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5th April 1917, Page 4
5th April 1917
Page 4
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Page 4, 5th April 1917 — Place All Your Cards on the Table.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

A Suggestion that the Time Has Come to Discard Our Industrial Dog-in-theManger Policy and to Equip Ourselves by Co-operation.

by "The Inspector."

On a few occasions when, presumably in default of more intelligent and effective aid, the Editor, in the past, has asked me to make some special inquiry in a visit to a British -works, I. have been seriously taken aback by the tacit refusal to show me some portion of the works, some process or some record. If permission has at last been forthcoming, it has been on occasion granted grudgingly, with a great showing of secrecy and on the strict understanding that "Mind you, you mustn't publish •anything whatever about this or the other. The more enlightened 'firnaS have advanced beyond this stage to a praiseworthy extent, but I could still, did I dare, tell you of factories where you are carefully kept from seeing things that you actually know all about already] At one lime, another phase of this secretive attitude was the blank refusal to disclose drawings or details of design, whatever their importance or lack of it. This, too, is a practice which has largely breken down. Nevertheless, there is room for far .greats-T advances, and I want to put in a word for the greatest possible interchange of knowledge of all kinds as being the Sound and proper national, aye, and international policy of the future, in my opinion.

One of the very many artificial reste:ictions under which we are struggling to support existence at the present time is the need to keep all sorts of 'apparently useless tit-bits of information from the enemy. I do not pretend to know if it is of any value to the Hun to know that the Moonbeam factory is engaged on aircraft engines or that Oaring and Willow are sewing haversacks by the million. Ile may get great comfort out of either gems of information, directly or indirectly for all I know. Of that I am (pate content to admit that the Press Bureau ' shall be the judge. I -am satisfied, as adding to my general war-tune attitude of deep humility to officialdom, to agree to do everything by stealtht to hide my light under a bushel or the war-time e.quiva, lent. I will willingly, for three years or for the period of the war, refrain from mentioning that Vickers are making shells or that all sorts of new-fangled motor contraptions are doing entrenching exercises at intervals at Esher, where I have seen them. I will say. nothing about these things, content that I am patriotic. But when the war is over, if I have seen Russians in a train at Dalston Junction I shall mention it openly, I shall shout it from the house-tops, I may even ask the Editor to publish it. I shall openly riot in publicity of all kinds. I feel I shall hardly care for the secrecy of My own villa walls. I may become a garrulous chatter-box as the result of re

action.

That much en passant, but there is surely a more serious line to be read into my possible coming obsessions. Has not the time very' nearly disappeared when our insular proclivity for living in industrial water-tight compartments should be still considered an asset, a bulwark against competition? We are shortly to be "up against" the greatest industrial struggle of all time, just as we are now experiencing the unexampled strivings of destructive force. Are we to be caught disorganized as a nation in the new competition? We shall be if we do not make up our minds to a vastly more comprehensive

a28 pooling of resources than anything of which we have yet dreamed. . • Designs, methods, processes, organization, all with. a few obvious exceptions, need really not be 'treated as being of greatest value if religiously preserved to individual use. The trade of our Empire will best be served if we boldly interchange our assets. We shall all of us gain more than we lose, and as a whole the nation will be tremendously better equipped to fight the Test of the industrial world.

And the means to that end include the encouragement rather than the starvation of our professional and research societies, our trade associations. Our industry alone has striking examples. Let the I.A.E. have the wherewithal for numerous papers of the kind that, will pool. information of every_ possible and useful nature, rather than abstract or historical surveys that are very little help to the industry as a whale and attract no more attention than that of the relatively few regular lecture-goers. Let the C.M.U.A. and similar organizations be 'real live centres for the interchange of ideas; and, above all, use the Press to spread the news of your improvements and methods. It may flatter your vanity to hug to yourself the knowledge of 'a new machining method, a new jig idea, a novel premium payment scheme, an unusual gauge system. Its widespread publication will help your competitors but only according to their ability. But beyond all it will help nationally. The other fellow's public spirit will likewise help you.

If we do not all pull in the same direction after peace is declared, we would better rest with war-time secrecy and restrictions. The president of a Northern Institute of Engineers, I believe of Cleveland, spoke strongly recently in favour of such co-operation amongst iromna,sters and others. It is just as important for the future well-being of the motor-vehicle builder and designer, dealer and user alike. We shall have to be a lot more democratic and. even republican in our industrial methods if we are to keep pace -with a swarm of hunger-sharpened competitors, keened in the fierce turmoil of war. The Press, and particularly the technical Press, has a greatly increased repomebility ahead of it—some consolation for 32 months of the Censor's well-meant attentions.

More Searemongering.

Not for many months past have we been treated to such a crop of searemongering as that of last week. We were taken back at a bound to those famous days when phantom train-loads of Russians were spied by our friends' friends at every junction from Carlisle to Hilburn, train loads of bearded men in sheepskin coats and topboots. all carefully screened behind drawn _window blinds. I may be excused, in this connection, on the score of public and general interest, perhaps, if I recall a few short extracts from an editorial article which appeared in THE Coss_ MERCIA,T, MOTOR Of date 20th August, 1914; it was entitled "Shame to the Scaremonger," and was written in the early days of upheaval when rumours were widecast, and when we were in no way accustomed to war conditions and to daily sensations. I proceed to quote from the article in question.

"We can best conserve our energies if we make a strong effort to combat the circulation of cruel, senseless and wicked reports of things that only might have happened. . . . We have been assailed with a never-ending stream of alarmist . hints of disaster, inefficiency and muddle, no single one of them bearing the, imprint Of 'truth if analysed carefully, and no single one of them withstanding careful cross-examination as, to its source. . Willingness to reaeive these wildest of rumours, and, worse still, to repeat them and to circulate them, with the necessary embellishmenta which always accompany repetition by word of mouth, as they have done from the earliest of scriptural times, is a means of doing as much harm to the country as are many other ways which have more traitoroukaclassification."

That was written when the-war was a fortnight old ; it might well 'be re-written after 32 menths of trial. Not the: feast insidious reason.. for the recent apprehension was undoubtedly. the absence of news posters, and the colossaltand artificial: demand to which it gave ria for," Sunday editions." It will occur again during week-ends, with even' less reason than the little one last time. It is all important that we should beware of such' a,larums, more so now than perhaps it was in Ala They are prejudicial to the efforts of all who are workers. • , •

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Locations: Cleveland

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