of a different line of approach to Motion 
 Study which they will find in Mr. Eric Farmer's Reports of 
 last year to the Industrial Fatigue Research Board. 
 
 The attitude of English working men to Motion Study, if it 
 ever comes to be practised to any large extent in this country, 
 will depend very greatly on the way in which it is conceived 
 and on the way in which it is carried out. Yet it might be 
 urged by the American efficiency expert that, after all, these 
 are only questions of method the purpose is the same, to arrive 
 at improved ways of getting work done. It might also be said 
 to be only a question of method though immensely important 
 in relation to the attitude of the workmen how the new and 
 improved ways are to be introduced : whether by persuasion or 
 command, whether through ' the old time foreman ', or through 
 Mr. Taylor's ' functional foremanship ', which puts the workman 
 under the control or tutelage or advice of as many as eight 
 ( bosses '. These are not, after all, Taylor's fundamental idea. 
 What that is, is best stated in his own words : 
 
 ' Under scientific management . . . the managers assume 
 new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of 
 in the past. The managers assume . . . the burden of gather- 
 ing together all of the traditional knowledge which in the 
 past has been possessed by the workmen, and then of classify- 
 ing, tabulating and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, 
 and formulae. . . . 
 
 The development of a science involves the establishment 
 of many rules, laws, and formulae which replace the judge- 
 ment of the individual workman. . . . All of the planning 
 which under the old system was done by the workman, as 
 a result of his personal experience, must of necessity under 
 the new system be done by the management/ (Principles of 
 Scientific Management, pp. 36, 37.) 
 
 1 As far as possible the workmen, as well as the gang 
 bosses and foremen, should be entirely relieved of the work of 
 planning. . . . All possible Irain work should be removed from the 
 shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department.' 
 (Shop Management, p. 98.) 
 
 The advantages of this policy from the point of view of the 
 management are twofold. In the first place, by speeding-up 
 production, it lessens the cost of labour per unit of output, when 
 
20 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 it continues to be performed by the same men. This is especially 
 the case when it is associated with an effective reduction of the 
 piece rate through the working of a bonus system. Even when 
 a piece rate remains unchanged, a more rapid output lessens the 
 overhead charges to be allocated to each unit. And, in the 
 second place, it makes it possible to substitute a cheaper type 
 of labour. 
 
 'Almost any job that is repeated over and over again, 
 however great skill and dexterity it may require, providing 
 there is enough of it to occupy a man throughout a consider- 
 able part of the year, should be done by a trained labourer and 
 not by a mechanic. A man with only the intelligence of an 
 average labourer can be taught to do the most difficult and 
 delicate work if it is repeated enough times. ... A man, 
 however, whose mental calibre and education do not fit him to 
 become a good mechanic, when he is trained to do some few 
 especial jobs, which were formerly done by mechanics, should 
 not expect to be paid the wages of a mechanic. He should get 
 more than the average labourer, but less than a mechanic/ 
 (Shop Management, p. 28.) 
 
 f The full possibilities of functional foremanship will not 
 have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop 
 are run by men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who 
 are therefore cheaper than those required under the old system. 
 The adoption of standard tools, appliances, and methods 
 throughout the shop, the planning done in the planning room 
 and the detailed instructions sent them from this department, 
 added to the direct help received from the four executive 
 bosses, permit the use of comparatively cheap men even on 
 complicated work. Of the men in the machine shop of the 
 Bethlehem Steel Company engaged in running the roughing 
 machines, and who were working under the bonus system 
 when the writer left them, about 95 per cent, were handy 
 men trained up from labourers. And on the finishing machines, 
 working on bonus, about 25 per cent, were handy men. 
 
 To fully understand the importance of the work which was 
 being done by these former labourers, it must be borne in mind 
 that a considerable part of their work was very large and 
 expensive. The forgings which they were engaged in rough- 
 ing and finishing weighed frequently many tons. Of course 
 they were paid more than labourer's wages, though not so much 
 as skilled machinists. The work in this shop was most mis- 
 cellaneous in its nature/ (Shop Management, p. 105.) 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 21 
 
 I would not have you think that this is all Mr. Taylor had to 
 say : that he did not go on to show his reasons for believing that 
 the policy in question is beneficial to labour generally. But it 
 will be convenient to leave Mr. Taylor at this point, and cross 
 back to England. 
 
 The problem presented to the Engineering Industry of this 
 country, and coming to the front in the recent dispute, is at 
 bottom the same problem as that presented by the paragraphs 
 I have just quoted from Mr. Taylor. It is that of the substitution 
 of a cheaper for a more expensive grade of workman, and of the 
 effect of this on ' labour' generally. In America the issue has 
 been reached by the attempt, during the last quarter of a century, 
 to eliminate brain as far as possible from manual industry 
 through the introduction of planning, time and motion study, 
 functional foremanship, &c. : in Great Britain it has been inde- 
 pendently reached, during the same period, by the development 
 of more specialized, more automatic, more completely fool-proof 
 machinery, with the resulting dispute as to machine-manning. 
 But it is clear, on the one side, that planning and motion study in 
 America tends to the introduction of more specialized machinery, 
 whenever the market is large enough for the initial expense. 
 And, on the other hand, the evident purpose of the new 
 machinery in England is to split up operations, and reduce 
 much of the labour to greater simplicity and uniformity. 
 America and England have been moving in the same direction 
 by different, but converging roads ; and that direction is the 
 further ' division of labour'. 
 
 Before I go further let me interpose a reference to two once 
 well-known books of some ninety years ago. In 1832 appeared 
 the Economy of Manufactures, by Charles Babbage, Professor of 
 Mathematics in the University of Cambridge. Babbage followed 
 Adam Smith in regarding division of labour as ' perhaps the 
 most important principle on which the economy of manufacture 
 depends'. He thought, however, that 'the most important and 
 influential cause of the advantage resulting from the division 
 of labour', viz. the cheapness of manufactured articles, had 
 
22 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 been ' altogether unnoticed'. That cause, in his opinion, is 
 that 
 
 'the master manufacturer, by dividing the work to be 
 executed into different processes, each requiring different 
 degrees of skill or of force, can purchase exactly that precise 
 quantity of both which is necessary for each process '. (p. 175.) 
 
 Babbage, that is to say, regarded division of labour as consisting 
 in the more economical employment of ' the different degrees of 
 skill or of force' already available in a given society. Three 
 years later, in 1835, the same enterprising publisher, Charles 
 Knight, issued The Philosophy of Manufactures t by Dr. Alexander 
 Ure. Ure, without mentioning Babbage, loudly dissented from 
 what Babbage had just been saying : 
 
 ' The . . . adaptation of labour to the different talents of 
 men is little thought of in factory employment. On the 
 contrary, wherever a process requires peculiar dexterity and 
 steadiness of hand, it is withdrawn as soon as possible from 
 the cunning (sic) workman, who is prone to irregularities of 
 many kinds, and it is placed in charge of a peculiar mechanism, 
 so self-regulating that a child may superintend it/ . . . 
 
 ' By the infirmity of human nature it happens, that the 
 more skilful the workman, the more self-willed and intractable 
 he is apt to become, and, of course, the less fit a component of 
 a mechanical system, in which, by occasional irregularities, he 
 may do great damage to the whole. The grand object there- 
 fore of the modern manufacturer is, through the union of 
 capital and science, to reduce the task of his work-people to 
 the exercise of vigilance and dexterity/ . . . 
 
 f lt is, in fact, the constant aim and tendency of every 
 improvement in machinery to supersede human labour alto- 
 gether, or to diminish its cost, by substituting the industry, of 
 women and children for that of men; or that of ordinary 
 labourers, for trained artisans/ . . . 
 
 ( The scholastic dogma of the division of labour into degrees 
 of skill has been exploded by our enlightened manufacturers/ 
 (pp. 19-23.) 
 
 It is not, I think, too much to say that the future of industrial 
 society turns on the question whether lire's prognostic is going 
 to be verified. We must do him the justice to acknowledge that 
 his anticipations and hopes have been largely shared by manu- 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 23 
 
 facturers ; that the immediate motive in the introduction, both of 
 machinery and of much of what is known as Scientific Manage- 
 ment, has commonly been the desire to dispense with expensive 
 grades of labour ; and that little attempt has been made to go 
 beyond the immediate goal of cheapness of product, and seriously 
 consider the problem of labour as a whole, whether in engineer- 
 ing or in any other trade. The argument put forward by some 
 economists that the cheapening of production will, after a time, 
 create an increased demand for the displaced skill in other 
 directions, has not been reassuring in trades where skill of the 
 kind in question seems in course of displacement from every 
 kindred branch of manufacture. It is, therefore, not to be 
 wondered at that the skilled craftsmen have viewed the substitu- 
 tion of cheaper labour with alarm and met it with stubborn 
 resistance, and that their opposition has taken the form of 
 demanding, not that new machinery should not be introduced, 
 but that it should be manned by the existing skilled men, at the 
 skilled man's rate of pay. 
 
 Within less than a generation after the time when, in the 
 engineering trades, the fitters and turners of the modern type had 
 first made their appearance and joined together in the Amalga- 
 mated Society of Engineers, the question who should work the 
 several machines came to the front. It was perhaps the main 
 issue in the first of the historic strikes in the engineering 
 trade, that of 1852. And in that, as in the strike seventy 
 years later, the more cautious policy of the men's official leaders 
 was overridden by the alarm of the rank and file. 
 
 I should sit down with a feeling of despair if I did not think 
 that a view is tenable of the movement of industrial evolution 
 in the engineering and kindred trades which is very different 
 in its consequences from the philosophy of Ure. Industrial 
 evolution does not simply, as Babbage seemed to think, make 
 more economical use of existing grades of skill. But Ure was 
 even more mistaken in supposing that it simply replaces 
 existing types of skill by machinery. What it does is to create 
 new types of f skill'. We are too much in the habit of 
 thinking of ' skill ' as of a homogeneous thing of which there 
 are different degrees or amounts ; whereas, really, ' skill ' is a 
 
24 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 name which covers things of very different kinds. What I 
 believe is taking place now may perhaps be symbolized in some 
 such way as this : 
 
 Labour I am thinking chiefly of the engineering sort may 
 be looked upon as having once been either skilled or unskilled. 
 The skill was mainly manual, or, so to say, tactual skill, 
 associated, it is true, with a certain varying amount of judgement 
 in the choice between different methods and as to the execution 
 of each part of the task, but still a judgement closely bound, up 
 with manual dexterity a ' machine sense ' as it has been 
 called. The unskilled labour called for some mental qualities, 
 such as patience and attention ; but it was mainly a matter of 
 physical strength. We may call these two kinds of labour 
 the B and the D types. You will see in a moment why I use 
 just these letters. Of course there were, in fact, intermediate 
 conditions; but the bulk of labour approximated pretty closely 
 to the two distinct types ; represented substantially by, before 
 the War, the 35*. to 40s. a week grade and the 20s. to 25*. 
 a week grade. And it seems to me quite clear, that if there 
 is no interference with what has been called ' the right of the 
 employers to exercise managerial functions in their establish- 
 ments ', class B is bound in no long period to be largely, if not 
 totally, destroyed ; both by the introduction of specialized and 
 more completely automatic machinery, and also by the more 
 complete division of labour between planning and executing, 
 which Scientific Management proposes, and which in practice 
 is closely associated with more economical machine methods. 
 
 But no machinery can be so perfectly fool-proof, no reduction 
 of work to the carrying out of prescribed movements can be so 
 complete, that manufacturing can be carried on by totally un- 
 skilled ' common ' labour. . The very attempt to do so inevitably 
 tends to create a new type of labour superior to D, which we 
 may call a C type. We commonly indicate this by some such 
 term as ' semi-skilled ' ; but all such terms are misleading the 
 semi-skilled man is not one who has half the skill, let us say, of 
 a competent fitter. He has a different kind of skill. He has 
 ability enough to work on a specialized machine; he cannot 
 readily turn his hand to anything else ; but on that work he 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 25 
 
 may become in a sense more skilled that is, he may turn out 
 more stuff in a given time than a more all-round man who for 
 some reason for a short time is put on that machine. For the 
 man of real B quality to be put to C work would be a degrada- 
 tion. He may indeed continue though that in the long run is 
 improbable to receive the old remuneration ; but the more 
 specialized occupation would mean the disuse and atrophy of 
 powers valuable to society and a source of satisfaction and 
 happiness to the man himself. For a man previously of the 
 D type, on the other hand, to succeed in the work of the 
 C class is, speaking broadly, an elevation. His work now calls 
 forth more varied mental powers ; it is no longer so pre- 
 ponderatingly a mere matter of muscle. One may hope that 
 C work will in time almost replace D work altogether. It may 
 indeed be { process work J , with the attendant risk of monotony ; 
 or it may still mean toil which is largely muscular, even though 
 machinery may reduce the mere strain of haulage or holding-up. 
 But with an eight-hour day, a substantially better wage than 
 the mere labourer used to draw, and the improved workshop or 
 yard conditions that more sensible works administration is 
 bound to bring, there is no reason why we should not regard 
 the evolution as, on the whole, in an upward direction. 
 
 The skilled man fears that class C is going to be created by 
 the degradation of class B. It may unfortunately be the case 
 that a certain number of B men including some men who have 
 a fair claim to rank as skilled may be so unadaptable for other 
 work, so loth to move elsewhere, or simply so unlucky as to find 
 themselves in the C class and expected to be content with 
 C wages. But in the main the C class is, before our eyes, 
 being created out of the D category. And the new e semi- 
 skilled ' are getting organized in unions. For the present they 
 are not forming unions of their own. Some are now being 
 drawn into the craft unions of the Engineers and the like, with 
 a much warmer welcome than before ; but I believe I am right 
 in saying that more are joining the General Labour unions. 
 Such unions are certainly not likely to acquiesce in the per- 
 manent withdrawal from their members of the opportunity to 
 work on the new machines and in simplified processes which do 
 
26 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND 
 
 not, in fact, require the B type of skill. And it is notorious 
 that the claim on the part of the engineering 1 employers for 
 ' freedom of management ' has, for this reason, received a large 
 degree of more than tacit support from considerable sections of 
 organized labour. 
 
 The creation out of class D of a new class C is a phenomenon 
 to which Taylor and other advocates of Scientific Management 
 have sometimes alluded, though they have not laid sufficient 
 emphasis on it. But there is also going on a development at 
 the other and upper end of the working force to which even less 
 attention has been paid, and which is full of hope for the 
 rising generation of highly skilled men ; and that is the creation 
 of a new class of what we may call an A type. It is a mistake 
 to imagine that the old-fashioned type of skill can be replaced 
 by cheaper labour on more specialized machinery without 
 involving further changes. Men are needed under the new con- 
 ditions who will have much the same manual dexterity, much 
 the same all-round capacity as the old skilled craftsman, but 
 more mental aptitude more judgement, more initiative, more 
 readiness to take responsibility. With the increasing use of 
 machine tools has come the need for ( tool makers ' and ' tool 
 setters ' : with the replacement of time wages by methods of 
 remuneration of! the nature of piece wages, with or without 
 bonus, comes the necessity for inspectors and viewers ; with the 
 employment of the C type of skill a larger number are called 
 for of 'leading' or ' charge hands'. Engineering firms and 
 firms in kindred trades have, of course, to adapt their internal 
 organization to the needs of their particular manufacture, and 
 the amount and character of foremanship must vary very con- 
 siderably. The new class A is therefore not so homogeneous as 
 the old class B ; in some trades there is likely still to be a good 
 deal of demand for the old manual dexterity, while in others the 
 demand will be for qualities of judgement and character. But 
 that, in various ways, what ma}' be roughly grouped together as 
 a higher grade is coming into existence is surely beyond doubt. 
 We can hardly expect it to form so large a relative proportion 
 of the whole working force as the skilled men of the old B type 
 once made up ; but, with the expansion of British industry, it 
 
THE ENGINEERING SITUATION 27 
 
 may, at no distant date, perhaps become as large a body in 
 positive numbers. 
 
 The recent engineering strike was the result of fear. The 
 vogue which American Scientific Management or Efficiency 
 books have lately obtained in this country in managerial circles, 
 has increased the alarm among the skilled men. Their standard 
 of living appears to be in danger ; and anything is apt to seem 
 good to them which puts hindrances in the way of change. 
 It is the suddenness with which a change is often announced, 
 which especially arouses bitterness in the mind of the craftsmen. 
 Sir William Mackenzie, in the ' Court of Inquiry', under the 
 Industrial Courts Act, went to the heart of the matter when 
 he pointed out that ' the question of obtaining the prior consent 
 of the workpeople before a direction becomes operative must not 
 be confused with the question of prior consultation ', and that 
 ' whatever the opportunities for prior consultation may be, it is 
 reasonable and right that they should be fully utilized '. Moved 
 by these wise counsels, the Engineering Employers have offered 
 to give ' ten days ' notice and an opportunity for discussion 
 when a workshop change is contemplated which will result in 
 one class of workpeople being displaced by another in the 
 establishment ' ; and also have 
 
 c promised consideration to the case of workpeople of any 
 class displaced by reason of any act of the Management; 
 with a view, if practicable, of affording them in the establish- 
 ment work suitable to their qualifications'. 
 
 And on these conditions the Engineers have accepted the 
 employers' terms and recognized their 'right to exercise 
 managerial functions in their establishments '. 
 
 The new grading of labour involved in mechanical progress 
 is bound to come. 
 
 Things are in the saddle 
 And ride mankind, 
 
 as Emerson says. But this new development may be made to 
 correspond not only to an increase in the production of material 
 goods, but also to an increase in human happiness and dignity. 
 Yet much will depend on the way in which it is carried out. If it is 
 brought about by the mere pressure of business self-interest, and 
 
^8 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 
 
 in the free exercise, without regard to attendant circumstances, 
 of the employers' ' managerial functions ', it may create so 
 much soreness as to endanger the very f basic principle ' for 
 which the employers have been contending. I am one of those 
 who think that, in an industry like engineering, the world is 
 still far from being ripe either for nationalization or syndicaliza- 
 tion. I want freedom of enterprise and freedom of management 
 to have every just opportunity to show what they are capable of. 
 And the best way to secure and retain this opportunity is for 
 the engineering employers as a body to realize that what is now 
 involved is something far more than the financial prospects of 
 their individual concerns ; that it is a large question of industrial 
 transformation ; and that the problem before them is to combine 
 the creation of the new types of labour which are called for by 
 manufacturing economy, with that consideration for natural 
 human feelings which is taught by Christianity and is certainly 
 expedient in a democracy. 
 
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