EMPLOYERS’ WEALTH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 November 1928, Page 9

EMPLOYERS’ WEALTH.

IDEAS OF THE WORKERS. SYDNEY, Oct. 18. A philosophic disquisition upon the psychology of the worker, delivered; by Chief Judge Detheridge, was an unusual feature of the proceedings of the Full Court of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court at Melbourne the other day. He saidi that if the employers would throw more light on their affairs it would tend to industrial peace. Although the people might become rather tired of these appeals to Labour and Capital to get “closer together,” there was a certain novelty about the remarks of Judge Detheridge which gave them' general and added interest.

The court should get from the witnesses in the .box, he said, what was fashionably, called their “psychology.” Employees were often influenced into the belief that the employers were making extravagant profits from industry. That psychology of the worker was not altogether an admirable thing. He would not call it a despicable spirit, but it was there. It was being fostered to a large extent by the fact that so little light was being thrown on the amount the employers were making out of industry. In their own interest the employers would be. well advised if they disclosed! to the public what they were making out of industry, whether it was good or bad. As an instance of what he meant he recalled that one of the witnesses in the case then before the court had directed attention to the fact that his employer, while pleading that the industry could not afford to pay higher wages, had been able to make three work! tours and to purchase new motor cars.

The watering up of stocks of some industries' was a ~g.reat_ cause of discontent, continued the judge. It was one of the underlying • causes of the present industrial agitation, if the employers could only recognise the fact. “All sorts of wild stories are going about regarding the immense profits employers are making out of industry,” said Judge Detheridge. “I think that employers should get together and have heart- to heart talks. I do not mean; the sort of talks we have in this court, which is talk for the sake of getting decisions, hut one of those heart to heart talks that ai v e not for publication, but which are arranged so that the parties can inform themselves If the employers and the employees could get together at a, round-table conference it might he that the court would he relieved of some of its difficulties.” *