HARMONY IN BRITISH WAR INDUSTRY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 59, 3 December 1941, Page 10

HARMONY IN BRITISH WAR INDUSTRY

Oxford Group Plays Part The work which the Oxford Group is doing in Great Britain to promote harmony in tlie war industries is the subject of comment in the British magazine, "News Review.” It says: “The Oxford Group is making an impression with its ambitious campaign for peace in war industry. The idea is to have groupers inside offices, factories and shops ironing out disputes.” According to the paper, several chairmen of the Trade Union Council, ineluding Ben Tillett, the grand old man of Britain's Labour movement, have outspokenly supported these efforts. “In a large northern arms factory this work has increased production in a vital department by 400 per cent. Mr. Farrar Vickers, Leeds, had been able to unify the lubricating oil industry, thus greatly increasing its efficiency and facilitating the work of Government departments regarding it. This had been possible because before the war he had abandoned his standoffish attitude to his competitors and invited them to visit bis office and works and inspect his laboratories, sales methods and costing system. He bad undertaken this unprecedented step on orders from God.” Major Stephen Foot, a former oil company manager and tank warfare expert, who is one of the originators of the Oxford Group’s industrial effort, said to “News Review, "Human nature is the bottleneck iii production. Incendiary tempers lose more productive hours than incendiary bombs. When God takes away selfishness and selfabsorption, He gives that sacrificial, patriotic devotion which puts the nation's interests always and voluntarily before one’s own inclination and fears for the future,”