WINNING THEIR CONFIDENCES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11892, 29 December 1916, Page 7

WINNING THEIR CONFIDENCES.

HUMANISING FACTORY CONDITIONS. (By WILL CROOKS, M-P-) The hardest task you've got to face in aov effort to humanise factory conditions is the breaking down of suspicion. Providing rest-rooms and can- ; teens, seeing to the comfort of the workers in a hundred minute way&—it i deserves every man's praise, provid it is sincere zeal and not a subtle way of keeping wages at a lower level. But tho real job is to got the workers confidence. You've got to cut a way through a thick barrier of suspicion, a suspicion built up by many misdeeds on the part of Capital and misunderstandings on the side of Labour, built up by "men on tho make," to whom human beings were so many dicecounters, tossed about to spell an employer's fortune. I believe the sincere and tactful Welfare Superintendent, if that's the name, can help to bridge the gulf of estrangement. That s a story I like well about a celebration in Newcastle-on-Tyne in honour ot George Stevensonlt was an impressive procession, with plenty of banners flying. At the the end of the pageant walked a group of miners bearing aloft a little scroll on which these words were written: "He was one of us." It thrilled the crowds. That's the spirit according to which the Welfare Organiser will work. Some yoars ago I was a member of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Meeting after meeting went by without my saying a word. (I can tell you it was a hard business keeping silent when there was so much 1 wanted to talk about. " Whatever's the matter with Will Crooks'b tongue?" the members of the board were wnispering among themselves.) I wanted the board to believe in me before ever I said anything. So I put myself under discipline of silence. I held my tongue until I had their trust. The time came when my work won the confidence of the board, and that -was the time for me to appeal for other things I had had at heart _to be done. This isn't egotism: it's simply an illustration of my point that you must first be believed in before you can put your plans into operation. My own feeling is thati welfare work, the humanising of factory conditions, is a bit of practical Christianity. Take the question of factory fatigue. Heaps of people work overtime for the sake of the extra shilling or two. They let their health be sapped away. Now, it's my opinion that the proverb wants changing. It should read: " Satan finds some mischief for tired hands to do." The tired-out man or woman falls soonest to temptation. Here's a little incident from my own homely experience to illustrate what I mean. I was working long hours, from six in tho morning till ten at night, but as I had a long jefurney it really was from 5 a.m.till 11 p.m. I had a big week's money—for me. I took the wife out for a walk Saturday night, and. looking into a shop, we saw an elaborate bedstead. My wife said she liked it. So I went in and bought it. A foolish thing to do, because the bedstead was far too large, and we couldn't get it into the house. Th*e' tired brain, you see, look no forethought. It fell to the first temptation. The extravagance was born of fatigue. Factory fatigua explains a lot of evils. Now, a Welfare Superintendent is, in my judgment, someone who watches these conditions from the point of view of the workers. And he (or she) is somebody to whom the worker can go when tired, unburden his soul, contradict himself a dozen times, and yet be sympathetically understood. In other words, the Welfare Superintendent has knowledge of what learned men call psychology of those with whom, and for whom, his life is spent. All this is social Christianity, isn't it? I hold a levee down at my housa, from 8.45 to 10.15 every day. All sorts and conditions come to see me, burglars and what not, men and women who are wanting to get a foothold out of the mire. They have confidence in me; they know I take no shorthand notes against them. _ Their troubles are sometimes very trivial to the outsiders, but tremendous enough, mind you, to them. I try to be patient -with them all and to smooth away the rcfagh, hurtful circumstance. It's wonderful work. And it's simply a bit of the splendid task I conceive of a Welfare Workers having the privilege of doing. It's practical Christianity, I say again, though it needn't be so labelled. To find someone in a works, officially appointed and yet concerned with other things than wages and output, concerned with helping men and women in industry to lead happy.lives, to retain for them the birthright of healthy conditions in which to perform their doily tasks, must be a godsend to a host of folk. I can see that it s sound business, for the nation's trade gains by it, but it's justice also; and there is not ft vestige of philanthropy or patronage about it, or shouldn t be. . As foij organised labour, its leaders have had encngh on hand in lifting tne standard of wages "and lowering the. standard of hours. I think the wives of Labour leaders are the xnosfc selfsacrificing class I know. Their husbands aro swallowed up by conferences and committees, and scarcely get more than a glimpse of home. Their wives don't murmur so long as the good work | goes forward. But, to_ iny mind, ■ whatever tends to humanise industrial conditions and safeguard health and temperament, reducing irritation and softening asperities, is for the good of | Labour and I -welcome it. I have j seen Welfare Work in operation "at; Woolwich, and I am conscious of the J finer tone and spirit a good factfyl Welfare Superintendent, with a really big heart, can bring into a factory. Business Notices.