Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-10-18

many OF the Smaller-SlZed 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 so per cent.
The number of items in one saw man
ufacturer's catalogue has been reduc-
ed by 20 per cent. In the stove and
furnace trade 70 per cent 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
will reduce the material required by
from L 70 % per cent, and by restrict
ing the sizes of samples about 3,450,0OO
yards of cloth will be saved annually.
The high price of tin has led to a
great reduction in it's use for solder,
Babbitt metal, bronze, tinfoil, etc, and
silk dyers have learned that they can
get along with 30 per cent of the tin
formerly used in giving luster and
weight to certain grades of silk. Great
economy has been effected by induc-
ing manufacturers to ~standardize 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 in
many other lines of business.
In the delivery of goods substan-
tial economies have also been secured
by the partial abolition of &c. o. d."
and con 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 enormous saving in the cost Of
manufacturing and distributing goods
that has beer effected in almost every
department of trade.
All these innovations are essentially
methods of saving labor, and if they
are not abandoned after the wal 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
ent 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 SPECIALIZE
| ton has been a great waste of trans
| portation. A similar instance of this
is the pig iron required for the steel
that will be ultimately used to make
the saws in an Alabama cotton gin.
1t 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 it's 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 it
became part of the finished article and
was put to use.
To eliminate this unnecessary trans
portation where possible, in so far as
I the manufacture Of war material is
concerned, is the task to which Mr..
Otis has addressed himself, and he is
succeeding so we'll that he will prob
ably effect a lasting revolution In
American industry that will saw hun
dreds of millions annually both during
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 a v 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 wear them out, and to
earn more by increasing Jul 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 u~nnumbered economies
that are rapidly becoming habits we
have been able to follow a "pay-as-
you-go" policy in meeting the wars
expenses and to loan some $4,000 00,-
mn or moro fO Ol1r allies hacidnS