ENGLISH INDUSTRY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19688, 15 January 1926, Page 5

ENGLISH INDUSTRY.

CONTRASTED WITH AMERICAN. RESULTS OP CA’ CANNY METHODS. AN INTERESTING REPORT. The National Association of Manufacturers of the United States of America recently Issued a very Interesting report on “ Labour Conditions In England.” The report Is the outcome of a personal study made at the request of the association by Mr Noel Sargent in July and August of last year. It is a document well deserving of study by both employers and wageearners in this country. The two points on which the author lays most stress in contrasting English and American industrial conditions, writes Harold Cox la tho Dally Mail, are, first, the lack of high-grade machinery in English manufacturing industry as compared with the United States; and, secondly, trade union practices. He says that, if these two factors could be dealt with, the other difficulties enumerated, such as depreciation of foreign exchanges and tho development of factories in foreign countries, could be surmounted. It is on the trade union issue that he lays most stress, for the relative deficiency of high-grade machinery in England is itself partly due to trade union opposition. He estimates that England has at least double as great a proportion of union labour as the United States. In addition, tho English unions are much better organised for collective strikes. This la partly duo to the “ greater homogeneity of tho English population,” partly to the fact that in British industries so many of tho employers are federated that the union has to declare war on the whole industry at once. To emphasise his general argument the author of the report gives particulars of the results of the ca’ canny policy on which English and Scottish trade unions insist. For example: ” Bricklayers to-day lay an average of 500 bricks per day in England ; even in New York City, with its tightly closed shopbuilding conditions, union bricklayers put down over j. 250 bricks per day.” Even more significant than this illustration is the statement that where English trade unions permit piecework the Wages “ of all the workers will run to about 135 per cent, or 140 per cent, of day rates,” thus showing that the men are still working on a cacanny plan. In dealing with the question of machinery the report states that: “ When new machines or methods are installed the unions generally Insist that no workers shall be thereby displaced.” They also insist that skilled men must be employed at skilled rates to operate machines that could quite well be worked by unskilled labour, and they limit the number of machines eaoh workman may operate. , . . . , As regard the causes of these industrial difficulties, Mr Noel Sargent gives the first place to " the politicians.” He says that an important strike without meddlesome ” employers are seldom allowed to ®ettle and usually unwise interference by polltlCi The past action of tho politicians has had an equally serious influence on present problems; “Many of the moat important evils in British trade unionism to-day exist because ’ the politcians of two decades ago listened to the siren’s call and placed in British law, as vote-catchers, class miniumties which have given the union economic and political power far out of proportion to their actual numerical strength, and have given them the power to coerce and extort from the public on a gigantic scale. It is not, however, only the unions and the politicians that this American observer condemns. Referring to America, he says. “We have here no social caste system such as exists in England.” As a result it is easier for employer and employed in the States to appreciate one another s point ot view and it is easier for the subordinate wage-earner to look forward to a position of authority. ~ It is also far more common in the United States for wage-earners to become shareholders in the concerns in which they are working. Tho result is greater community of interest between employer and employed Mr Sargeant says explicitly that English 'employers did not sufficiently recognise that with rights ot industrial management there are corresponding duties, and by way of contrast he quotes the report of the Amen- ““ Oixn Shop Committee for 1931, which said - “To maintain relations with employees upon a basis of that confidence and understanding which grows out of a recognition of mutual interest has functions and tests of good management, ihere are happily signs that many English cmclovers are now fully recognising the importance of this test of good management.