LABOR AND INDUSTRIES

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXVIII, Issue LXXVIII, 17 June 1919, Page 5

LABOR AND INDUSTRIES

ACTING-PREMIER'S VIEWS

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, June 18.

Some time agq the New Zealand Federation of Labor issued a programme of iroposals for industrial reform on the lines of granting labor a share in the management of industries. Sir James Allen, when questioned to-day, 6aid he had been watching the matter very closely since he made his recent speech in Dunedin, and he had observed references by some of the bodies of employers to the conference's proposal. The Government would do all it could to assist in bringing about an understanding between the two parties, hut the question for consideration was whether any good would come of a conference at the present time. Though the signs were hopeful, the parties were still at arm's length and were mutually suspicions. That suspicion must be removed and a better atmosphere created before they could hope to do any good at a conference. The slow process of education must be allowed to work. He believed it desirable that employees should be given some part in the management of industry, so that they might appreciate the problems and the difficulties of the employers, but that could not he brought about hastily. Any attempt to hasten the process by a conference before the parties were ready to come naturally together would lessen the possibilities of good results, and might undo the good that already had been done.