cars, and were not averse from making special cars with special features for individual customers. Mr Ford resolved to discover the best type of car for general purposes and for universal use, and to make one type and one type alone, believing that only by producing large masses of cars he could sell cheaply.

The shareholders in the original Ford Company wished that only a few cars should be made and sold at a high price. That was not the idea of the founder of the company. The benefit of mass production may be seen from the fact that every increase in output led to a great cheapening of the car to the alarm and dismay of other makers.

'We were a prosperous company. We might easily have sat down and said: "Now we have arrived. Let us hold what we have got." Indeed there was some disposition to take this stand. Some of the stockholders were seriously alarmed when our production reached one hundred cars a day. They wanted to do something to stop me from ruining the company, and when I replied to the effect that one hundred cars a day was only a trifle and that I hoped before long to make a thousand a day, they were inexpressibly shocked and I understand seriously contemplated court action. If I had followed the general opinion of my associates I should have kept the business about as it was, put our funds into a fine administration building, tried to make bargains with such competitors as seemed too active, made new designs from time to time to catch the fancy of the public, and generally have passed on into the position of a quiet, respectable citizen with a quiet, respectable business

'No one will deny that if prices are sufficiently low, buyers will always be found, no matter what are supposed to be the business conditions. Instead of giving attention to competitors or to demand, our prices are based on an estimate of what the largest possible number of people will want to pay, or can pay, for what we have to sell. And what has resulted from that policy is best evidenced by comparing the price of the touring car and the production.

(The above two years were war years and the factory was in war work)

'During one year our profits were so much larger than we expected them to be that we voluntarily returned fifty dollars to each purchaser of a car. We felt that unwittingly we had overcharged the purchaser by that much.'

It need scarcely be pointed out that cars of an absolutely uniform type made by the hundred thousand can be produced far more cheaply than cars of different type made in a few hundreds, and that Mr Ford's policy of sudden and substantial reductions in price popularised and advertised his car. The voluntary return of $50 to purchasers was, of course, one of the finest strokes of business imaginable.

Mr Ford not only produces as many motor-cars as all the other makers, American and non-American, combined, but he has been the creator of cheap motor-cars in general. When he started in business the idea of making fast and expensive cars, sold at a large profit to the well-to-do, was general. The makers of cars combined with a view to regulating prices, profits, etc., to their mutual advantage. Mr Ford refused to be one of the crowd. He did not join the various organisations and associations, being determined to follow his own course regardless of the others. Rival makers tried to fight him but failed to suppress him. Ford's competition compelled them to produce cheap utility cars as well. Thus Henry Ford may be considered not only as the organiser of the biggest factory in the world, but also as the inspirer of the American motor-car industry and the creator of the cheap motor-car.

An original thinker treats in his own way every problem which comes before him, disregarding tradition and custom. Mr Ford adopted novel methods not only in creating a new type of car and in selling it, but on the productive side as well. He resolved to produce the

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the jobs require not over one day of training; 36 per cent. require from one day to one week; 6 per cent. require from one to two weeks; 14 per cent. require from one month to one year; 1 per cent. require from one to six years. The last jobs require great skill-as in tool-making and diesinking.'

The extreme sub-division of work makes skilled labour unnecessary except in respect of a very few men. Highly trained workers are not only very expensive but they are apt to establish traditions with regard to methods of production, quantity of output, etc., which frequently impede the adoption of improved processes and the cheapening of production by greatly increasing it. The trade unions are most powerful among the skilled workers in whom the old guild spirit is strongest. In the United States trade unionism is relatively little developed, largely because division and sub-division of work enables manufacturers in general to run their establishments chiefly with unskilled labour. Mr Ford has brought this policy to the highest perfection. Working chiefly with unskilled labour, which can easily be replaced, and paying it the highest wages, wages considerably above the general rate, he has no trouble with trade unions and simply disregards their existence. Before the American Commission on Industrial Relations Mr Ford was examined as follows:

Q. Your people are not organised?

A. Not that I know of. I have never had anything to do with any organised labour of any kind.

Q. You have always conducted what I suppose is the open shop?

A. Always the open shop.

And in his autobiography, he tells us :

"The discipline throughout the plant is rigid. . . . We expect the men to do what they are told. The organisation is so highly specialised, and one part is so dependent upon another, that we could not for a moment consider allowing men to have their own way. Without the most rigid discipline we would have the utmost confusion. I think it should not be otherwise in industry. The men are there to get the greatest possible amount of work done and to receive the highest possible pay. If each man were permitted to act in

his own way, production would suffer, and therefore pay would suffer..

'The experience of the Ford industries with the working man has been entirely satisfactory, both in the United States and abroad. We have no antagonism to unions, but we participate in no arrangements with either employee or employer organisations. The wages paid are always higher than any reasonable union could think of demanding, and the hours of work are always shorter. There is nothing that a union membership could do for our people. Some of them may belong to unions, probably the majority do not. We do not know and make no attempt to find out, for it is a matter of not the slightest concern to us. We respect the unions, sympathise with their good aims and denounce their bad ones. In turn I think that they give us respect, for there has never been any authoritative attempt to come between the men and the management in our plants.

...

'In England we did meet the trade union question squarely in our Manchester plant. The workmen of Manchester are mostly unionised, and the usual English union restrictions upon output prevail. We took over a body plant in which were a number of union carpenters. At once the union officers asked to see our executives and arrange terms. We deal only with our own employees and never with outside representatives, so our people refused to see the union officials. Thereupon they called the carpenters out on strike. The carpenters would not strike and were expelled from the union. Then the expelled men brought suit against the union for their share of the benefit fund. I do not know how the litigation turned out, but that was the end of interference by trade union officers with our operations in England.'

It should not be thought that Henry Ford harshly forces his will upon men and is able to do so because he pays them better than his competitors. He certainly is a strict disciplinarian, but he strives to promote the welfare of his workers without coddling them.

Mr Ford tells us that his interest in a car does not stop when it has been sold. He is concerned that the purchaser should be satisfied, that he should be properly treated by the dealer, and that the men doing repairs should be competent, courteous, and moderate in their charges. In order to give permanent high-grade service to Ford users, the Ford works have created a school at which dealers and repairers are trained. Mr Ford