THE BELGIAN CHARACTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18018, 17 February 1922, Page 4

THE BELGIAN CHARACTER.

In the course of a speech at the opening of the Anglo-Belgian Club in Brussels, Sir George Grahame, the British Ambassador to Belgium, said:—"Some nations are perhaps too different, too far away for Englishmen to understand them. But this is not the caso with the Belgians. There are certain things in your character which we understand very well and admire exceedingly. I do not say that these qualities are the only ones that you have, but the ones I mean are of tho kind which Englishmen comprehend with respect. In the first place we like the common sense which tho Belgian people show on all occasions. We admiro your sturdy independence and that reasonableness which makes for compromise and settlement, not only in foreign relations but in internal affairs. We notice that Belgians, when they are in difficult circumstances, do not spend their time in lamenting their condition nor in accusing everybody else of responsibility for the evils to which they are subject, but they set to work themselves to remedy them. This is what we aro trying to do ourselves in Englana, and I think that, if our Belgian friends will reflect for one moment on tho tremendous difficulties which Great Britain has had to meet in her own internal affairs—since the signing of the Peace Treaty—they will realise that we know what post-war problems arc. Having that knowledge, wo can the better admire those who set themselves to conquer their own difficulties as you have done.".

PROFIT-SHARING. About two years have passed since tho Higher Production Council was formed in England with a view to discovering some method of satisfying tfie wish of those who felt that induntries should be so con-, ducted as to give tho workmen employed in them a share in the profits, in addition to their wages, and some voice in the control of the conditions under which they worked. The report presented to the second annual meeting of the council stated that 24 firms had adopted the Priestman scheme—which the council unanimously decidod to recommend as likely to conduce to satisfactory 00-opera-tion—l7 other firms had adopted modifications of that scheme, and, in addition, 40 other schemes were being worked on somewhat different lines. No destructive criticism had been directed against the, Priestman scheme, and its capacity to create and foster goodwill between employers and employed was everywhere recognised and admitted. Sir S. Waring, the president of the council, said the Priestman scheme had been tried by its originators in their own works, and had been found very successful during the war period, and excellent results had been obtained by those firms which had adopted it on the instigation of the council. A noteworthy feature of the scheme was its adaptability to almost every business, and although it mieht be difficult to obtain converts to the system during the continuance of the depression in trade ho was convinced the Priestman scheme would play a great part in enabling the country to keep its position as one of the first, if not the leader, of the industrial nations in tho coming struggle for industrial supremacy,