INDUSTRY AND POLITICS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19218, 8 July 1924, Page 3

INDUSTRY AND POLITICS

A PLEA FOR GOODWILL AND CO-OPERATION. x. Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Professor R. A. Woodthorpe, M.A., F.S.S. INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY AND INEFFICIENT GOVERNMENT 1. In the last analysis there arc only two theories of the State: the despotic and tho democratic. The democratic State rests on a spiritual fact, and can only bo understood in the light of Greek philosophy and tho teaching of the Now Testament. Greek thought makes its appeal to the reason, end tho Christian teaching to the conscience or practical reason. The idea of democracy is (hat of a. society based not on force, but on will. Will is the expression of tho mind of the people. That mind is formed gradually by tho protss of public opinion. Wo have an instance of this at tho present time in Now Zealand. By a long process of discussion and experience we have secured a referendum on certain questions that for convenience are kept outside the pale cf politics. At the present time there is a difference of opinion between a number of persons with regard to tho control of liquor. The question is boling idle bn tod and petitions are being signed for presentation to Parliament,' and the outcome will bo that the wish of tha people nay find expression in so far a? can he expressed by means of a referendum. II after the question has been discussed, ilia will of the people has been made clear, (he decision may be finally expressed in law. That law will represent not necessarily tho highest wisdom in tho community, but the average opinion nr “ resultant ” reached by our Parliament. Whether that decision will really represent the mind and the will of the people depends on the fact, or otherwise, that the Parliament has the confidence of the majority of the people. Here it may not be amiss to point, out a striking fact : that, at (ho beginning of the twentieth century we see a strong reaction against representative Government. In many countries (ho men who represent tho people have become a body_ of exports who can ?o manipulate political forces as to secure place and power. In some countries, like Italy, Spain, and the South American republics, representative bodies have been very inefficient. and in Austria before the war the people looked forward with dread to the opening of their Parliament, and bad to look to their Emperor for protection against (heir owp representatives. the perils of an inefficient DEMOCRACY. 2. There can he no doubt that a democratic government may be a very wasteful and expensive government. You have only to consider the dilatory methods, the shortsighted business policies of many a eitv or county council, the inefficiency and foolish talk of some legislatures, to see that this is a real difficulty. Even tho people may be so short-sighted or unwise as to follow the demagogue rather than the statesman. This is only another way of saying that, the democracies wo know are imperfectly socialised and liavo net grasped the real idea of democracy. When once aroused the will of democracy may he as intolerant and absolute as that of a despot. “Its redeeming quality is that, though it acts intermittently and represents often a serious of mistakes, these are followed by corrections which point towards a steady, if slow, progress.” The real success of democracy depends on tho elevation of the mind ami will of tho people. 3. In the democratic State the laws are but the recognition of right rules of conduct by the members of the society. The laws are changed by persuasion, by argument, by appeals to tho public conscience. Ho who leads the way in the discovery of a bettor law is a benefactor of the State. In so far as tho law is for the well-being of tho community it will be obeyed; if otherwise, it will became a dead letter, A large amount of unpaid service is given to the State by its best members. That service is given freely, and for the best motives It is tho recognition of a duty. THREE AIMS. 4. Industrial democracy aims at three things: (1) Equality of opportunity. Each person should have an opportunity to make tho best use of his capacity and to lead a normal human existence us far as it is possible for him to do so (2) The recognition of a man’s liberty in following “tho common good”—i.c,. a man’s true liberty is realised not in following his own inclinations, regardless of his fellows, but in following what is “tho good of all.” (3) Tho development of personality. This can be best reached by equality of opportunity in a state of ordered freedom. The object of the Labour movement is n struggle for control' It desires personal freedom and a share of materia! goods. It therefore hopes for the success of some scheme that will make industry like politics, democratic. It dates practically from Lassalle’s “ Working Man’s Programme ” of 1862. This demanded (1) universal suffrage. (2) Tho reconciliation of class interests through the equal distribution of power, and the consequent moral regeneration of society. Power exercised apart from privilege must be for all humanity. (3) The extension of tho powers of the State, enabling the people to acquire an amount of education, power, and freedom that would have boon unattainable by them as individuals. A great deal of this programme has been realised in some countries, and some principles as to the future are quite clear. Progress, at the preent time, depends upon a rigorous limitation of intra-group competition in tho interests of the successful extra-group competition. Tho supremacy of Groat Britain, for example, does not now depend upon an increasing difference between the more highly developed and the less highly developed classes, but rather on its ability to hold its own with other great national Powers in the struggle for territory and markets. In this struggle, social cohesion rather than individual development is of'the greatest importance. A civil contest bo*w«en the cultured and the ignorant, ?* c rich and tho poor, might be the fatal weakness that would give success to her rival. It is essential for Groat Britain, at the present time, that cohesion should be developed among her people in order that she may be able to hold her own in tire international movements of tho future. THE COMBINATION MOVEMENT.

At tile beginning of (ho twentieth century we find three highly developed form? of the combination movement. There is (1) the wide field of Capitalist industry, in which the problems of competition and of aderjeato capital hnva been met first by io’-ut siock companies, and in most recent times by the trust. There is (2) a field of industry also under the control of private capital, hut the control of which is so widely spread among the people that it forms an industrial democracy rather than a capitalist undertaking. This is the field of co-opera-tive industry. (3) There is a growing amount of industrial government which is in the form of public control. This is scon in the development of schemes for municipal trading. All these are growing in strength and give us some insight into the trend of events.

Municipal trade indicates what means L-ioro are for keeping alive, under public government, the outside criticism of administration, The lesson of the trust is that rnanv of the advantages of competition can to got from within groat concerns, and under mo regulation of one management, but that a fuller degree of devolution of government is desirable. Co-operation shows that the people have the ability to organise and govern industry, to devolve responsibility, and to choose and trust lenders of their own. Thd problem is with regard to the extension of the powers of the State. The experience of all ages has verified tho maxim that self-help is the host help, and it holds true of the details of industrial organisation no less than of (hat general control which the working classes have been able to exercise over industry through their political activity. However much tho workers may accomplish through legislation and governmental agencies, they can never put themselves on a plane of perfect equality with the employers in any other way than by becoming themselves employers. This truth is clearly recognised by all intelligent students of the Labour movement, and the only difference between them is whether working man can more certainly obtain their object through tho organisation of voluntary co-opera-tion or through a socialistic organisation of industry, in which their elected Governments would act as industrial managers. Tho complete centralisation of Government management, even if the Socialism were the so-called municipal or decentralised type, would put the weaker and more Ignorant sections of the working population so completely at the mercy of tho politically skilful that any real increase of industrial liberty would ho at tho first extremely doubtful. This consideration is quite realised by the lenders of the co-operative movement, "who have generally preferred to develop voluntary co-operation stop by step with

the control of general conditions through democratic Governments and law. To give to the worker the desired share of control is the object of the true industrial partnership, in which the workers are no longer merely employees, but are also stockholders. Wages have been rising for half a century; but the natural connection between Labour and ownership, ns the means by which I<ftbour is made effective, has been severed in the larger manufacturing _ industries. This connection was a real one in the days when it'was possible for a skilled workman to become the owner of a shop. In the agricultural system of France and the United States, the interests of Capital and Lalx>ur arc to a certain extent idonfie.d in a man having possession of. and working his own farm. Hut under existing industrial conditions thorn is no i' a >' in which this identity can be re-established in the. manufacturing, mining, and transportation industries except bv sonic form of industrial partnership or by a detinue relation between the employing corporation and an incorporated labour organisation some arrangement, in fact, which transfers to the worker a measure of control, win a. definite prospect of nrofit.or loss to losult from wisdom or mistake. Any arrangement should he welcome which restores to the working men their due proportion of the responsibilities that should rest imon , members of organised society. -Tins has been verv strongly urged recently by Air Kidd in “Unity in Industry.” SOCIAL OR STATE CONTROL. 5. There is uoe point in labour organisation which requires to bo carefully considered. Working men have separated into organised and unorganised labour; and organised labour stands to-day in just I lie same attitude, towards unorganised labour that the mediaeval landlords maintained towards the traders, and the European capitalists of 60 years ago towards the working man. Organised labour insists that h alone shall dictate the conditions of employment. It levies a tax on the individual workman. and requires his allegiance, as the condition on which it permits him to earn a. living: ■ uncl it carries its irniiation of the conduct oi tno landlord and capitalist to the. last degree by leaping obloquy on the man who-refuses to to a. labour organisation, aim dubs him a ‘scab.’ ” (Professor Gidumgs.) There can be no doubt that the lion of power will go on. There will he an increasing' control by working . men, not only in government, but in (he industrial organisiilicn itself. But B .will be offset through a still further equahbration of social forces, by a great deference than exists at present to natural leadership- to the minority who have the capacity to direct and 'to organise,. That deference m the past was to some tlegice enforced. The leaders at times had absolute power and compelled obedience. It will exist in the future as a voluntary allegiance, and power and leadership will therefore he conditioned bv responsibility. Its r©-establishment on these terms will be a very gradual process, but a certain one; —slow, because it can only tro on as fast as Use captains of industry acknowledge, and act upon, their responsibility to the minority; certain, becr.usc (hey can retain their own due share of influence and power in no other way. The question has vet to be decided winch is hjjttei : Social or State control. Laws and officials are the most conspicuous nepnts of social control, hut not Le most efficient ones. Professor Powers has pointed out 'hat “we must not bo tyrannised over hv wealth, but in tfio giowth of’ industrial’tradition-! and the eventual discovery of self-interest we have far surer guarantees against this tyranny than in laws and officials whs eh, necessary as they are are among the most wasteful of ah (ho moans of Social control. Government is indispensable, and needs constant elaboration and reorganisation, but its fnncLoi is limited. The great functions of society rrnst nhvays he performed lny self-evolved rather than hv consciously chosen functionaries ” Professor Marshall _ pointed out long ago that the greatest discoveries and the most beneficierit, inventions have not peon made bv Government officials, but by private individuals

THE EFFICIENCY OF GOVEUKMENT. 6. (1) The groat problem in everv community is how to deni with the politician. The professional politician is not always the best or most efficient servant of the public will. The typo of man that. 13 re_ qnired is a man who has rood intellectual ability, accurate knowledge, and high character. It is his duty to be in touch with his constituents, and if possible ho should organise methods by which ho can be kept in touch with those ho represents. It is also his duty to educate gradually his constituents, and his future depends upon keeping in touch "with the electorate and educating it. (ft) On some questions advantage dum, but it, should never be used for questions that require (a) accurate knowledge, '(b) careful thinking, and involve (c) questions of policy, (s)".The politician must 'bo a trained man. (41_ And the knowledge of economic and political science must be diffused among' the citizens.