March 11.
Tae impression popularly prevails that a close approximation to perfection has been reached in the organization of human productivity in the United States of Amer Expressions such as " Captains of Industry" to define the directors of vast industrial and commercial concerns—expressions which in themselves suggest organizations of labour properly comparable wich an army—bad their origin in the United States, and were brought into being, as all such phrases are, by the development of a new phase of human activity. In particular the American railways with their their tens of thousands of employees and their complex inter-working of systems, have been regarded, in some quarters, as the ultimate achievement of commercial organization. 'A. controversy, however, between the railway interests and their customers (in American parlance the shippers") has led to a deep shadow of doubt falling across the reputation for efficiency hitherto borne by those in whose bands rested the management and control of the railroads. The critics frankly acknowledged that the direction of the traffic itself was highly efficient, but they declared that in other ents scientific management was lacking, and the consequence was that there was a deplorable waste of Jabour and of time. In their capacity of manufacturers and construction engineers, it was as-verted, the railroads showed an incapacity that resulted in inability to obtain a reasonably high retare from the outlay on labour and material. These accusations were brought forward as a reply to a demand by the railways that rates should be raised to enable them to earn fair interest on capital invested. The " shippers" contended that the failure to secure a satisfactory return was not due to the inadequacy of the charges made, but fo the absence of scientific management in a variety of trades and unskilled occupations: that, in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.