Page:Onward Sweep of the Machine Process (ca 1917).pdf/22

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THE ONWARD SWEEP

organising and developing industrial scientific research with the object of establishing a permanent body consisting of a Privy Council committee, with a small advisory council, the Privy Council committee to include the Lord President, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary for Scotland, the Presidents of the Boards of Trade and Education, Lord Haldane, Mr. A. H. Dyke Acland, and Mr. Pike Pease.

The advisory council is to consist of the best scientific brains of the country, and its scope will be to promote and organise scientific research in trades and industry, particularly in regard to those suffering through inability to reproduce trade processes which are localized abroad, principally in Germany.


This is significant when judged in conjunction with the clamor for efficiency, now a daily feature in the capitalist press. A shining light of that pet organization of capitalists, known as the Workers' Educational Association, only recently let himself go to the extent of a third of a column in the Sydney "Herald," pointing out that the pensioning of "one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed and stiff-jointed soldiers," when they ought to be employed in industry, was a shameful waste of "productive energy."

There arises too a louder and bolder demand for female and child labor in nearly all branches of industry. The "Weekly Trade Report," the private organ of the Merchants' and Traders' Association of Australasia, not many weeks ago, for instance, brazenly declared that factory legislation must be thrust aside, that, whatever the unions may do, employers must be allowed to take advantage of "women, boys and girls who are willing (!) to work for low wages and long hours!"

Workers would, therefore, do well to hearken to the masters' battle-cry, a cry for their sweat and blood, and