Part I.---An Australian Study. CHAPTER I. AMERICA AND EFFICIENCY ENGINEERING. American forestry is the most recent forestry. Necessary to its complete appreciation is a comprehension of the forces which have produced it and the influences which have shaped it. America is a hothouse of ruthless capitalism and fierce competition. Life is largely dollar-driven effort. Development has been forced; at some cost in human material! Whatever the price, the plucked fruit is ready for serving in Australia, while the thorns remain on the American tree; or in the flesh of the gatherers. "100 per cent efficiency" is the national philosophy. "The devil takes the hindmost " is the postscript-which is often the chief part of a letter. If anything, that of Australia has been "The devil take efficiency and we'll look after the hindmost." A fusion of the two philosophies of America and Australia might lead to happy results-in other things besides forestry. Bricklaying is as old as the hills. It has been handed down from generation to generation as a heritage of the past. It was assumed that nothing further remained to be learnt concerning it. Under its magic glass, America discovered that the copied and inherited bricklaying consisted of eighteen distinct movements. It assayed each one of those movements, discarded thirteen as unnecessary and misdirected effort, and on the remaining five it built up the new synthetic bricklaying. Under the old methods, a bricklayer could lay 100 bricks an hour. Some unions restricted the output to 375 per day-and 275 when working for the Government. The new bricklayer averaged 350 bricks per hour, or 2,800 per day! At the Bethlehem Steel Works, the big iron gang for many years had. been handling an average of about 12 tons per day per man. A discarding of lost energy, and each man thereafter averaged 47 tons. In a bicycle factory, the work of inspecting bicycle balls was being done by 120 girls. The efficiency engineer appeared. He reduced the hours of labour from 63 per week to 47. He gave each girl four recreation periods daily. He raised the wages 80 per cent. to 100 per cent. He insisted on an accuracy two-thirds greater. Finally, he cut out the "lost motions," and thereafter 35 of the girls did the entire work of the 120! In Australia and New Zealand, the cost of afforestation works out on an average at about £7 per acre. America does the same thing for 25s., with 11s. per day the minimum wage! Of such is the essence of America, whose spirit is efficiency, and whose genius is organisation. Her vices may be not a few. But these are her virtues. All these things have been done by Efficiency Engineering, which was introduced to the world by Frederick Winslow Taylor at the Midvale Steel Works thirty years ago, since when there has been not a single strike at those works. It has doubled and trebled production; it has solved the problem of uniting high wages with low costs to the consumer: it has substituted co-operation for coercion; it is shaping the industrial destinies of America; it is shaping the development of American forestry. And thus it is that we ride in American automobiles, listen to American gramophones, use American sewing machines, ply American typewriters—and study American forestry!! CHAPTER II. AUSTRALIAN FORESTRY-U.S.A. A LIVING PRECEDENT. The law of development is evolution. The lines of national development are conditioned by the national temperament. The national law and policy are the expression of the national mind. Militarism may be the accepted gospel in Germany, but not in the Antipodes. German, or French, or Indian forest policy may be good for Germany, France, or India, but not for Australia. Nor is it possible to transplant and acclimatise a full-grown tree, although a seed or a seedling may succeed. Germany, France, India, and other countries, where an intensive form of forestry has been practised, have established their forestry systems upon a local foundation. Only the principles of forestry are common to all. The building materials and the architecture, the foundation-and the buildersdiffer in each. The most elaborate silviculture is that of Germany. It is also the oldest --the development of four hundred years of favourable conditions, a teeming population, cheap labour, large manufactures, and minute utilisation, a dominated and docile public, and finally high prices for forest products consequent upon a high protection. None of those conditions exists in Australia-at present. Racially, socially, and politically, none of the countries which are practising intensive forestry resembles Australia. And the disparity in the stage of development is a final handicap. Thus, while we must remain grateful for their unfolding of the general principles of forest science, and for unveiling to us its possibilities in a remote forestry future, we cannot turn to them as a very present help in our time of present trouble. It is inevitable that Australia must develop a forestry system of its own. It has a forest flora peculiar to itself and silvical conditions quite unlike those existing in any other country. But, above all, it is a young and wilfully democratic country. It is wholly Anglo-Saxon in sentiment and outlook, untrammelled by any hampering traditions. It is still in its pioneering days, carelessly culling the inexhaustible natural resources of the land. It has scarcely awakened yet to the seriousness of national life and the need for the conservation of resources and energies. In forestry, its immediate tasks are the planning of an organisation, and the development of a system. |