TEN-MINUTE TALKS WITH WORKERS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 59, 3 December 1919, Page 10

TEN-MINUTE TALKS WITH WORKERS

$ I.—THE PARTNERS. If you have read Robert Lonis Stevenson's stirring tale, "Kidnapped," yon will remember how David Balfour and Alan Breck, when they were hiding on the mountains and had nothing to eat but a little porridge, added to their food by groping for trout, in tho stream. Groping for trout is catching them with your naked hand, by feeling for them very gently under the banks and between 'tlio stones, and grabbing one, if you can, when you feel him. With much effort David and Alan managed to catch a few small fish.

The steam trawler goes out into the deeps where the fish shoal by tho million. It has every modern appliance—steam winches, miles of nets, storage for hundreds of tons of fish, a skilled master, and experienced hands. AIOII and David could only supply themselves with one or two small fish", A modern steam trawler can feed a siznblo town. The difference in results is enormous. In one case you have individual and primitive effort, in the other the union in modern industry of three partners, each contributing a share to the final result, but each dependent on the. other two.

The first of the?e partners is, of course, T/ibour. Tho trawler will lie in harbour till it rots if no men go on board to get up steam and head her to tho fishing grounds. Nowadays practical men of affairs, anxious only to obtain the best results, have learnt to regard Labour as what it is, namely, one of the partners in industry. It is neither moro nor less. But if Labour is to maintain its title to rank as a partner it must net as a partner. It must contribute its share to the joint concern gladly and fully. That dono, Labour is entitled to a full share of the results achieved.

The second partner is Capital. In the earliest days of human ex : steneo on the earth man must have caught his fish afl David and Alan caught their trout, but mingled with tho bones of later men are found the rough fishhooks which they had invented to aid them in their fishing. These fish-hooks then represented capital just as in our times the steam trawler does. So many people make the mistake of thinking that capital is another word for'money. Generally things are capital.

The man whose patient Inborn 1 made the fish-hooks was entitled to a share of tho catchy and to-day the claim of Capital to rank as one of tho partners in industry is just. If by some unfortunate iniraelo tho whole of tho capital of Great Britaid—its railroads, its mines, its buildings, its works, its plant, its tools, ita roadit—wero whirled skyward in tho night, wt> should once more be a mass of unaided men struggling grimly with tho ba v e gifts of nature for a miserable livelihood. Every man who saves instead of spending, who works to-day and postpones enjoyment till to-morrow, who sows in spring in hope of a harvest in autumn, adds to the available amount of capital, adds, that is, to the apparatus by whi-.ii Labour increases its own efficiency,

The third partner is Brain. If you watch a village smithy where the blacksmith, who is in part a capitalist, works alongside his man, you may think that so far as the smithy is concerned it would make little difference if master were man and man master. As the scale of industry grows, as works get larger and larger, buying raw materials and selling fhnsliid articles in every corner of the globe, the need for men of brains, ablo to direct; and organise all these lines of activity, becomes obvious.

We cannot go hack to tho methods of our forefathers; in attempting to do bo wo should, liko the Bolshevists in-Rus-sia, bring our own civilisation down about our cars, for there are a dozen mouths to feed where there was once but one. Tor the great operations of modern industry the\best brains of the country are required. \ Brain ranks with Capital and Labour as a partner in industry.

A study of tho condition of this country three or four hundred years ago shows that wonderful progress lias been mod". Progress is many-sided. It is mor/d, spiritual, political, civic. These are the finer aspects of progress; but behind them lies economic progress, tho whnihg of a life more full of the good things of .life; and this economic progress has been due to tho growth in numbers and capacity of the three partners of industry. _ Their future depends upon tho recognition by each of them of their mutual dependence and their*common interest.—From "The Times" Trade Supplement.