"GOING AHEAD"

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 123, 20 November 1935, Page 13

"GOING AHEAD"

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

"MORE THAN BRUTE FORCE"

SYDNEY MAN'S VIEWS

Six years ago when Mr. Harold Meggitt, a prominent business man of Sydney, arrived at Auckland on holiday he expressed opinions that caused one newspaper to label him "Australia's greatest optimist." Today he arrived at Wellington on the Wanganella from Sydney, satisfied that his 1929 opinion has been vindicated. "I said then," he told a "Post" reporter, "that Australia would stand up in spite of drought and peliticians. I say now that it will stand up in spite of drought, politicians, and the depression. We are going ahead. I think your country is. The whole British Empire is. I think it is going ahead because it realises that there is something more in this world than brute force."

Developing his theme, Mr. Meggitt told how Ivan Menzies, the well-known English actor, about a month ago, broke two of the strictest rules of the Sydney Rotary Club. He talked religion and he exceeded the time limit set for every speaker. He had been invited to address them upon the Oxford movement, but told them that it was too vast a subject for him to deal with then. Instead he spoke upon the need for Divine aid in our modern times, quoting among other things, a statement made by Stanley Baldwin and recorded in Hansard that no human agency could possibly lift the world from its chaotic conditions. They had to realise that that could be done only by the help of God. So absorbed was Mr. Menzies's audience that he spoke beyond the time limit, without anyone being aware of it. "Every Rotarian went away thinking dashed hard," said Mr. Meggitt. "I happen to believe exactly what he said." In Sydney the Scotch Church held a midday service every Wednesday, attracting 1200 to 1500 business men and women. "That is v.hat is telling all over the Empire. There is an intense religious revival in England." PROFITS IN INDUSTRY. Mr. Meggitt holds very definite ideas on the relationships between capital and labour, and as governing director of his concern he has been able to practice what he preaches. "We are slowly finding out," he said, "that the old habit of giving capital practically all the profits of industry is wrong. In the past brains, labour, and capital have been needed to run industry, and up till now capital has always been considered the more important. America now realises that all her millions of pounds of gold are completely useless, unless labour is entitled to its fair share. I have done that with my men. They don't want foremen They are just as interested and keen in their work as I am. At one time during the depression we were practically down and out, losing money. I decided to try a theory of mine, and I advanced wages by 20 per cent. I told the men that we were losing money, and that if we could not make the business pay they would lose their 20 per cent, and their wages. The result was a reduction in edsts of 10 per cent., despite the higher wages, and since then we have never looked back.

"There is talk about reducing the weekly hours to 40," continued Mr. Meggitt. "That must increase costs or decrease wages. If there was a return to a 48-hour week I personally would promptly increase wages. If hours were decreased I would have to increase prices or decrease wages. And if you reduce hours to 40, why not to 30, or less? It's only the politicians who talk about it. The average man does not want to go loafing." Accompanied by his wife and daughter, Miss F. P. Meggitt, Mr. Meggitt will spend a holiday in New Zealand. He has been here five times before, and never spends his holidays anywhere else.