Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
REVIEW
THE
VOL. LXIX. No. 10
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Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman BUI, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. Sept. 6, 1919
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USINESS men, labor men, economists and thinkers in all branches of society are considering, not with-
out anxiety, the new and pressing problems which the economic and industrial conditions of the, day
are forcing upon their attention. Neither employers nor employed have hitherto done much economic
thinking; and what they have done has been rather narrow and one-sided. But when conditions change
thinking must change with them. There are certain essential but simple truths concerning the economic status
and productive ability of our trade which must be bravely faced and fairly met. They are not facts of which
we should be afraid; but they are facts which we must face.
The underlying reason for any dissatisfaction which may be felt or voiced by any section of the public
is to be found at the moment in the simple fact of underproduction. Allowing for the undoubted fact that, in
our own industry at least, there has been an extraordinary shortage of raw material, the truth remains that
the real cause for underproduction with us has been in our shortage of man-power. In a word, we are
grievously short of skilled labor, and yet the conscience of the industry has been scarcely awakened on what
in the end is likely to turn out to be the vital, determining factor in our industrial history during the next few
years.
Underproduction, not in one but in all industries, is the basic cause of excessive prices. "More pro-
duction" is everywhere the cry. Now to that cry the response is not hearty and vigorous. The skilled worker,
in our industry as in all others, for the time finds himself in a position to dictate. He wants to produce less
instead of more, quite failing to see that when an artificial scarcity has been produced he will find that the
dollar, which now comes so easily to him, actually has less buying value than the old, hardly won dollar of
earlier days.
The worker is not to blame. He is only doing in a small way what the food profiteer is doing in a large
way, and to quarrel with him on moral grounds is rather absurd.
But there are some things we can do. We can attack at its source an evil which is doing no one any good
and which is slowly undermining our whole industry. We can and we must attack and re-solve the whole
problem of man-power.
If we can devise machinery for filling the depleted ranks of our skilled workers, and if at the same time
we can set the newly trained men and women in an economic position where they will desire to remain piano-
makers and not be tempted off into other lines of work by better wages, we shall solve the problem which
faces our industry.
Man-power coupled with higher earning possibilities must be supplied. Man-power will give us the means
for more production. Once -this is put on a secure basis we can begin to experience the general prosperity
without which it will be impossible to fill out our man-power.
Within the last few weeks reports have been coming in which indicate that the problem of recruiting man-
power is at last being tackled seriously. This is well; but it will not at all be well unless we all keep in mind the
simple fact that the problem is dual in its nature. We must indeed train skilled workers, but we cannot train
them unless we can get them to train, for one thing, and we cannot keep them unless we can compete with
other industries in respect of attractiveness and monetary advantages.
W T e might as well face the facts—our industry needs modernizing on the productive side. It is the finest
industry in the world, and when we have succeeded in "selling" this industry, in respect of its attractive
monetary and physical features, to the growing generation of our people we shall have achieved the economic
and industrial salvation which we now so anxiously seek. Until this is done, however, we shall continue to be per-
plexed by the problems which we hitherto have failed to solve.