386 

revolution had produced? Above all, have the 
“workers” received a fair share in the increased 
products ? 
On the latter point a decision commanding universal 
assent is impossible. There is no absolute standard 
of justice in such affairs. If we can be satisfied on the 
general question, that the condition of the workers 
has been appreciably improved by the applications of 
science to industry and life, it would be unreasonable 
to seek a mathematical proportion. Can we? Im- 
mediately after the introduction of big machines and 
factory production, we certainly could not. The 
herding together of crowds of poor people in hideous, 
hastily constructed, and insanitary town-dwellings was 
a monstrous evil. Even now these conditions too 
largely persist to allow a very roseate picture to be 
drawn. But, on the other hand, so much has been 
done to ameliorate them that it would be equally un- 
true to paint quite so black a picture as may be heard 
described from Labour platforms. Life has been trans- 
ferred from country to town for the mass of our people, 
and that has its inevitable drawbacks. Rut it is not 
on the whole an unhappy or degraded life. Houses 
have been, and are being, vastly improved. Hours 
of labour have been reduced, and there is not the 
slightest prospect of their return to the condition of 
the early factory years. Facilities for education and 
enjoyment have been vastly increased, or rather newly 
created. Health is remarkably improved. 
One result of the change in industry due to science | 
is seldom noted in these discussions, and yet it is one 
of the most important. Mass production and scientific 
machinery have between them thrown up a large new | 
class of men intermediate between the manual workers 
and the capitalist director. This class—the foreman, 
the shop-steward, the manager, 
ceptional organising or mechanical ability who invents 
and sets up on his own account—is the most character- 
istic human product of the industrial revolution and 
one of the weightiest factors in modern society. Those 
estimating the share taken by “ Labour ” in the fruits 
of scientific industry cannot omit this, which is the 
best paid section and nearest to the mainspring. More- 
over, in general we may note that those industries 
which have absorbed most brains in their develop- 
ment, notably engineering, also pay the highest wages. 
Agriculture, which has up to the present remained 
most primitive, pays the lowest. 
The application of science to industry does not appear, 
therefore, to carry with it the wholesale degradation 
of the working-class as is sometimes contended, though 
the great mass who do purely mechanical work are 
rightly the chief concern of the social reformers and the 
Trade Union Congress. F. S. M. 
NO. 2786, VOL. IIT] 
NATURE 

the man with ex- | 

[MarcH 24, 1923 
An Antarctic Saga. 
The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic, 1910-1913. 
By Apsley Cherry-Garrard. (In 2 vols.) Vol. 1. 
Pp. Ixiv + 300+4+30 plates+4 maps. Vol.2. Pp. 
viii + 301-585 + 28 plates+ 1 map. (London, Bombay, 
and Sydney: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 
63s. net. 
HIS is the sixth book to give the story, or part of 
the story, of Capt. Scott’s last expedition, and 
it is in some ways the most remarkable of them all. 
Mr. Cherry-Garrard took part in three of the worst 
journeys ever made in the Antarctic or anywhere else, _ 
and the iron of his sufferings has entered into his soul 
and imparted a ferric quality to his recollections. He 
writes often with a forceful epigrammatic directness that 
makes one gasp ; again he falls back into pages of rather 
heavy going, for his quotations from the other books on 
the expedition are very numerous, albeit they are well 
chosen. The very first paragraph of the preface sets 
the keynote of simulated cynicism and paradox. 
“This post-war business is inartistic, for it is seldom 
that any one does anything well for the sake of doing 
it well ; and it is un-Christian, if you value Christianity, 
for men are out to hurt and not to help—can you wonder 
when the Ten Commandments were hurled straight 
from the pulpit through good stained glass. It is all 
very interesting and uncomfortable, and it has been a 
ereat relief to wander back in one’s thoughts and 
correspondence and personal dealings to an age in 
geological time, so many hundred years ago, when we 
were artistic Christians, doing our jobs as well as we 
were able just because we wished to do them well, 
helping one another with all our strength, and (I speak 
with personal humility) living a life of co-operation in 
the face of hardships and dangers which has seldom been 
surpassed.” 
This prepares us for the last sentence in the pee 
which in turn illuminates the literary landscape of these 
volumes : 
‘“ My own writing is my own despair, but it is better — 
than it was, and this is ‘directly due to Mr. and Mrs, © 
Bernard Shaw. At the age of thirty-five I am delighted 
to acknowledge that my ‘education has at last begun.” 
An author possessed of so humble and hopeful a — 
disposition should not take it amiss if a critic tries to 
help by suggestions of improvement as well as by 
hearty recognition of exceptional candour and artistic — 
power. 
To begin with, the historical introduction detracts — 
from the value of the book, of which it occupies sixty- 
four pages. It ought to have been much shorter and 
focussed more directly on McMurdo Sound. Un-- 
fortunately, Mr. Cherry-Garrard went direct to Cook’s — 
“Second Voyage ” and neglected to check his extracts — 
in proof, otherwise he would not speak of “ 
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