upon the fact that under it the question of speed is settled entirely by the men without interference on the part of the management. Thus in both cases, though from diametrically opposite causes, there is undivided control, and this is the chief element needed for harmony.
The writer has seen many jobs successfully nursed in several of our large and well managed establishments under these drifting systems, for a term of ten to fifteen years, at from one-third to one-quarter speed. The workmen, in the meanwhile, apparently enjoyed the confidence of their employers, and in many cases the employers not only suspected the deceit, but felt quite sure of it.
The great defect, then, common to all the ordinary systems of management (including the Towne-Halsey system, the best of this class) is that their starting-point, their very foundation, rests upon ignorance and deceit, and that throughout their whole course in the one element which is most vital both to employer and workmen, namely, the speed at which work is done, they are allowed to drift instead of being intelligently directed and controlled.
The writer has found, through an experience of thirty years, covering a large variety in manufactures, as well as in the building trades, structural and engineering work, that it is not only practicable but comparatively easy to obtain, through a systematic and scientific time study, exact information as to how much of any given kind of work either a first-class or an average man can do in a day, and with this information as a foundation, he has over and
