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MR. HENRY FORD CONTINUES HIS STORY.

14th September 1926
Page 49
Page 49, 14th September 1926 — MR. HENRY FORD CONTINUES HIS STORY.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A Second Volume of Mr. Ford's Ideas, Thoughts and Opinions Upon the Responsibilities of a Big Business to Its Workers and the Public.

MR. HENRY FORD has now given us two volumes which deal with his career, his aims and aspirations, his policy and his attitude towards his assistants and workpeople and towards humanity as a whole. For it is Mr. Ford's profound belief—a belief in which quite a number of his readers and the students of his life are prepared to agree—that he has benefited the human race, first by giving the world cheap transportation, and, secondly, by the creation of a great business giving employment, directly and indirectly, to 600,000 workpeople, all of whom with their dependents enjoy a wage that brings comfort and contentment.

Mr. Ford's first book was published in 1922, and was entitled "My Life and Work." The second book, "To-day and To-morrow," was published last week, and shows a little more care in the editing than the first volume. Each has been written in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, but the argument is sufficiently coherent and sustained to conceal or eliminate the inconsistencies that so often occur with a joint authorship.

The first theme of "To-day and To-morrow" would appear to be the need for every man to grasp the opportunities that l:fe presents to him. Mr. Ford does not agree that there is a lack of opportunity, for every year some new idea is brought forward and developed, and this brings with it a whole new series of opportunities. He considers that the one idea which fell to him to develop has shown what can be done. Every individual advance opens up many doors of Creative activity, and it is the men of large vision who have won or will win.

Mr. Ford goes on to ask : "Is there a limit to big business?" and one gathers that he and the Ford business have been the subject of attacks, based upon the contention that the growth of a vast, almost monopolistic, business under autocratic control is not for the common weal, tending to MU competition, to crush private enterprise and to squeeze out the little man. And so a greatdeal of argument is advanced. to show that the big business is not an evil. It may call for hard work on the part of its workers, but under skilful management and good leadership high wages can be paid, an article be made so cheaply that it can be bought by those who make it (thousands of Ford's workpeople own care), and such profits as are made can be, and are, largely employed in developing the business.

The most interesting parts of the book, however, are those which tell of the changes and developments of the Ford and Pordson factories and plants since 1921. the position then being the material upon. which "My Life and Work" was written. Apparently the Ford plant has been materially, if not wholly, changed in the four years which have elapsed, for " Fordson " is an entirely new factory, with a power station producing half a million horse-power, whilst other developments have taken the Ford company into coal mining, iron mining, lumbering, the extension of lake, ocean, land and air transport, and even into the manufacture of glass, cement, linen, artificial leather and a number of chemical compounds. The list of industries embraced by the organization and set out in one of the chapters of the book is stupendous.

What is so extraordinary, however, is that each new branch of industry tackled by the concern is handled in such a way that under Mr. Ford better wages can be paid, efficiency can be increased out of all knowledge and the final product comes out cheaper to the Ford Co. than it had ever been, or could be, when purchased in the open market. Mr. Ford and his staff, with no knowledge whatever of glass making, make it cheaper and get a bigger output from a given plant than had ever been done by generations of glass makers. Flax is grown where it had never been grown before ; it is handled by machinery, whereas hand labour in every flax-growing country of the world has been found indispensable. A railway that had always worked at a• loss, under Mr. Ford, after he had purchased it lock, stock and barrel, becomes a paying institution, is in a far better state of efficiency and the staff reduced in numbers, but more highly paid. Some of it is almost too wonderful to credit, unless one accepts the obvious conclusion that Mr. Ford is really a marvel and stands unique in world industry. -For it certainly is strange, with all the opportunities of which Mr. Ford speaks presenting themselves, that he should be the only Ford in the world.

We read with considerable interest the circumstantial accounts of the sa7ings effected in a thousand and one threetidns. Improvements of plant and of method, of material and of handling, appear to be constantly going on, and there is never a moment's hesitation to " scrap " if thereby a better article can be made or economy obtained. A great extension has been a return to village industries, the Rouge river, for instance, having been developed so that at nine sites it has small water-power plants operating small but important factories, and Mr. Ford endeavours to show that the workers drawn from the immediate vicinity of each works are still able to run their farms and their vegetable gardens and to enjoy a high standard of living.

Mr. Ford's book is full of sound moralizing, and, as it is interestingly written and is rich in examples, we really think that it is worth the while of eery business man and every seeker of public welfare to read it. It is published at i2s. 6d. by Wm. Heinemann, Ltd.


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