AN INDUSTTRIAL PEACE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 46, 24 February 1927, Page 12

AN INDUSTTRIAL PEACE.

A LABOUR SUGGESTION.

INFORMAL DISCUSSION. liY BOTH SIDE'S TO DISPUTE. T».r Our n Corre<j*on-le:it.'» LONDON". January 1 T! e La'.oa: party, through the mouthpiece of Mr. Arthur Henderson, its secretary. h.is put up a strong plea to Mr. Rahiwin for a departure in the method <-■! handling our industrial disputes. It i- that the Prime Minister should invite till* Speaker to preside over a conference r.-presenting tiie trade unions and the La'.our party on the one side and the organise J employers 011 tiie other. This join" conference (Mr. Henderson suggests a small body of twelve or so) could ciirrr upon an informal, non-committal discussion of the whole industrial situation and consider whether new machinery might prove more effective than present methods for regulating the relations of Capital and Labour. That new machinery might include the setting up of a Parliament of Industry, fully -quipped with a competent technical staff and representing not alone the parties directly concerned in industry, but also the economists, finance experts, and ut.iers whose interests were affected. This suggestion he made at Ealkirk two days ago and he had prior to that urged something of tiie kind in two speeches he made last week in Lancashire. The proposal harks luick to the .-.•heme put forward in ]!>IM under the Coalition Government, devised for the regulation of industrial relations, including tiie proposal to establish a National Council of Industry. Mr. Henderson declared that had that scheme been set up when proposed tiie tragic happenings or 1920 would have been avoided. As it was, the strike epidemic of 191!) wrecked Support From All Quarters. Ihe idea had so much in it that commands support from all quarters that it is being revived. Tiie conference was actually convened by the then Minister of Labour, Sir Robert Home, anj attended by representatives of both sides in all the big industries and many of the small ones. A joint committee was appointed on the proposal of Mr. Henderson. and in a concluding speech Mr. Lloyd George appealed to employers to take their worKers more into their confidence, and to the workers to give increased production.

ljis committee, in its report, advocated a maximum 48-hour week, legal minimum time rates of wages for all trades, and the creation of a National Industrial Council of 4**o members elected by both tides in organised industry.

f:us report was well received liv the Conference, which referred it to the bodies it represented, but the National Industrial Council was never set up. Tile National Lnion of Railwaymen appears to view the idea with approval, for its industrial secretary. Air. C. T. j lamp, within the last few weeks, declared his belief in "a separate industrial parliament,' and said there was a great deal of experience which was a present untouched in the country upon which such a body could draw—men of science, economists, the universities, and so on." 1* rom the other side, too, support is to be had, for Lord Weir, in the House of Lords. _ suggested a round-table conference of employers and employees. The emergence of such schemes from both political camps but stresses the fact that the centre of gravity in national government has definitely shifted into the sphere of industrial" affairs. Even the Lords can no longer regard trade as undignified; trade in reality has become the main end of all national efforts A Lack of Coherence. Undoubtedly the chief vice of the present system of Parliamentary legislation in respect of industrial affairs— and that looms vastly larger in its programme than even a generation ago— is a lack of coherence. Parliament itself is the controlling body for a great many i'lls, i.he implications and reactions of which are clear only to the expert and not always to him. The bills are, of course, drafted with the aid of expert advice, but the bulk of the criticism in the House is largely amateur. It is therelore possible, as every legislature in the British Dominions has had experience, to have well-drafted bills become so moditied by amendment as to produce results qaito unlooked for by the original drafters of the bill. It is for this reason that a certain amount of support is being given to a suggestion that a body of some, sort should be set up in order that this fault in legislation may be avoided. It is being noted that in Germany there is a Federal Economic Council. This is a body having compulsory powers of investigation to which all Government bills of an economic character must be submitted. While the working of this Council has not yet settled down to its ultimate form it has proved its value to some extent. Its advantage seems to be t.iat it submits economic questions to expert and effective criticism which to some extent lessens the influence of tnose political factors which too often nullify the good intentions of the proposed legislation.