Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1909.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXIX, Issue 7828, 22 June 1909, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1909.

This journal and a A few writers and speakNbw Factor ers here and there in throughout the counNational try, off and on, advoSalvation. cat© profit-sharing, or business f partnership, between Jabou* and fc.apital as a safe and sure means to industrial peace and prosperity. But those who do this are as yet voices crying in the wilderness. It is different in England, which js efrojieously supposed to be so much indie ba6k'ward tfidri we are n this dominion. It may perhaps be said -that our conciliation and arbitration laws, in their results, evolve a business partnership between employers and workers; but this is like _ Snaking a broken kettle whole by means of patching, iusti'ead of constructing,a new one from a central organic design. Copartnership ethically evolved from within an industry itself, by the people immediately interested and immediately engaged in it, must siirely be better than co-partnership legally imposed from without by persons not so interested or engaged in the industry. New Zealanders, fit any rate, know how things stand with themselves under the influence of, the. latter process j tiiid Sir Christopher, Fnrness and his men as co-partners in tliti shipbuilding trade at West Hartlcpool are i showing what the other plan is doing and is likely to do in England. ■ , • A few weoks c ago, in speaking from his own experience ahfcl tlia^ of the workers associated with him, Sir Christopher Furness said that, in regard to the shipbuilding industry, "he was entirely satisfied that the system of co-partnery, with the loyalty the intelligence, the zeal, and the industry which it brought . into . play, enabled them to ( confront their rivals, wherever they might arise, with a prospect of j success .better, than most of those with whom they might .be brought intocom-! petition.',' His deliberate conviction is that the spread of the 1 principle of industrial co-partnership is more certain than anything else to save Britain,; and to fit it to hold its own successfully in peace and war against all corners. It lias, said Sir Christopher, at -lasi come liomo to tlie hirtsjS of our people' .what has been increasingly obvious for a number, of years to the observan-t find the thoughtful . among us, that we are, as artisans and manufacturers, as carriers and traders, confronted in solid array by rivals who ac not likely to be beaten either with ease or with' speed. " The best available instrument," he i continued^ ''for meeting and/overcoming this, erjsis of our national life is the principle, of co-partnership. It may not be too strong a thing to say that the future of British industry hangs on the development of labour co-partnership in our midst, and I am sometimes tempted to think that no Englishman could at this moment manifest his patriotisrii more, profitably to the country than by securing, under distinguished patronage aijd presidency, the summoning of a Mtional Conference, of the leading employers, of, the kingdom, in the : hope and : belief that a careful and sympathetic examination of the principle and practice of co-partnery would result in tlie adoption of a resolution to give effect thereto in the fashion, of course, best suited to the circiimstances of each particular industry or trade." Perhaps if Australians and New Zealanders were to think the whole of this subject out, and then in a rational business-like way take the logical sequential aetioii; they would do the best possible thing for themselves and the Empire; at least, a much better thing than in excitedly flinging Dreadnoughts (in political and journalistic claptrap) at the head or the feet of the Imperial Government. The Fire Brigade's Deficient curricle engine was Water Surrey, promptly; on the scene of last night's fire, but tho flames had gained such a strong hold of the house that it was impossible to subdue them by means of the limited amount of available water. A little later, when the steam engine arrived, it was found that there was still barely enough water to admit of tho curricle playing a full stream on the flames. Therefore, although the steam engine was in readiness to work, it could not be brought into use for fully twenty minutes after its arrival at the fire, though, in the meantime, an additional supply of water was obtained for the channels by diverting the supply from other streets. Had a north-west wind of any force prevailed at the time, the whole of the adjacent houses must have been destroyed. The incident is merely the last of many that have proved up to the hilt- ho-.v sorely Ashburton needs a high-pressure water supply; and with such arguments in favour of expedition, it cannot surely be necessary to keep pressing the urgency of the work on the Borough Council. Indeed, now that the money market is returning to normal conditions, we may expect to hear any day of the successful negotiation of a loan to carry out the scheme which is, so to speak, lying ready to be taken in hand.