YOUR WAGES

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10206, 17 February 1919, Page 3

YOUR WAGES

t , AFTER PEACE COKES "IF CAPITAL FIGHTS LABOUR WE HAVE LOST THE WAR." (By Alexander 31. Thompson, in London "Weekly Dispatch.") A shrewd and eminently successful manufacturer with whom I lately discussed our chances of trade and work and wages after the war, expressed the view that our industrial prospects had never been more promising or moro threatening. When I asked him fcu oxDound his paradox, ho declared that the industrial revolution caused by the war had multiplied our possibilities of production and wealth. "But," ho said, "there is a very dangerous corner to negotiate before we can start, and the fools, alas I always ye have with you. There are madmen in the ranks of Labour. There are idiots in the tents of Capitalism. "There are fossilised Dodos masquerading as Captains of Industry who have learned nothing from tho lessons of tho war. They looked, on tho sublime spectacle of the nation's rise in arms against depredatory feudalism, and thought it betokened nothing niore than flunkey subservience to their soulless creed of profiteering. They read the record of the people's physical deficiencies which confounded the recruiting sergeants and filled Lord Kitchener with dismay, and only sighed over the expense of its implied call for a Minister for Health. ■ These afflicted petrifactions have not yet realised that something has happened. They are the obstacles to tho stupendous possibilities opened to the mass of the people. They still think in terms of Master and Man. They reiiist the lifting of the barrier which hag divided Captains and Privates of Industry into hostile camps and hindered production. * * # "If we let their threat master the promise, we have lost the war. But if we develop the improvements in organisation and methods of manufacture enforced by the war's insistent demands, in sane co-operation between all classes of producers, the era now beginning will mark a tremendous advance in the prosperity and the dignity of all who earn their living by useful industry." ■ The "dangerous corner" to which my friend referred is that dividing peace from war production. The most favourably circumstanced of manufacturers took three months to adapt themselves to munitions; somo took a year. It will take as long in many cases to change.over again. In the meantime, if war contracts are suddenly shut down, men and women will be thrown out of work wholesale. Mr Barnes tells us that the Government will provide unemployment allowances, but the munition workers will not be pleased to leave their rjiecerate Eldorado for a peace-rate subsistence dole. They will be idle and discontented. . And, to adapt the late Mr' Watts to modern conditions, "the- Bolshevik finds mischief still for •idle" hands to do." .'(

The transition is therefore going to cause trouble. The surge of anarenism fomented by the Kussian revolution will not attect these islands as it will affect the bankrupt, famine-stricken lands of Central Europe/ Our people have enjoyed more freedom than those of other lands. They have less to gain and more to lose uy revolution man any others. Moreover, they K'». recover from the wastage of wai more quickly than any others because they have the first call on raw materials from the outlying parts of the great Empire which the Germans meant to wrest from them. But even in Britain Bolshevism has gained a foothold. The short-sighted misgovernment of the past has lett its legacies in diseased souls as well as stunted bodies, and these will create the danger of the transition period. It is suggested that in> order to maintain employment,' the Government should continue its war contracts through the "change over," but at prices barely covering wages, cost of material, and ftjerhead charges. It is urged that if there were no profit to manufacturers they would naturally make tho greatest possible haste to get back to pre-war production. This solution of the problem, thougn I can suggest no better, does not enthuse me. It means, in effect, that tho skilled craftsmanship of the country should be employed for an indefinite term of weeks or months in digging holes for tho purpose of filling them up again—which seems an excellent way, not of killing Bolshevism, but of propagating it The effect would be to rouse the noble army of Labour cranks—all three of them—to denounce the continued output of war material as a proof that ''the capitalist classes" wero making ready for another war. „„*«*- Army dbmobilisa%n may aggravate the trouble. Men returning from the front will expect, after their long trial, to bo restored at once to their homes and businesses. But to release them quickly would add to tho transition period's unemployment. 10 demobilise slowly, as we evidently must, will add to the sum of misunderstanding and discontent. Profuse explanations will ho needed. ; These nuzzles should be mado clear to the i people at homo. When these change-over difficulties are passed, British industry and British Labour ought to come to good times. As an examplo of the improvements effected by better organisation and increased specialisation, a manufacturer told mo yesterday that ho was now able.to produce an article for 5s 7id -which he could not produce before the war for less than 7s 6d. "I couldn't come anywhere near the price for which my foreign competitors sold it at that time," ho said; "now, though the prico of tho raw material and the cost of labour aro actually doubled, the cost of production is about 28 per cent, less." On the momentous question of wages after the \yaf,'tho manufacturers with whom I nave discussed tho matter aro very sanguine. When once tho transition is passed, they say, thero will be no difficulty in keeping wages up to tho war level, including bonuses—if tho old ca' canny methods are dropped. Everything depends on that, and that depends on the sympathetic co-operation • which is the essential binding force of industrial organisation. "Ca' canny" was tho method of men without interest in thei rwork. It was tho expression of essential antagonism between captain and private. The former ptiid tho lowest wages for which men could be got to work, and tho I lattcv did tho smallest amount of

work for which pay could be obtained. The remedy for this disastrous prowar condition of things is the establishment of a new sense of partnership and mutual interest between captains and privates. A soldier in the Army is quite ready and willing to obey his officer because he knows that their risks and chances are common, that tho former does not seek to profit by the soldier's disadvantage or exploitation, and that discipline is essential to tho common security. The dignity and pride of the achievement in which they participate are the equal share of officers and men. These are distinctions between industry and militarism, in which the former may profitably take lessons from the latter. A man works best when his work wins him personal recognition, respect, and honour. Good wages are useful, but they are,not everything. Interest and pride in tho work are the stimulus which makes a man or a wonrau put heart and soul into it. Thar. is the great fact which the political economists and the Gradgrinds and Bounderbvs have somewhat v overlooked. i Labour in industry tends to become more and more mechanical. It is, in a constantly increasing number of cases, a monotonous repetition of precisely the same movements of the same muscles and sinews. There is little or no chance for individuality or initiative. But even in those cases it is possible to humanise conditions by making the period of the drudgery as short as possible, and by dignifying tho drudges by admitting them to some share of control. That is what the Whitley Committee have tried to start by the system of Workshop, District, and National Committees proposed under their scheme. It will not bring Utopia at a bound, but it will make a beginning ?in introducing democracy to industry. Another factor which is going to make a difference is the entrance of tho women. In the past they have done tlie cheap work and occupied a low degree. The war has lifted them to a level in skill and wages with the best. I have seen women on Cleveland automatic machines working to limits of two one-thousandths of an inch and taking' entire charge of the job after the first setting of the machine by a skilled man. On narrow gauges women work to limits as close as half a ten-thousandth of an inch. They bend sheets of J-in. metal, weighing about 2cwt. At Vauzhall; Sheffield, and Birmingham they have taken the place of msn in the arduous work of the gas-retort houses. From some or these trades I trust the outbreak of peace will immediately release tbem. But the proofs of adaptability which they have given in entering them will lead to permanent and far-reaching effects. In the lighter branches ot industry, in all trades demanding dexterity, fineness of touch, precision, women will henceforth play a much larger part than in the past. The change implies an enormous addition to our industrial reserves, which, if rightly and wisely used, will vastly facilitate the shortening of Working hours. The physical well-being ot girls and women will demand the curtailment in- their case, and whatever concessions they gain will automatically pass on to the men. In other w;ays, too, their presence in the workshops will tend to better hygiene and sanitary conditions. It will lead ultimately to the beautifying of the surroundings and the toil. It will exercise gieat influence in humanising industry. In short, I think the promise foreshadowed by my manufacturing friend in industrial prospects will easily overmaster the threat, unless stupidity and greed obstruct the way. The clean slate left by tho war presents a much better chance than the restoration of trade union pre-war conditions for the improvement of tho people's lives.