PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



29 



These remarks are true at the present time, and in 

 addition we have the knowledge that competition will be 

 keener in the future than it has been in the past. At 

 present, owing to the lack of freight, competition is virtu- 

 ally at a stand-still, but when the freight is released from 

 the demands of war, a keen competition will suddenly 

 develop, and there will probably be a considerable amount 

 of dumping of accrued stocks. The competition will lower 

 prices, and then the utilisation of the utilisable waste will 

 be considered. The competition should be anticipated, and 

 the psychological moment for the consideration is now. 



Utilisable Waste, 



The question naturally arises, what is utilisable waste ? 

 It is largely but not wholly a financial question, for what 

 may be the utilisable waste of one year may not be that of 

 the next, on account of a fluctuation in the cost of material 

 or of labour, or of the price of the saved product. That 

 there is much waste of labour is undoubted, and this is where 

 the recently introduced American system might save a 

 considerable amount by minimising the unnecessary move- 

 ments of the workmen. Labour-saving devices and 

 machinery are being introduced by manufacturers, for in 

 Australia it is labour that is the expensive item in the 

 factory. There is no advantage ultimately to labour, in 

 two men doing work which one could do. We have seen 

 that Mr. Lloyd George has said, that scores of millions 

 worth of automatic machinery have been introduced into 

 Britain, and that being true for Britain bow much more 

 should it be necessary here where wages are comparatively 

 high. 



While the economising of labour applies to existing 

 industries, the question of the establishment of new indus- 

 tries is bound up with the matter of the stability of labour. 

 In Australia, labour appears to think that it is being 



