Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY APRIL 16, 1910. CO-PARTNERSHIP & TRADE UNIONISM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 16 April 1910, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY APRIL 16, 1910. CO-PARTNERSHIP & TRADE UNIONISM

COERCION AT HARTLEPOOL. RECENT cablegrams recorded the failure, or rather the abandonment, of the co-partnership experiment between Sir Christopher Furness in his Hartlepool enterprises and his work men. . The details furnished a remarkable illustration of the tyranny exercised by trades unionism over those whose interests it is supposed to conserve. Ihe workmen of Furness, Withy, and Company's Shipbuilding and Dry Docks Company at Hartlepool were made co-partners in the business about 12 months ago. Admittedly the men were gainers by the arrangement, for they receivecj good wages, had steady work, and shared in the 9 per cent dividend. But, by 593 votes to 492 they have declined to continue the co-partner-ship, simply because they have been persuaded by labour leaders that co-part-nership is "against the interests' ot unionism. »•**■* » *

Mr G. X. Barnes, M.P., the Leader 'of the Labour Party, has frankly explained that the Labour organisation has always been against co-partnership, because it would tend to break up the trade unions. Hence the pressure which organised labour brought to bear upon the workers in the Hartlepool shipyards was sufficient to induce them to reject an arrangement which gave them a proprietary interest in the business, and an assurance against less of wages through strikes. To the unbiassed mind it is made quite plain by such a development of coercion or persuasion that trade unionism, and especially those who live by it or use it for their own political advancement, are more concerned in maintaining their own power and prestige than in securing the highest remuneration and the most favourable working conditions for (he men whose interests they are suposed to conserve. The leaders of militant trades-unionism, the men who find a profession and a career in promoting and directing strikes and"labour troubles, have no desire to see a scheme established which would render workmen always contented and sinkes virtually impossible. The reason is that one of the first effects of a strike would be to deprive the workers themselves of their profits as co-partners, and thus they would be striking against themselves. Such a deterrent against strife does not suit the agitator, so such a menace to self-interest had to be overcome. ' * * # * #

A few particulars of the co-partnership scheme at Hartlepool which promised so well, and which has terminated so unexpectedly, may be of interest to the general reader. The workmen, by agreement, left a small percentage of their wages weekly at the office of the firm in payment of the shares allotted to them in the business, and they received interest and a bonus on the amounts so deposited. To that extent, therefore, they became part proprietors in the business.. But the labour-socialist of the agitator stamp professes to regard with horror a person who receives interest on shares, as he becomes, forsooth, a capitalist! The bare idea that a worker might become a capitalist by the simple process of investing a portion of his wages each week in shares in the business which employs him,' and might thereby become independent of trades-unionism, is too painful to be contemplated calmly. Hence, says a Sydney contemporary commenting on the abandonment of the Hartlepool scheme, the wore! has gone forth that this insidious scheme for making the worker genuinely prosperous, happy, and interested in his work must be nipped in the bud. It is worth noting at this point that tiie modern labour-socialist-agitator is cither far beyond or far behind the aspirations ol such old-fashioned friends of the workers as .Mr Holyoake, the father and originator of the co-partnership ideal in Great Britain. Mr Holyoake held views which the Socialist of to-day decries as heretical. Yet that individual,

who was a Radical of Eadicals in his day, suffered imprisonment more than once for his devotion to the cause of the wonting man. He advocated co-operation ancl co-partnership throughout the whole of his unusually long life, because he foresaw with !Sir Christopher Furness Mat io provide the worker with a fdicme i>y which he could become a siiarer in the profits arising from his woi'K was a better way to improve Ins position than by calling upon him to "down tools' 'whenever a difficulty arose.

* ' * * * !> It is to bo noted, too. that the scheme of Sir Christopher luirncss includes machinery for the sell lenient of disputes without the necessity of resorting to a strike. But the labour-socialistic view embodied in fin's rejection of the copartnership scheme, on the ground that it would undermine trades-unionism, sacrifice?, the worker in order that the machinery for conducting strikes may not rust in disuse. Calm reflection, says the "Sydney Daily Telegraph." in a recent election campaign article, may yet convince the workers that trades-unionism was made for man, not man for tradesunionism. But this view does not seem to commend itself to the masses, judged by recent development?, both in England and in Australia.