GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 463 



The efficiency of the human motor confirms this statement. 

 Its superiority would be decisive were there not other considera- 

 tions in its applications in industry, such as speed, power, and the 

 work done in a given time, also the high cost of human food and 

 the question of health. This latter consideration, however, in- 

 troduces no disadvantage if the work is intelligently supervised 

 and properly graduated. (Electric motors, which have efficiencies 

 of over 90% in the larger sizes, are not prime movers, but simply 

 convert one form of energy into another) . 



Man is indeed a valuable machine, which can be utilised in any 

 position and immediately, so long as his fuel (food) can be sup- 

 plied, also he can himself win this fuel from the earth on which 

 he lives. 



The economical employment of human labour should be the 

 constant care of our captains of industry, the officers of our army, 

 and our Colonists, who exploit the labour of the indigenous natives 

 (the writer's investigations in North Africa showed that the 

 natives of Morocco are stronger than those of other districts). 



The maintenance of the human machine is as difficult and im- 

 portant a matter as the maintenance of any inorganic motor, 

 We must do our best to eliminate all internal and external condi- 

 tions tending to cause depreciation. Especially must physio- 

 logical discomfort be avoided, and removed, as far as possible. 

 In the due proportion of effort and speed, in industrial labour, 

 lies the key to intensive production and the well-being of the 

 workman. 



346. The Organisation of Human Labour. The knowledge 

 of tne Da sic principles go verning human labour has to-day i cached 

 a pitch which was undreamed of twenty years ago. Scientific 

 methods can now replace the " rule of thumb " methods and the 

 " tricks of the trade " which were formerly handed down from 

 one generation to another, and of which the knowledge was 

 jealously confined within the bounds of the various branches of 

 handicraft, and even to families. These scientific principles can 

 be applied to workers of any sex, age, and strength. Further, 

 they give due weight to the intellectual factor in industrial 

 occupations. Man is indeed an automatic engine, but science 

 can improve its working, and can exhibit its beneficent effects in 

 increased wages, and improved bodily health. 



The workman cannot, by trial and error, discover for himself 

 the most favourable conditions for the work which he has to do. 

 These are only to be found by painstaking and careful experi- 

 ment. Thus Taylor's classic researches in the engineering trades 

 involved 25 years' work, and cost a million francs. (*) The best 



( x ) Henry Le Chatelier, Preface to Taylor's Principles of Workshop Or- 

 ganization ; also Tech. Mod., June 15th, 1913. 



