REFORMS IN INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 290, 8 December 1925, Page 6

REFORMS IN INDUSTRY.

In considering the Companies Empowering Act, which ~ provides for profit-sharing schemes on the lines of that suggested by Mr. H. Valder, of Hamilton, the committee appointed by the . Auckland Council of Christian Congregations raised the whole question of the relation of Christianity to. industry. The present wage system was condemned as falling short of the Christian principle, inasmuch as it stimulated self-interest instead of mutual interest, and it provided merely for a cash relationship between men. This human interest is something that lies altogether outside routine, and can only be adequately served by character with high ideals and a spirit of service rather than self-seeking. This is one of the main functions of Teligion. The Churches can inspire and tr-ain the spirit in which difficulties can be met, leaving it to those acquainted with business , matters to devise the, practical means by which Christian idealism can be expressed in practice. In dealing with the details of the Valder scheme the committee reported that equal shares for capital and labour . were impossible, as the scheme did not provide for equal responsibility, and it would be impossible also to fix a risk rate. These are details that apply Tather to the particular scheme in question than to the matter of profitsharing in itself. .Organised Labour bases its objection to profit-sharing on the ground that it would lessen the power of the unions, and also that it recognises and approves of the capitalistic system. The desire to do nothing to lesson the power of the trade unions is from tho Labour point of view commendable. The same, however, cannot be said for the contention that profit-sharing schemes are merely palliatives, and therefore tend to delay the advance of social progress. There is more wisdom in the advice given by Mr". Hodges, of the Miners' Union in Great Britain, that Labour should take every concession it can get from tbe employers. For Labour to aim at some socialist scheme involving the destruction of the present capitalistic system, and refuse to_accept any concession offered on the ground that these concessions, by improving the lot of the worker, tend to delay the revolution hoped for, is to display a lack of political sense and to exhibit a temper of mind tha£ because it cannot get all, refuses to take anvtliinoLabour is not definite as to what Ft would put in place of capitalism were capitalism to be overthrown. It must also recognise that th,ere is no hope of any radical change in the present system in the immediate future. Profit-sharing J..may not be either practicable or desir"

able, but to condemn it on the ground that it is a palliative is foolish. -On the same grounds, all the vast body of legislative reform that has so greatly improved the position of the wage-earner is to be condemned. The Committee of the Council of Christian Congregations very rightly laid emphasis on the fact that all schemes depended on the spirit in which they were carried but. A scheme dominated by Christian motives would do good where one dominated by selfishness might only add to the present troubles.