NEW PERSONNEL FOR THE INDUSTRY.
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By the Inspector.
THE EXTENT TO WHICH the whole motor ,industry and its auxiliary activities have contributed in personnel 0 the administrative organizations of the great War-time Departments of State is .quite remarkable. This speaks well for the efficiency of the average type of man for which the industry finds employment. Despite the factories' strenuous absorption in matters of output, the haulage fleets' preoccupation in matters of overload, they and their kindred organizations have been able to spare large numbers of their best men to take leading parts in the administrative work throughout the country of the Army, the Navy, the Air Board, the Mechanical Warfare Department, the Mechanical Transport Department, and a number of the lesser sections of the nation's departmental ramifications.
The. .dismissal of a number of Munition workers during the past few weeks, on account, we are told, of the revision of certain shell and other programmes, has naturally attracted renewed attention to the conditions which must ultimately prevail when the international situation renders it possible. to effect the wholesale stoppage of munition work. • In the case of the present dismissals--and they apparently only concern labour at the moment, the workers thus set free will of course be readily and rapidly absorbed in other national directions for which the cry continues "more help, and ,yet more
help:" The great question of the• transition of the worker from war to peace work, from khaki to mufti,
. has for some while past been before the public eye. An equally interesting and certainly as important a problem will be the reinstatement of directional and executive staffs. When war demands begin to slacken, there will inevitably be a more or less seemly scramble amongst those who have devoted their best energies and time to national administrative work of one sort or another, to return ãg quickly as possible to their erstwhile occupations, to share in the colossal task of reorganization, and naturally enough to ensure that such opportunities as may and will then occur, shall not be lost on account of being
late in the field. .
* * . It is difficult to estimate what the Government's ultimate task of "-clearing up" must signify—I mean "cleaving up" as distinct from " reconstruction." That it will be a task of enormous magnitude, and one lasting for many years; is obvious. It is reported as a fact that matters arising from that apparently insignificant campaign, the South African War, were, in certain cages, not finally disposed of until 12 years afterwards. 'On such a.scale "The -Great War" may well require the attentions of large numbers of good men for the rest of their lifetimes— perhaps even their grand-children for theirs]. That being so, not the least difficult of tasks which the Ministry of Reconstruction will have to face will be, the equitable retention of sufficient numbers of good men who have gone into the Navy, the Army and Government civil departments to help organize for war in order that the transition period may be
directed with no •less effeCtiveness. There will be similar if Much smaller demands for the best civilian • help for a long period of the future peace time. Our -own branch of the industry, although in bulk but small compared with the nation's business as a whole, has contributed in many ways to the nation's administration. The industry will badly want back a number of those members, many of whom should rightly be at the disposal of the Government until normal eircumstanceS are at least once again in sight. Yet the industry itself will quickly need all the best assistance it can obtain in its endeavours to reconstruct as rapidly as possible and to ensure that the gigantic opportunity of expansion which it will have earned as one of war's few advantageous legacies shall not be missed.
Apart from. strictly military and naval duties, it is difficult to realize that the maze of Government con,trol at present encircling the country's industry is nothing more than a vastly inflated Civil Service. Civil Service, as we knew it in peace time, seems to have borne little relation to the present gigantic business organization which, with all its faults, is doing its best to control the country's performances in the industrial field during these war days. That service: will never again relapse into quite the same lethargic and "detached condition which was its peculiar characteristic in the real old red tape days. It will, probably always, have to remain more closely associated with industry than was its custom. Necessarily for many years its personnel will have to
renikin greatly increased. Its problems will Permanently remain much greater• than in. any period with which it was confronted before August, 1934. Its regular supply of piling recruits will have been very seriously interrupted.
On the whole, therefore, it will be seen that the priority of release of so-called. temporary officers or civil servants, will be an important question for any industry such as ours that has lent men, and particularly for the best of such men who will not only be required back in their own industry, but will, if reconstruction is to be prompt, intelligent and effective, be no less necessary for the nation's service for a considerable period of years.
Will the Government decide to induce a number of such recruits permanently to remain in their service, or will they endeavour to carry on under circumstances which will be no less difficult after peace is4declared, with depleted staffs from which these best recruits perforce have had to be returned to their industrial activities? In any ease, the new motor industry, *wing to the Many losses which it will have sustained, not only by natural effiuxion of time, by death in the field, but also by defection to such new loves as aircraft and the motor boat, as well as to Whitehall, will be certain to provide great opportunities for considerable numbers of new recruits of the right calibre. This has all along been a petrol war, anal is becoming so more and more day by day ; there should be plenty of new experience available so that, on the whole, the motor industry is not likely to lose.