LABOR AND CAPITAL

Evening Star, Issue 17085, 2 July 1919, Page 6

LABOR AND CAPITAL

A CONVIVIAL EVENING. Directors of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey and the elected representatives of its employees under the company’s industrial relationship plan met recently for tho second annual dinner and conference. A. C. Bedford, chairman of the Board of Director's, presided ; and Walter C. Teagle, president of the company, talked on the ’outlook for tho system, started a year ago, bv which the employees havo a voice in fixing hours, wages, and matters of general welfare. Mr Bedford spoke of tho hearty acceptance of the plan by the employees, and said it gave workers a real voice in tho settlement of questions affecting their welfare. It was pointed out by Mr Teaglo that whore a rear ago elected 'representatives of 7.866 employees met at a conference, representatives of 10,246 employees were px'esont that night. Ho thought it was a record in industrial history that the wage adjustments made during the year had all been sottlod in joint conferences. The importance of tho decisions reached, he said, was indicated by the fact that within tho Tear approximately 5,000,000 dollars had been added to tho annual pay roll. “ Then we coma to tho partnership of the community as an owner of resources, which is » phase of the situation which until recently has received little attention,” said Mr Tpagle. “ Tho (community possesses jointly immense natural wealth-—-it may bo minus, forests, fisheries, or other natural resources—which, through a combination of Labor and Capital, results in tho wealth of the community. The right of the community to service out of this utilisation of natimiul resources must j>o recognised. This right of tiro community as a whole had been entirely lost sight of by - ills Bolsheviks, who refuse to regard as essential any organisation, brains, management, or skill, and have thereby produced tho conditions of famine which exist in 'Russia to-day. They have forgotten that tho production of wealth does not depend on labor alone, however skilled, but to a great extent on specially-trained brains rand management. We -hare one concrete example of this in our own research laboratory at Bayway*, where all the achievements of science are utilised—not for direct profit, but to make more productive the labor of the rest of us in this industry, and. to make that production of the most service to tho community. In the experience of the past year tire industrial worker in this company has shown himself to (be ns sane and reasonable as the management has tried to be provident and considerate. Out of sttdi co-operation, and with a proper understanding ox tin? relation of tho community and of capital xo the Labor of hand and train, there is no problem of industry which may not he successfully solved.”