SOCIAL RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 92, 12 January 1940, Page 11

SOCIAL RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY

;A Research Fellowship

VICTORIA COLLEGE ENDOWMENT

Munificent Gift Accepted

Mr. Henry Valder, Hamilton, has provided £l5OO per annum for five years to enable the Council of Victoria University College, Wellington, to appoint a research fellow in Social Relations in Industry. The college council has accepted the trust and thanked Mr; Valder for his munificent gift. The question came before the annual meeting of the Senate of the University of New Zealand yesterday when approval was granted a condition in the deed of trust that the Victoria College Council shall not appoint to the fellowship any person who has not first been approved by the Senate.

In his letter to the council of Victoria- College, Mr. Valder stated :— “It is my wish to endow the University of New Zealand with the means of special study and research concerning social relations in industry. I have had a draft trust deed prepared which sets out the general purposes ot the fellowship, and this is attached. I shall he glad if your council will consider the matter and inform me whether it is prepared to accept the trust. I am quite willing to consider any modifications of the terms your council may suggest in the direction ot making my plan more workable and complete. Side of Human Relations. “I have been associated for the greater part of my life With commerce and industry, and it has long been my opinion that the great assistance which industry receives from science and scientific method on the purely material side has no counterpart in the side of human relations. I became convinced, as the result of many years of observation and experience, that some agency was required to grapple with tlie subject of social relations in industry, and some machinery to make it effective. Every year makes me more convinced that the need is urgent. , “You will, of course, know that the Universities of London and of Leeds have chairs of industrial relations. Other evidence of the need for a closer relation between industry and science is to be found both in England and America. The British Association for the Advancement of Science has lately founded a division for the social and international relations of science to deal, inter alia, with the relations between science and industry. . “Some years ago a very influential organization was formed in England under the title of C.O.P.E.C. (The Christian Order of Politics, Economics and Citizenship), and its report was to the effect that there was some element missing in the organization of industry which was the cause of the unrest and conflict in the Industrial world. The same need is expressed in a statement presented to the Senate of the United States of America by the chairman of a committee of manufacturers in 1938. Non-Partisan Examination. “He says, inter alia, ‘The plain and simple fact is that we 'do not have at the present time any adequate machinery with which to make the nonpartisan, impartial, thorough examination and analysis of the very important and fundamental problems facing ins which needs to be made.’ In some fields of knowledge it may be contended that research may be as well or better done in England or elsewhere. In the sphere of social relations each country may be said to have its own contribution to make. “When I became possessed of the Idea of an endowment of this nature, I asked a committee to assist me in .working out the practical details. The committee consisted of Professors Sir Thomas Hunter and G. W. von Zedlitz, [Messrs. W. H. Cocker and F. A. de la Mare, all, as it happened, members of the Senate of the New Zealand University. This committee came to the conclusion that my objects could best be achieved by association with the University through one of the affiliated colleges. “It was thought that a fellowship would be better than a chair, because a chair is very closely associated in ■the public mind with and the fundamental idea in this foundation is research. It was recognized that the ultimate value of a fellowship would lie in the quality of the fellow and his freedom, status and emoluments are therefore safeguarded as securely as possible. Victoria College has been chosen because it is located at the seat of Government and consequently is more closely in contact with officials and official information an'd with the headquarters of industrial bodies. [Moreover, Victoria University College has a Department of Political Science and Public Administration from which Valuable co-operation may be expected.” MR. VALDER’S CAREER Mr. Henry Valder, managing director of Ellis and Burnand, Hamilton, was born in Southampton in 1862. He is a past president of the Hamilton Rotary Club. In 1914 he did recruiting service in the south-eastern military district, England. The author of “Labour and Capital: A Co-partnership Solution,” he was the promoter of the Companies Empowering Act, 1924, which provides for the extension of industrial partnership under the labour partnership scheme. Me is chairman of the Employee Partnership Institute (N.Z.), Ltd.