This is not all the story. In the United States of America the invariable practice is to subdivide every job into its simple constituent operations, allocate each simple machine operation to a machine expressly designed, or “set up” or “rigged” for that special operation, and capable of being tended by an unskilled person after a small modicum of training. So also in regard to non-machine operations, that is to say, assembling or fitting. Each operation is allocated to a special person, in the first instance probably quite unskilled, who becomes proficient and efficient at this one line of work. There is little or no haggling about the remuneration of these unskilled operatives. The volume of production and the consequent ability to pay high wages obviate that. It is never contended by the Machinists’ Union that all of these subdivided operations must be done by skilled men, and by them only. Yet in England it is practically a rule that no man in a Union engineering workshop may lift a file and do the smallest amount of “rough” filing unless he is a skilled fitter. It is a platitude to insist that the natural and efficient evolution of industry involves subdivision. It is, in fact, the governing condition of efficiency and low production cost. It is equally evident, from American experience, that there is nothing in subdivision really hurtful to the skilled men, their trade, or their standard of remuneration. Subdivision in the United States of America has led to an enormous output. All the vast number of machines in service must be set up, repaired, and periodically overhauled. Only the skilled men can do that. The machine “tenders” or “minders” must be supervised. That, again, is work for skilled men. All the tools for the machines must be ground, repaired, and in most cases “set up”—more work for which skilled men alone are suitable. In short, in the United States of America, the skilled men enjoy better conditions, a higher status, and receive greater real wages than the skilled men in this country. The latter must be helped to realize, and quickly, that their present policy of preserving for skilled men exclusively each simple constituent operation now included in skilled men’s work is detrimental to their interests, is stifling industry, and strangling the trade of the nation. No “Niggling” at Prices