SAFETY IN INDUSTRY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 12 February 1929, Page 3

SAFETY IN INDUSTRY

NEW ZEALANDER’S WORK FOREMOST WORLD AUTHORITY MEMBER OF A STATE CABINET SAN FRANCISCO, 2Glh December. Frequent acknowledgment is being made in the American I’ress to the untold benefits conferred upon the industrial workers of the United States in particular and the world in general by Mr Will J. French, who, many years ago, arrived in San Francisco from his native New Zealand, and at once began interesting himself in the welfare of the working class. By dint of hard work and a genius for developing safety devices for the protection of life and limb in all phases of daily endeavour, Air French, who hailed from Auckland, rose to become the foremost authority on industrial problems in the world, according to general consent in the realms of safety education in America. One. significant acknowledgment of Commissioner French’s abilities of a most outstanding character lias just been made in a suceiuct article given widespread publicity from Sacramento, the capital city of California. This article had its genesis explaining the functions and activities of California State officials and departments, and dealt with the manifold duties of Commissioner French, who was recently elevated to the position of a member of the Cabinet of the Government of California. The article, from tlie pen of Vincent Mahoney, a staff writer of the Associated Press, under tlie caption: “Will J. French Aids State Workers,” said: “To see that the California labourer is given work to do,.is paid a living wage for doing it, and accorded tlie maximum of safety and comfort on the job, may summarise the activities of the State Department of Industrial Relations. Under tli£ almost uninterrupted guidance of Will J. French, the department lias existed in one form or another since 1011, when French was appointed by Governor Hiram W. Johnson to serve on California’s first Industrial Accident Commission.

AUTHOR OP COMPENSATION ACT

“During tlie fourteen years lie lias held tlie ollice, French has investigated more than 4,000,000 industrial accidents. A native of New Zealand, be lias devoted himself since his arrival in California alnlost entirely to a study of tlie labour problem. To-day lie is tlio only non-college graduate member of the University of California faculty, author of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, passed in 1923, and one of the foremost authorities on industrial problems in the world “Under tlie present yearly budget of 6G3,929 dollars, the department maintains the divisions of industrial accidents and safety, housing and sanitation, State employment agencies, industrial welfare and labour statistics and law enforcement. Main offices ■of all divisions are in San Francisco, with branches in Los Angeles and State employment branch offices in Oakland, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Fresno, Sail Jose, Stockton, San Diego, San Bernadino, and Bakersfield. Seasonal offices were opened this year at Hollister, Newcastle, Lodi, and Watsonville. “ ‘Because of its intimate relationship with the saving of human life,’ French said at a recent Governor’s Council, ‘the Industrial Accident Commission lays special emphasis on safeguards and safety education. To-day, employers and employees usually join hands in safety campaigns. There is, unfortunately, increasing need fbr alertness, as is shown by reports liaiided into the Commission' of nearly 1,000,000 industrial accidents in California within the last four years.’ “Positions of various duration to the number of 330,948 were found for tlio jobless by the State employment offices. Had they been compelled to pay the average fee of 3.98 dollars (about 10s) per job charged by private employment agencies in California tlie cost to them would have totalled 1,317,173 dollars for the biennium. “ ‘Tragic figures,’ to quote a recent report made by French to Governor Young, ‘which might be expected in a war zone, show that in peaceful California there wore 208,000 industrial accidents in 1027, of 714 caused death. It is gratifying to know that safety tuition is to he included in California school curricula, and to hope that every agency of State and city will unite with individuals to reduce the grim totals.’ ” Commissioner French was well known to the late Hon. Mark Cohen, of the New Zealand Legislative Council, and when Mr Cohen journeyed from Dunedin to San Francisco in 1915 to attend the world’s Press congress in connection with the Panama-Pacific International (Exposition, as a representative of the New Zealand Press, he personally visited Mr French in the Underwood Building in San Francisco, and made himself acquainted with sonic phases of the gigantic, work undertaken liy the oncelowly New Zealander who had started his career in America and has now reached the zenith of a specialised work as one of the chief exponents of safety appliances in all walks of industry.