"GETTING TOGETHER"

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 123, 25 May 1920, Page 6

"GETTING TOGETHER"

WORKERS AND EMPLOYERS

SALARIED CLASS SUFFERS.

"I do not propose to make any comment whatever either upon the merits or the demerits of the railway strike." said Mt. M. Garr at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce to-day. "Even if I wished to do so," he c'ontinuea, "I am not in the position of having sufficient .knowledge of the working conditions to justify my expressing an opinion, but, speaking generally regarding this and other branches or the Public Service, I think it should be the aim to have efficient and contented staffs adequately paid. Both the conditions of service and the payment therefor should. be made such that the best class of 'labour should be attracted thereto. At .the same time I think that with such a staff much should be expected of it.

"In connection generally with the matter of payment for services I' beiieve that the class, in the, community which is suffering most at the present time is the salaried class. I think all municipalities, public bodies, and business houses, if they have not already done so, should take into serious consideration the conditions of employment and the remuneration of their salaried men. Most business houses have done so, buVit any,have not 1 commend this suggestion to their immediate consideration," Mr. Carr added.

He contented himself with hoping that a moans of bringing together employers and employed might he found, and a working scheme evolved. The folloivinoquotation was worthy of our consider^ tion, it was from a letter written by Mr. James P Holland, president of the New *ork State Federation of Labour, and appearing in the . Monthly Bulletin of the Chamber of Commerce. New York : "The federation is of the opinion that the spoken thoughts of Capital and Labour exhibit, such a momentous chance in the minds of each toward the other, t he time has come for /a common-sense getting_ together, not as a Capital-seeking to grind Labour down, nor .as Labour seeking to exploit . Capital, but m finding a way in which each nv>v be helpful to the other, of Labour's might and Capital's power being jointly used to make the world a better. 1 safer and happier place for both to live in " With regard to the recent railway trouble, Mr. Can- said he was very pleased to notice that the boards which are to consider- these disputes will- be constituted-partly-of business men. [t had been said that business men did not take enough interest in matters appertaining to the general welfare of the community, but he was sure he was right m saying that there were many experienced business men, who were quite disinterested and without political aspirations of any kind, who would willingly give their., services in matters of this kind m the general interest of the community.