LAND AND WATER 
August 14, 1915. 
POLICY OF CA' CANNY. 
By Harold Cox. 
WITHIN the last week or so officially prepared 
notices have been posted in munitions 
factories throughout the kingdom urging 
workmen to increase the production of 
war material to the utmost of their power. 
The notice says : 
The national need is paramount, and nrgently calls for a maximum 
«atput from every workman engaged on munition -work. Any workman 
■who deliberately refrains from putting forth his best efforts is sub- 
ordinating his country's needs to his own personal interests. 
The intention of this appeal is excellent. Whether the 
phraseology is quite well chosen is another matter. It 
is by no means universally true to say that workmen 
who deliberately restrict their output are acting in their 
own personal interests. In the case of many workmen 
this is altogether contrary to the fact. A skilled work- 
man, capable of working rapidly, is distinctly injuring 
himself by falling in with the trade union policy of 
ca' canny. If he did his best he would be able to earn 
much more money and enjoy a more comfortable exist- 
ence. He refrains from putting forth his full efforts 
partly because of the compulsion which trade unions are 
able to exercise over all their members and partly from 
a generous feeling that he ought not to leave his weaker 
comrades behind. 
This is an aspect of the ca' canny policy which is too 
often forgotten by outside critics. It springs from a feel- 
ing wliich in other connections everybody would praise 
as the basis of esprit de corps or of a larger patriotism. 
But this feeling would not suffice to maintain the 
ca' canny system against the very strong immediate 
material interests of the better workmen if it were not 
backed up by the collective authority of the trade union. 
When we go on to ask why trade unions should adopt a 
policy which limits the earning powers of most of its 
members we are brought face to face with the eternal 
conflict between employer and employed. 
Influence of Competition. 
Employers, with rare exceptions, try to get their work 
done as cheaply as possible, being largely compelled 
thereto by the competition of one another. Workmen, 
on the other side, are always trying to get the best price 
they can for the work they do. In the course of this 
conflict the employer is aided by the fact that there are 
many workmen who do not aim at greatly altering their 
habitual standard of life. Consequently, when such 
workmen find themselves earning rather more than they 
were previously accustomed to they are content, and if 
the employer represents to them that, owing to the quick- 
ness with which they are working, they can earn their 
full previous wage at a lower piece rate than before, they 
do not greatly resent the injustice of having the piece 
rate lowered. The result is that by working quickly a 
good workman may lower the rate, not only to the point 
which is sufficient to satisfy his standard of living, but 
below the point which is sufficient to satisfy the standard 
' of living of men who work more slowly than himself. 
Therefore, in order to protect the slower workers trade 
unions have found it necessary to establish an unwritten 
code of rules which keeps down the output in almost 
every workshop in the kingdom. 
Ayiien Mr. Lloyd George undertook to deal with the 
question of the supply of munitions he directed his atten- 
tion to this big industrial problem and appealed to the 
trade unions to suspend their regulations during the 
period of the war. It was generally hoped that this 
appeal had proved successful. But the speech which he 
delivered recently in the House of Commons showed 
that the hope had not been justified. 
Speaking with a directness and a courage which 
many other politicians might with advantage imitate 
the Minister of Munitions roundly con(;femned trade 
unionists for continuing to restrict their output in face of 
.the present national emergency. He stated that, accord- 
jing to calculations presented to him, the " men could 
easily turn out at least 25 per cent, more shot and shell 
and guns and munitions if they would shake themselves 
free during the war from the domination of practices 
which have controlled their action in peace time." He 
went on to say that the suspension of these practices 
would be equivalent to adding nearly hundreds of 
thousands of men to the workers in munitions factories. 
An attempt was made in the House of Commons to dis- 
pute this statement, but there can be little doubt that in 
the main it is true. 
A Remarkable Ilhistration. 
Barely a week ago a Colonial business man called 
upon the present writer to report his own experience in a 
munitions factory which is working for the Government, 
and presumably under some kind of Government control. 
This gentleman, on patriotic grounds, took work in the 
factory as a labourer, on labourer's wages. He was con- 
stantly told, both by his comrades and by the foreman, 
to work less strenuously. There was no concealment of 
the fact that the men were deliberately wasting their 
time. Some of the men even told him that two-tiiirds of 
their time was wasted. His own estimate is not .so high. 
He puts the wa.ste of men's time throughout tiiis huge 
factory employing a thousand men, as somewhere 
between ^^ and 50 per cent. This case may be an excep- 
tionally bad one, for the whole factory seems to be 
managed in an absolutely scandalous manner ; but very 
similar stories reach me from other factories which I 
have every reason to belfeve to be well-managed. 
With the best intentions in the world, Mr. Lloyd 
George has probably made a mistake in admitting 
that the policy of restricting output is legitimate even 
in peace time. That it is excu.sable no one who 
looks at the question fairly can for a moment doubt. 
Workmen may well be excused for taking even less 
defensible mea.sures to guard themselves against the 
possibility of having their own zeal to work up turned 
again.st them. The real point is that they, in their own 
interest as well as in the nation's interest, should try to 
find, if it be possible, some better safeguard than the one 
they now employ. For the policy of ca' canny, whether 
in peace or in war, is not only injurious to those par- 
ticular workmen who could earn higher wages for them- 
selves if they were allowed to do their best, but it is also 
injurious to the whole nation, for it limits the output of 
national wealth. 
Argumentum ad Absurdum. 
There are most unfortunately not a few people 
who are incapable of grasping this fairly obvious point. 
They argue that the more work one man does the less 
there is for others, to do, and that consequently the 
quicker workman, by working to the best of his power, 
throws other workmen out of employment. Even in 
peace time this argument is unfounded, for it ignores 
the fact that it is only by creating wealth that we create 
the means to pay for work. The more wealth we create 
the more work we can pay for. If the popular proposi- 
tion were true, it would follow that the best way to make 
employment for other people is to do no work at all One- 
self, and we should finally reach the absurdity that the 
way to make work for everybody is for nobody to work. 
Clearly the nation as a whole will be richer, and 
certainly happier, if every individual is free to work to 
the best of bis ability. The trouble is that the conces- 
sion of that freedom under our present industrial system 
does lead to a cutting of wage-rates by-unscrupulous em- 
ployers, and consequently to the depression, instead of 
the elevation, of the wage-earning clas.ses. The ques- 
tion, then, which has to be faced is whether it is not 
possible to discover some improved form of industrial 
organisation which will give to the workman cqmplete 
confidence that, by Increasing his own output of wealth, 
he wilh neither be hampering his future prospects not 
injuring his. glower comrades. 
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