More systematic were the investigations in this country made under the Ministry of Munitions. In the Interim report of 1917 of the Health of Munition Workers Committee we find the following reference to incentives in industry:

“It is essential that the wage system should be equitable and easily understood by the workers. The evidence collected leaves no doubt that a wage system the operation of which cannot easily be understood by the wage earners ... fails to serve as an incentive.”

In fact, the evidence in detail rather suggests that it is more important for the system to be intelligible than it is for it to be just. As in the case of the Philippine lepers a reduction of wages may in certain cases be the shortest remedy for industrial discontent, just as the reduction of working hours has often been found to involve an increase in production.

More important, however, than juggling with the systems of remuneration is concentrated upon the subtler psychological factors in the situation. Politicians, artists, bishops, and many members of the working-classes are played upon by forces which act more powerfully on their energies than any system of wages that could be applied to them; the ambitions and interests of their wives, the health of their children, the criticism or adulation of their associates and a host of other factors of curious psychological interest. Is it beyond the wit of man to apply these forces in a scientific way?

One very instructive attempt was that of another American establishment, which instituted the office of ‘plant mother’. “It is her duty” (as Tead puts it), “using this motherly disposition and attitude as an entering wedge, to go among the men and help to straighten out their troubles with the management. And one of the most successful weapons of appeal with her is said to be that she puts employées’ problems in