TEE EFFICIENCY OF LABOR 161 



must be expected from men who are driven instead of led will wreak 

 its own evil consequences, but in the meantime something else must be 

 substituted. The details must needs vary with the individual shop 

 and trade. It is necessary, however, that in some manner the em- 

 ployees in their collective capacity be recognized. From this point of 

 view the plans of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the United States Steel 

 Corporation and the National Biscuit Company, who offer a limited 

 stock to their employees at reasonable prices, are weak. Few men can 

 buy a sufficient quantity of stock to insure an effective interest, or if 

 so, they can not hope to exercise the faintest semblance of influence 

 upon the policy of the concern. The plan of the William Filene Sons' 

 of Boston is far better. According to it the employees have a perma- 

 nent shop committee, with certain privileges of recommendation regard- 

 ing shop condition, methods of manufacture, and so forth, to a similar 

 committee representing the employers. A combination of these two 

 plans would undoubtedly be still more satisfactory wherever practical. 

 Nothing is better established than that arbitrary, dictatorial methods 

 on the part of the employer are fatal to the real interest and coopera- 

 tion that an efficiency system demands. Such an attitude can result 

 in nothing else than suspicion and antagonism. Whatever plan be 

 adopted, therefore, it is essential that a channel be provided through 

 which the workmen can express themselves. 



It will be seen, therefore, from what has been said up to this time, 

 that the question of efficiency is a far more complex one than appears 

 at first sight. Perhaps, indeed, the efficiency expert is himself not 

 entirely blameless in the matter, in that he has seemingly placed undue 

 emphasis upon some system of wage payment and not enough upon the 

 deeper significance of such a reform. For after all the introduction 

 of some new plan for paying wages is but a superficial thing, if con- 

 sidered by itself. True, output may be tremendously increased by 

 artificially stimulating the workmen through some form of piece-work; 

 " speeding " increases output, despite the fact that it also kills men. 

 The permanent, vital results of efficiency schemes appear after a man's 

 wages have been increased as a result of added output. It is the things 

 a man buys with his increased income and the improvement in his 

 environment which it makes possible that constitutes the real basis 

 of efficiency. Additional wages are of no value unless they bring to 

 the earner better food and clothes, better housing conditions, relief 

 from the monotonoy of factory toil, reasonably safe and sanitary places 

 in which to work — in short, unless they mean a higher standard of 

 living. 



There is probably no efficiency expert worthy of the name who does 

 not realize all this or who does not appreciate its full significance. It 



