LABOUR AND ITS FUNDS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 19 January 1927, Page 10

LABOUR AND ITS FUNDS.

A PRACTICAL SCHEME. MORE EFFECTIVE THAN STRIKES. 'The Right Hon. William Graham, LL. 13., ALP., the weU-known Labour M.P., who held the post of Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the Labour Government, writing in Foreign l Affairs, calls special attention to the investments in business enterprises of the American trades unions, who have utilised their funds in this way, and Have abandoned a strike policy. Mr Graham says: — ‘■Some >ears ago the leaders of the American Federation of Labour called attention to the enormous waste of rose rvo funds and energy in strikes designed to .secure higher wages, and in fresii stoppages to resist reduction in wages; this policy, said one of them, lias run its course. They concluded that, much better results could be obtained by a policy which they regarded as more in keeping with changes which had taken place in the structure of Amerioan industry.

INDUSTRIAL ARMISTICE BROUGHT INDUSTRIAL OWNERSHIP. ■‘The rive years’ industrial armistice whien was then suggested did not mean no strike. It sought rather to restrict unavoidable conflict to larger issues. Meamvhie funds were to be conserved: attention directed to increased purchasing power, decent working conditions, more leisure and security of employment. But the programme embodied a new demand which oversnadovved all the others —a definite place in industrial ownership and control.” After detailing this development Mr Graham, referring to British trade unionism, adds: — “In normal times, with a membership of between five and six millions, funds accumulate rapidly; were the membership restored to the 1920 peak of eight and a half millions (which, after all, would leave seven or eight million people m normal daily employment still outside.,of the ranks of trade unionism;, very large resources would be available at the end of even five years, assuming substantia 1 industrial pence during that time. “But that is not quite the experience. The unions accumulate; stoppage exhausts. the accumulation. It is often a perfectly legitimate effort to improve conditions or to defend existing standards. For the purposes of this argument the essential point is that, in any event, the funds disappear. “Fresh accumulation i«s again lost-, and finally the genera!, strike of 1926 costs the unions between £5.000,000 and £6.000.000: subsequent conditions aggravate their problems, and one of the largest is practically £1,000,000 overdrawn collective bargaining power for a considerable period ahead is greatly reduced, and at the end of the day, in spite of all their sacrifice and their expenditure the railway men have probably onlv .so much stock as is represented by their share of superannuation funds; the miners do not own even a part of one of the 1300 colliery undertakings, and the transport workers have nothing in capital ownership apart from such investments as have survived or exist, in general _ public form in the docks and harbours,’ which belong either to the locality or to the people as a whole. “Taking the period from the beginning of this century until the conclusion of the European war, that was very much the experience of American trade unionists; progress and improvement in industrial conditions were certainly visible both in Britain and in the United States; but British industrial organisation may wcM ask with its American counterpart whether the. time' is not ripe for reconsideration of union policy in the use of their resources. “In other has individualist Am-rioa (we must not forget that much of the trust operation, is not strictly individualist at all) anything to teach Great Britain in its undeniable emphasis of the importance of control? Few would dare to answer that question in the negative “To matnv the chief tragedy of the summer and autumn of 1926 has been the economic helplessness of the Miners’ Federation. A million men and their dependents whose courage and sacrifice no iust mind disputes; years and years of coal production enriching private capital and building up the industrial progress of the State; and at the end virtual bankruptcy, and an appeal to the wide world for charity. The facts are erne 1 ; but ]et us 'ace them. MIGHT HAVE BOUGHT THE. COAL MINES. “No place in control; not the ownership of one colliery. Yet at the mere cost, of the general strike to the unions they could have had at all events £6.000,000- worth of industrial stock, with the corresponding part in control; and it i sworth recalling that, if the coal stoppage has cost the country in loss about .£300,000,000, the mines could have been purchased for approximately that sum. “Conservative members of the House of Commons, in urging us to look to American practice, say they would encourage in" Britain a ‘property-owning democracy.’ By that they mean apparently great masses of small proprietor® of capital. Vigorous thrift would give us that under any .system, and not least under Socialist public ownership: but- the. world tendency to combination makes the larger holding inevitable. Individual trade unionists cannot appropriately face it. The trade unions with accumuated recan. “Nor is thi® policy inconsistent- with the underlying public ownership of British labour. Increasingly the faith is in nuhlic corporation, which Air Keynes would nrnhnb’jv cal] something between tb; individual and the State. If a consolidated trade unionism were also the holder of industrial stock it would be. ready for its place* in control, in the nub lie interest: and no appreciable difficulty. would- arise in adjusting the annual return on its aggregate investment.