OUR CANADIAN COUSINS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1921, Page 10

OUR CANADIAN COUSINS.

COMMON-SENSE INDUSTRIALISM. “FOREWORD.” (Contributed by the N.Z. Welfare League.) Last year the N.Z. Welfare League spent much time and efforts towards securing a joint national industrial conference of employers and employees. The following letter from Mr. L. O. H. Tripp, solicitor, of Wellington, is of interest in showing how the Canadian industrialists have grappled with the same question. REPORT OF DR. J. 0. MILLER. Mr. Tripp was a passenger by the s.s. Niagara on her last trip to Vancouver. Writing from Vancouver, he states that a fellow passenger was Dr. J. O. Miller, Principal of the Ridley College, Canada, a well-known traveller and authority on social and economic movements. Dr. Miller was selected by the Canadian Government in 1919 to participate, as an educationist, in an important conference which was held in the Dominion to consider, various phases of the relationship between employers and labor. The conference appears to have been extraordinarily successful, and, as a similar meeting was proposed in New Zealand by the Welfare League, and refused by the employers, Dr. Miller’s observations, which have been forwarded by Mr. Tripp, are of unquestionable interest. Canada, said Dr. Miller, had come to the conclusion that the Arbitration Court system had proved useless in the settlement of disputes—that it kept the two sides apart instead of bringing them together. The Canadian Government, therefore, set up a commission which travelled over Canada and took evidence as to working conditions, the cost of living, hours of labor, etc. Anyone who was sufficiently interested could give evidence. After the report of the commission was published the Government (in September, 1919) set up a conference at Ottawa to consider it. The conference comprised 100 Labor representatives, and about the same number of* employers and capitalists. A small third party was added, comprising educationists and representatives of the citizens generally. The conference lasted a week. The Minister for Labor presided, and provided the agenda for discussion. The method adopted was that each topic was debated by two named speakers from each side, after wh.ioh there was a general discussion without any limits whatever being imposed; each subject was kept going until all phases of it were exhausted. Then the chairman appointed six members from each side to hold meetings and prepare resolutions which could come before the conference before its conclusion..

During the first two or three days, said Dr. Miller, acrimony and bitterneee were displayed, but the display was by no means confined to one side. But as the sitting went on a marked change came over the "conference. During the last three days there was the utmost forbearance and evidence of mutual goodwill. This was a fact remarked upon more than once by the members of the conference during the sittings. The resolutions came up for consideration on the Saturday morning, and the first three were passed unanimously. The proposals regarding the basic wage for women were adopted without difficulty. The only two subjects on which there was any great divergence of opinion were: Labor’s desire for an eighthours’ day, and the basic wage for men. The main reason for the divergence of opinion on the eight-hours’ day was that there were so many kinds of labor in Canada that it would be impossible to come to any fixed general agreement in the matter.

The remarkable thing about the holding of the conference was that since its date there had not been a single strike in Canada. The actual output of labor there was also much greater than for-inerlyr-mueh greater, also, than in New Zealand and Australia. The relations between employers and employees had been wonderfully improved. In support of the statement that the output of Canadian labor was greater than in New Zealand, a fellow passenger who had come out to New Zealand bv the Niagara informed Mr. Tripp that a certain quantity of paper in rolls, had been loaded at Victoria in three and a half hours by means of slings, took forty-eight hours to unload at Auckland. This passenger stated he had himself heard the men instructed at Auckland that they must not unload more than one bale at a time.