The Dominion. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1917. INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION IN GREAT BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3180, 3 September 1917, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1917. INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION IN GREAT BRITAIN

People in the Oversea Dominions cannot afford to ignore the great strides that axe being made in the Mother Country towards tho establishment of a new and better industrial order. It is a matter of common knowledgo that the organisation of British industries for war has led to wonderful _ results in cheapening and expanding production. At the same time there is a wido and growing recognition amongst all classes engaged in industry that the war means a complete breach with the industrial past. "We have organised production with a single end and for a single purpose," one writer remarked recently, "and in doing so havo performed miracles of economy. In the steel trade, the glass trade, the dyeing industry; in wool and copper, in the use of tungstein and tho production of sulphuric acid; in applied science of all kinds; in the opening up of unprofitable ores to profitable use; in the development of the internal combustion engine—in these and a hundred other directions we havo reorganised the industry of tho country on a national basis. It has been organised' for war; but tho organisation cannot end with tho war. What we have done and what wc have learned and what we havo spent must bo applied to the purposes of peace when tho war is over." The same note was sounded by Dr. Abdison, now Minister of Reconstruction, in his valedictory as Minister of. Munitions. Ho points out that in tho war period great new industries havo been founded and old ones have been extended on a vastly improved scalo, and-that opportunities of even greater' developments on these lines have been opened up. Ho holds it essential if theso opportunities aro to bo turned to account that there should be a great improvement in the relations between Capital and/Labour. Tho records of tho Munitions Department show that a very material improvement has already taken placo. For instance, during the first five months of 1916 tho working days lost through disputes were 1,869,000. During the same period this year they were 540,700. In order to ensure industrial prosperity after the war, Dr. Addison holds, there must be an abandonment of the practice followed by some employers of cutting rates of pay as output is increased, and of the retaliatory practice of restriotion of output. "Tho influence of these two practices on our industrial life," he observes, "is thoroughly poisonous. Wo must establish a system whereby both parties have a direct interest in the introduction of improved methods. Without it our progress will inevitably be accompanied by endless disputes. , Tho accounting side of tho Ministry of Munitions has abundantly proved that modern methods of production aTe not only well able to afford good wage rates, but are benefited by so doing." Specific proposals aiming at tho establishment of such a system as Dr. Addison arid many others have declared to bo essential to industrial prosperity after the war were outlined at the end of Juno by a sub-com-mitteo of tho Reconstruction Oommitteo in a report to its parent body. The chairman of tho subcommittee is • Mr. J. H. Whitlkt. Deputy-Speaker of the House of Commons, and its membership includes a number of trusted leaders of Labour as well as representatives of tho Government and employing interests. The general aim of the proposals advanced _ by the subcommittee is to facilitate and encourago effective co-operation between" employers and employees in tho various industries by the creation of standing joint-councils on which both employers and workers will bo represented. The circumstances of the present time, the report states, are admitted on all sides, to offer a great opportunity for securing a permanent improvement in the relations employers and employed, while failure to utiliso tho opportunity may involve tho nation in grave industrial difficulties at the end of the war. One of the chief factors in tho problem of preparing for after-war conditions consists of the guarantees given by the Government, with Parliamentary sanction, and the various undertakings entered into by employers, to restore trade union rules and customs suspended during tho war. While this does not mean that all the lessons learnt during the war should bo ignored, it does meau that tho definite co-operation and acquiescence of both cmpbyers and employed must be a condition of any setting aside of these guarantees or undertakings, and that, if new arrangements arc to be reached, in themselves more satisfactory to all parties, but not in strict accordance with the guarantees, they must he the joint work of employers and employed. Tho sub-committee recommends n, triple organisation of the standing councils—workshop, district, and

national. Amongst the questions which it is suggested that the national council should deal with nr allocate to district councils or works committees, tho following are selected by the sub-conmuttcc for special mention:

(i.) The better utilisation of tho prac- ( tical knowledge and experience of tho .workpeople'.

(ii.) Aleans for securing to tho workpeople a greater share in and responsibility for the determination and observance of tho couditious under which their work is carried on.

(iii.) Tho settlement of tiio general principles governing the conditions of employment, including tho methods of fixing, paying, and readjusting wages, having regard, to tho need for securing to,, the workpCDplo a share in tho increased prosperity of tho industry. (iv.) '1 he establishment of Tegular methods of negotiation for issues arising between employers and workpeople, with a view both to £ho prevention of differences and to their better adjustment when they appear.

(v.) Means of ensuring to tho workpeople the greatest possible security of earniugs and employment without undue restriction upon change of occupation or employer.

(vi.) Methods of fixing and adjusting earnings, piecework prices, etc., and ot' dealing with tho many difficulties which arise with regard to tho method and amount of payment apart from the fixing of general standard rates which are already covered by paragraph (iii.). (vii.) Technical edncalnon and training, (viii.) Industrial research and the full utilisation of its-results.

(ix.) The provision of facilities for the full consideration and utilisation of inventions and improvements designed by workpeople, and for the adequate safeguarding of tho rights of tho designers of such improvements. (x.) Imprbvmonts of processes, machinery, and organisation, and appropriate questions relating to management and the of industrial experiments, with special reference to co-opera-tion in carrying new ideas into effect, and full consideration of _ the workpeople's point of view in relation to them. (xi.) Proposed legislation affcoting the industry. Theso proposals, the sub-cornmitteo concludcs, arc intended not merely for tho treatment of industrial problems when they becomo acute, but aro designed to prevent them from becoming acute. It will bo seen that the aim pursued is not merely to profit by the lessons which the war has taught— lessons which strikingly emphasise tho benefits resulting from intelligently directed collective effort —but to a-mend or eliminate conditions which before the war did much, by hampering _ production and the development of industry, to limit general prosperity and retard the amelioration of social conditions. It is quite plain, except, perhaps, to tho unbalanced fanatics and -mischievous agitators who babble about class war, that more is to bo hoped from tho intelligent cooperation of all engaged in industry than from conditions ranging from armed truco to actual conflict. Tho central idea in the report of the sub-committee on Reconstruction—that employers and employed in industry should harmoniously co-operate to advance their _ common interests instead of pulling in opposite directions to their mutual detriment —is not now, but there is now, as a result of the experience gained in tho war, a prospect of this common-sense idea being _ applied to tho organisation of British industry'on a national scalo and on a truly democratic basis. Joint committees of employers and trade unionists have existed for years in Great Britain m trades like engineering and shipbuilding, but they have been of somewhat bureaucratic character—a few men on either sido acting respectively for the workers and employers in tho industry concerned.. Such bodies have dono useful work, but their lack of representative character has beenshown at times by tho refusal of the mass of Labour to abide by tho agreements arrived at by their apparent representatives. Co-opera-tion on a democratic basis and on a comprehensi vo scale is much more likely to prove effective and to afford a sound foundation for industrial and social progress. The report of the sub-committee is a promising attempt to meet tho conditions reviewed by Mr. George Barnes, himself an old trade union secretary, and now a member of tho War Cabinet, when ho wrote recently in a Scottish newspaper: "There have been two conflicting tendencies in industrial life during the last thirty years. There bias been one in the direction of centralisation and another in the spread of education. The first has given power to the few and taken it out of the bands of tho many. Tho second has instilled in the minds of the many the feeling that their place in the schemc of things should not be less, but more, than it'has ; been in tho past." An interesting addition to the body of evidence available that tho mass of organised Labour in Great Britain is in full sympathy' with the movement _ towards industrial co-operation is a memorandum issued by tho National Associated Building Trades Council some time before the sub-commit-tee on Reconstruction reported. In its condemnation of futile industrial conflict, and in its declaration that the hope of the future undoubtedly lies in the intimate and continuous 'association of both management and Labour, _ not for the negativo purposo of adjusting differences-, but for tho positive purpose of promoting the progressive improvement of their industrial service, the memorandum is on all fours with tho report of tho sub-committee. The prospects opened, realising which Britain will give a lead to the whole world in industrial organisation, aro summed up in a concluding passage ot tho memorandum:

It is believed that the common interests of industry will bo found to be wider and. moro fundamental than those which are still, admittedly, opposod; and it is upon the brond basis of theso common interests that tho fabrio of the new industrial order may be confidently raised.