the
diamonds they work with are not much more than twice the size of a
pinhead, some idea of the dexterity and skill required can be
understood.
Trust
is the watchword in this, as in all diamond factories. True, each
diamond is carefully accounted for as a matter of bookkeeping. But the
boys are not searched or kept under any kind of surveillance. They are
required to eat lunch in the shop, but this is because they are
responsible for the diamonds in their dops, which must be left on the
table. Also, they have only a half-hour for lunch because of the
necessity of using all the daylight possible.
Not
only the officials of this shops but those of other cutting
establishments springing up in this country are confident that the
United States will develop a new industry—a diamond-cutting
industry—that will compete with the rest of the world after the war and
even become a major factor in the cutting world. They are certain they
will be in a better position to compete with the cheaper European costs
of production than they have been in the past, without reducing the
wage scale.
Why?
Because to overcome the handicap of the high American wage scale, which
heretofore has proved such an insurmountable obstacle to the cutting of
melee in America, the new shop is equipped with highly specialized
machinery. This has been designed to make possible the specialized
"production line" methods that are typical of automobile and other
American manufacturing practice and that make possible a low cost of
production.
Under
this method each worker performs just one highly specialized operation,
with the stones passing along a sort of production line. The fact that
each workman knows only one special operation instead of the whole art
of diamond cutting, plus the fact that much of the machinery is
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