The Rural Voice, 1991-09, Page 14"Our experience
assures lower cost
water wells"
90 YEARS EXPERIENCE
Member of Canadian
and Ontario
Water Well Associations
• Farm
• Industrial
• Suburban
• Municipal
Licensed
by the Ministry
of the Environment
DAVIDSON
WELL DRILLING LTD.
WINGHAM
Serving Ontario Since 1900
519-357-1960 WINGHAM
519-886-2761 WATERLOO
�t**Aft.*
p
fis\O•te
PURE WATER FOR AMERICA
Men.......
For service call your
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Lucknow
519-528-3913
10 THE RURAL VOICE
FARMERS DON'T BENEFIT
FROM INCREASED EFFICIENCY
Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher
and playwright who lives near Blyth,
is the originator and publisher of The
Rural Voice.
The baseboards in my house are
more than 14 inches high. The ban-
nister in the staircase is so strong it
has withstood a century of children
sliding down it. The house still retains
a beauty few modern houses can
match. It's the kind of house people
talk about when they say: "They just
don't make them like that any more."
It appears tome there area lot of
things like that nowadays. There is, in
general, more affluence in our society
than at any time in the earth's history,
but there are many good things we
can't afford any more. Time is
money, and at the rate people want to
get paid these days, we can't afford
anything that's going to take much
time. Our society is based on the
concept of Henry Ford's assembly
line. We live well because mass
production has made many things
affordable. The problem, however, is
that whenever you have something to
which you can't apply the same
degree of mass production, the cost
becomes so high you can't afford it.
The guy on the assembly line at
Ford's Talbotville plant, for instance,
can justify in his $20 -plus hourly
wage because the machinery allows
him to produce more and better cars
during his shift. He is likely at least
20 times as efficient as the guy who
got $5 a day in 1920 working for Ford.
But take a look at the tradesman
who built my house. Sure there have
been improvements in technology that
have speeded his work, such as power
saws, and power nailers, but there's no
way today's carpenter can build 20
houses in the time it took to build my
house. Still, if the carpenter or the
plumber or the electrician is to keep
pace with the auto worker, he must be
paid the same. In an attempt to cut the
cost of houses, builders today use
cheaper, factory -made materials, such
as dry wall, roof trusses and plywood
to slap houses up more quickly.
Could we afford to pay day care
workers to look after your children if
they were paid the same wages as
industrial workers? The day care
worker can't look after 20 times as
many children today as 50 years ago.
Nor can the teacher or the nurse or the
doctor. There are some jobs that just
can't be automated.
My business is a bit like that.
Since I took my first summer job at
the Huron Expositor in 1967 I've seen
giant leaps in automation in the pub-
lishing business. Huge presses today
print, in Less than an hour, huge papers
that 25 years ago would have taken us
three days to print. Now a complete
page of type can be assembled in
minutes so simply on a computer
screen that an old-time compositor in
a printing shop might weep with joy.
The problem is they haven't found
ways to automate guys like me: the
old fashioned writer. I may type my
copy into a computer to save the type-
setter having to retype it, but I still
can't type 20 times faster than a repor-
ter of 50 years ago. I can't think faster,
can't cover more meetings in an hour
than he did then — I'm the weak link
in the automation of the publishing
business.
Farmers have been good sports at
playing the automation game as well.
They have increased productivity by
huge leaps, but the more they produce,
it seems, the lower the price goes.
Today, they find themselves on a
treadmill where they must run faster to
stay in the same spot. But they're
paying the price in quality of life:
having less time for family, neigh-
bourhood and community.
Unlike the auto worker, farmers
can't control their markets, and many
have never realized the benefits that
increased productivity was supposed
to bring.0