The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-10-19

OF varnish, as against nearly lOO dill
ferent varieties formerly produced.
To save cans the half gallon and
many of the smaller-sized packages
have been eliminated.
In the manufacture of hardware,
where the number of styles and sizes
hitherto produced was almost infinite,
the reduction will average 80 per. cent.
The number of. items in one saw man.
ufacturer's catalogue has been reduc-
ed by 10 per cent. In the stove and
furnace trade rs per cen of the types
and sizes have been cut out, and those
remaining require the least iron and
steel for their production.
In mems and women's clothing the
simplif cation of styles agreed upon
will reduce the material required by
from u to 25 per cent, and by restrict
ing the sizes of samples about 3,450,000
yards of cloth will be saved annually.
The high price of tin has led to a
great reduction in its use for solder,
Babbitt metal, bronze, %tinfoil, etc, and
silk dyers have learned that they can
get along with 80 per cent of the tin
formerly used in giving luster and
weight to certain grades of silk. Great
economy has been effected by Undue
ing manufacturers to s%tandardize the
size of the boxes in which their goods
are packed. Waist manufacturers, for
example, are packing two or three
waists in a box instead of one. This
will save probably two-thirds of the
freight space formerly used for ship
ping waists. Similar economies of
shipping space have been effected i'll
many other lines of business.
In the delivery of goods substan-
tial economies have also been secured
by the partial abolition of sc. o. d.
and "on approval deliveries, as well
as by reducing the number Of daily
wagon trips, and price concessions to
those customers who acquire the
"cash and carry" habit have also re-
duced the retailers cost of distribu-
ton.
The list of these innovations could
be greatly heightened, but from those
described some idea may be had of
the saving in the cost of
manufacturing and distributing goods
that has been effected in almost every
department of trade.
All these innovations are essentially
methods of saving labor, and If they
are not abandoned after the war they
will add enormously to the wealth
creating power of the Nation, for
wealth is but labor in a concrete and
useful form.
The work of the Resources and Con-
version Section of the War Industries
Board is along similar but divergent
lines. As a result of the specializa-
ton of industry practiced in this
country there are hundreds and thou
sands of factories that make differ
emf parts of the things that are as
sembled and completed in other fac
tories. The automobile industry, for
instance, has become specialized to
an amazing degree.
One consequence of this specializa-
ton has been a great waste of trans
portation. A similar instance of this
is the pig iron required for the steel
iIidt II D0 ullllillltlN aoCh ~ u
the saws in an Alabama cotton gin.
# may be mined at Birmingham,
shipped to Pittsburgh as pig" and
there converted into sheet steel.
Thence it might be sent to Philadel-
phia to be made into saws, and then
again back to its point of origin, Ala
bama, where it is worn out taking the
seed from the cotton.
In many cases there is a still great
err waste of transportation, and in one
instance the same material transmit
ed by successive manufacturing pro-
cesses is known to have been shipped
back and forth over nearly identical
routes some eleven times before 1t
became part of the finished article and
was put to use.
To eliminate this unnecessary trans
portation where possible, in so far as
the manufacture of war material is
concerned, is the task to which Mr..
Otis has addressed himself, and he is
succeeding so well that he will prob
ably effect a lasting revolution in
American industry that will save hun
uTpuS Ol HlllllO1S annually DOlu uuTlnS
the war and afterward.
But it would take a book to describe
all the scientific economies that have
been learned or evolved from the ex-
perience of the war. We have been
taught to save coal, to utilize by-pro-
ducts, TO use corn instead of wheat for
bread, to eat less meat and sugar and
to live healthier lives, to wear old
clothes and veal them out, and II
carr more by increasing our produc-
ton, and spend less by decreasing our
consumption.
BY the saving in labor thus effect
ed we have been able to supply the
man power necessary for the success
full prosecution of the war, and by the
practice of the unnumbered economies
that are rapidly becoming habits W,
have been able to follow a ~"pay-as-
vou-ro" policy in meeting the wars