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THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS.
291
Annotations. "Ne quid nimie."
THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS. ON the
occasion
ot
the
ceiebration
the short shift system depended on the large proof the working time which was absorbed by automatic machinery operations, the speed of which was constant and beyond the workers’ control. But in the work of fixing and removing the shells, over the speed of which alone the operator has control, the time required for a fixed amount of work shows a decrease of 19’5 per cent. in favour of the shorter shift. (In the shorter shifts the average worker’s hours in the factory seem to have been about 15 per cent. less than in the longer shifts.) Miss Osborne also shows that there was a drop in possible output of 3’43 per cent. for the long shift as compared with a drop of only 0’58 per cent. for the short shift-i.e., the machinery became more efficient and there was less idle time in the short shift. Moreover, during the last hour of each shift the 12-hour shift showed a constant, well-marked diminution in output, whereas no such uniformity exists in the case of the short shifts ; on the contrary, several sets of curves exhibit no falling off. The curves of output for the short shifts give evidence of the possibility of running at full output right to the end of the shift; but the curves for the long shifts give no such evidence. Dr. Charles S. Myers’s report describes the remarkable effects of movement study, reduced hours of work, and an improved system of payment on output at the Derwent Foundry Company, Ltd., Derby. The workers were voluntarily trained in Their the best methods of casting, moulding, &c. hours were reduced from 54 to 48 per week. Ass as soon a worker reached 60 per cent. of " standard output he began to receive a bonus on his piece-rate earnings, which was contrived that the price paid per piece so Under rose automatically with increasing output. this scheme the increase in hourly earnings amounted to about 200 per cent. in one instance examined. The output increased by more than 300 per cent. No evidence of increased fatigue was found, save, perhaps, in the case of two workers who had enormously increased their output and were producing far above "standard output." There was no complaint of increased monotony under the new system, and the workers were unanimous in their preference for it. The value of such a report as this needs no emphasis in the present industrial crisis.
portion
of
Hi
Majesty’s birthday the King has conferred honours upon three members of the medical pro fession-namely, Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Gilber Barling, Dr. Robert Charles Brown, and Mr William Ireland de Courcy Wheeler. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Gilbert Barling, who becomes :a baronet, is the Vice-Chancellor of Birminghan University, where he has been Ingleby lecturer ane dean of the medical faculty; he has also been exa miner in surgery at the University of Cambridge His public services during the war were of the firsi importance. Dr. Robert Charles Brown, whc becomes a knight, is consulting medical officei of Pteston Royal Infirmary and the foundei of a scholarship for research at Cambridge. HiE work in connexion with the promotion of infant welfare has been indefatigable. Sir W. I. de Courcy Wheeler has rendered valuable scientific and organising service during the war, and is a member of the Consultative Committee of the War Office. Sir J. Y. W. MacAlister, secretary of the Royal Society of Medicine and its parent society for 32 years, is President of the Library Association, started and acted as secretary of the War Office Surgical Advisory Committee, and organised the Royal Army Medical Corps Bureau and an Emergency Surgical Aid Corps for the Admiralty, the War Office, and Metropolitan Police during the air raids. To these gentlemen, in the name of the medical profession, we heartily tender congratulations for well-deserved honours, and while doing so include the name of Mr. Laurence Richard Philipps, the founder of the Paraplegic Hospital in Wales, who becomes a baronet, and of Sir Henry Francis New, the mayor of Marylebone, and vice-president of Marylebone War Supply Hospital, whose knighthood has been thoroughly earned. --
EXPERIMENTS ON OUTPUT.1
THE first two publications of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board are a good augury of the high standard of future issues to be expected from this recently established board. They deal with subjects of paramount importance in the
, ,
"
____
MORAL IMBECILITY.
IN the case of a man named Edward Noel Craven, present industrial unrest. Miss Ethel E. Osborne’s convicted at the Central Criminal Court of obtainreport is based on the hourly output of 43 by false pretences, it was urged at his ing property women in a National Ordnance factory, who
trial that he ought to be dealt with as a moral imbecile under the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. He was, however, convicted, as stated, and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. From this he appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal. He was a man able to earn a living as an engineer, but had committed many offences of dishonesty, and had been in a home under the Act of 1913. At the trial of Craven a medical witness from that home expressed the opinion that he was a moral imbecile and should be treated as such, but the Lord Chief Justice in giving judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal held that the judge at the trial did not see his way to make use of the 1 The Output of Women Workers in Relation to Hours of Work in Act, and that he (the Lord Chief Justice) jaw no Shell-Making. By Ethel E. Osborne, M.Sc. A Study of Improved reason for Methods in an Iron Foundry. By Charles S. Myers, M.D., Sc.D., F.R.S. interfering with his discretion. The Reports No. 2 (price 6d. net) and No. 3 (price 2d. net) of the Industrial Home Secretary, he said, might order the examinaFatigue Research Board, appointed by the Medical Research Committee tion of the and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Published prisoner when he was in prison and his by H.M. Stationery Office, 1919. removal to a home. An observation of Mr. Justice
employed on a particularly heavy and rapid operation in the turning of six-inch shells. Data from two shops were obtained of the hourly output for all operators for a whole week during two shifts, day and night, of 12 hours each, before hours were readjusted so as to replace those two shifts by three shifts of eight hours each; whereupon, after the lapse of five months so as to allow of adaptation to the new conditions, a fresh series of data was collected under precisely comparable conditions, the only variable factor being the alteration in the hours of work. The resulting relatively small increase in hourly output under were
Annotations. "Ne quid nimie."
THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS. ON the
occasion
ot
the
ceiebration
the short shift system depended on the large proof the working time which was absorbed by automatic machinery operations, the speed of which was constant and beyond the workers’ control. But in the work of fixing and removing the shells, over the speed of which alone the operator has control, the time required for a fixed amount of work shows a decrease of 19’5 per cent. in favour of the shorter shift. (In the shorter shifts the average worker’s hours in the factory seem to have been about 15 per cent. less than in the longer shifts.) Miss Osborne also shows that there was a drop in possible output of 3’43 per cent. for the long shift as compared with a drop of only 0’58 per cent. for the short shift-i.e., the machinery became more efficient and there was less idle time in the short shift. Moreover, during the last hour of each shift the 12-hour shift showed a constant, well-marked diminution in output, whereas no such uniformity exists in the case of the short shifts ; on the contrary, several sets of curves exhibit no falling off. The curves of output for the short shifts give evidence of the possibility of running at full output right to the end of the shift; but the curves for the long shifts give no such evidence. Dr. Charles S. Myers’s report describes the remarkable effects of movement study, reduced hours of work, and an improved system of payment on output at the Derwent Foundry Company, Ltd., Derby. The workers were voluntarily trained in Their the best methods of casting, moulding, &c. hours were reduced from 54 to 48 per week. Ass as soon a worker reached 60 per cent. of " standard output he began to receive a bonus on his piece-rate earnings, which was contrived that the price paid per piece so Under rose automatically with increasing output. this scheme the increase in hourly earnings amounted to about 200 per cent. in one instance examined. The output increased by more than 300 per cent. No evidence of increased fatigue was found, save, perhaps, in the case of two workers who had enormously increased their output and were producing far above "standard output." There was no complaint of increased monotony under the new system, and the workers were unanimous in their preference for it. The value of such a report as this needs no emphasis in the present industrial crisis.
portion
of
Hi
Majesty’s birthday the King has conferred honours upon three members of the medical pro fession-namely, Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Gilber Barling, Dr. Robert Charles Brown, and Mr William Ireland de Courcy Wheeler. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Gilbert Barling, who becomes :a baronet, is the Vice-Chancellor of Birminghan University, where he has been Ingleby lecturer ane dean of the medical faculty; he has also been exa miner in surgery at the University of Cambridge His public services during the war were of the firsi importance. Dr. Robert Charles Brown, whc becomes a knight, is consulting medical officei of Pteston Royal Infirmary and the foundei of a scholarship for research at Cambridge. HiE work in connexion with the promotion of infant welfare has been indefatigable. Sir W. I. de Courcy Wheeler has rendered valuable scientific and organising service during the war, and is a member of the Consultative Committee of the War Office. Sir J. Y. W. MacAlister, secretary of the Royal Society of Medicine and its parent society for 32 years, is President of the Library Association, started and acted as secretary of the War Office Surgical Advisory Committee, and organised the Royal Army Medical Corps Bureau and an Emergency Surgical Aid Corps for the Admiralty, the War Office, and Metropolitan Police during the air raids. To these gentlemen, in the name of the medical profession, we heartily tender congratulations for well-deserved honours, and while doing so include the name of Mr. Laurence Richard Philipps, the founder of the Paraplegic Hospital in Wales, who becomes a baronet, and of Sir Henry Francis New, the mayor of Marylebone, and vice-president of Marylebone War Supply Hospital, whose knighthood has been thoroughly earned. --
EXPERIMENTS ON OUTPUT.1
THE first two publications of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board are a good augury of the high standard of future issues to be expected from this recently established board. They deal with subjects of paramount importance in the
, ,
"
____
MORAL IMBECILITY.
IN the case of a man named Edward Noel Craven, present industrial unrest. Miss Ethel E. Osborne’s convicted at the Central Criminal Court of obtainreport is based on the hourly output of 43 by false pretences, it was urged at his ing property women in a National Ordnance factory, who
trial that he ought to be dealt with as a moral imbecile under the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. He was, however, convicted, as stated, and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. From this he appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal. He was a man able to earn a living as an engineer, but had committed many offences of dishonesty, and had been in a home under the Act of 1913. At the trial of Craven a medical witness from that home expressed the opinion that he was a moral imbecile and should be treated as such, but the Lord Chief Justice in giving judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal held that the judge at the trial did not see his way to make use of the 1 The Output of Women Workers in Relation to Hours of Work in Act, and that he (the Lord Chief Justice) jaw no Shell-Making. By Ethel E. Osborne, M.Sc. A Study of Improved reason for Methods in an Iron Foundry. By Charles S. Myers, M.D., Sc.D., F.R.S. interfering with his discretion. The Reports No. 2 (price 6d. net) and No. 3 (price 2d. net) of the Industrial Home Secretary, he said, might order the examinaFatigue Research Board, appointed by the Medical Research Committee tion of the and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Published prisoner when he was in prison and his by H.M. Stationery Office, 1919. removal to a home. An observation of Mr. Justice
employed on a particularly heavy and rapid operation in the turning of six-inch shells. Data from two shops were obtained of the hourly output for all operators for a whole week during two shifts, day and night, of 12 hours each, before hours were readjusted so as to replace those two shifts by three shifts of eight hours each; whereupon, after the lapse of five months so as to allow of adaptation to the new conditions, a fresh series of data was collected under precisely comparable conditions, the only variable factor being the alteration in the hours of work. The resulting relatively small increase in hourly output under were