ABSTRACT
The new technology employed may represent a saving of manpower, or of raw materials. Or it may be that the price paid for capital equipment or for other goods and services declines proportionately to the output produced. Some technical changes will bring about savings in all cost categories. The development of more satisfactory means of measuring capital productivity is a major task in itself and so only passing reference can be made below to the effects in this area. In measuring labour productivity, it is fortunate that the industries covered have certain features which serve to make the figures which can be produced more credible. In the British coal mining industry it is labour productivity which exercises the dominating influence upon the industry's fortunes. Productivity comparisons in the gas industry are difficult to interpret, because of the two major changes in the source of supply over twenty-five years.
