LABOUR CO-PARTNERSHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14336, 5 April 1910, Page 4

LABOUR CO-PARTNERSHIP.

The movement towards Labour Copartnership has ' received a temporary set-back in the United Kingdom by the decision of the employees of the great Furness Company to withdraw from the arrangement tentatively entered upon some time ago. At the initiation of the experiment it was agreed that recognised trades union conditions should be adopted, that all differences should be submitted to arbitration, and that no general strike should be participated in. The ballot of workmen, which khas decided against continuance, was taken because the company desired to know whether it could accept great shipbuilding orders without risk of work upon them being interrupted. That the men are making a grave mistake goes without saying. Under, the co-partner-

ship arrangement they not only had the best obtainable conditions t but a share in profits and an accumulating interest in the business. The only objection to the arrangement, as Sir Christopher .Furness points out, and as Mr. Barnes tacitly admits, comes from dogmatic trades unionism, which insists that Capital and Labour must be organised for hostilities, and must under no circumstances make a permanent treaty of peace with one another. In the future this antiquated and antisocial dogma will be referred to by historians with wonder; for the present some comfort may be found in the fact that after a very short experience, and in the teeth of the great influence of their,union organisation the Furness workmen cast 500 votes for co-partnership, and only 600 against : it.,