THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1st 1918. CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11752, 1 February 1918, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY Ist 1918. CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

Tho relations bctweeu Capital and Labour in New Zealand are not as J harmonious as they might bo. There j it* serious need for a movement to j oring closer together the two elements wnjch are so much dependent upon each other. -Without capital, | there could be no Labour, and without Labour, there could be no Capital. The sooner this fact is recognised i by both sides, the better for all concerned. The conditions in the Old Country are awakening tho public conscience, as they will inevitably do ki .New Zealand in the near future. The Archbishop of York, in an earnest speech in the House of Lords, said that, while the elements of unrest are formidable, what is surprising is that there has been so little rest, ' The .majority of the Workers* have been' severely tried, their higher wages or less 'neutralised by higher prices—which they believe to be.largely due to profiteering—harassed and harried by the confusion of recruiting and medical examination orders and by the suspension, of trade Union regulations. Yet- vast numbers of them, from overcrowded houses in slums, came forward with tho greatest readiness to help the country to which apparently they owed so little. Some causes of , unrest were temporary, but the deep and permanent causes, which the war and its strain had accentuated, "will emerge wth redoubled strength after the war, and there will be, and rightly be, a demand by workers that pre-war conditions shall not be restored. Working meat are determined that, having Oorno the greater part of the strain 'and sacrifice of the war, the rewards for their labour shall be adequate. It is a great misfortune." said tho Archbishop, "that wo have nobody in this House directly representative of Labour." So he tried, in sincere sympathy to express some of Labour's viows. The'first,of the causes of unrest was the unequal distribution of the rewards of industry—the contrastbetween the accumulation of wealth m tho hands of a few and the condition of the vast majority of intelligent working men, which is little raised above the margin of poverty. The next cause of unrest was the dehumanising of industry, which leads the working man to feel that in spito of all improvements he is but a cog in the machinery, liable to be scrapped like the machinery he' tends. He feels that there is no room left for tho exercise of his personality, and that is one of the causes of strikes among the younger men. "The workman demands that he shall have a status in industry in some way corresponding to his status in the government oF the country." "It is a. commonplace that industrial peace and prosperity depend on capital and labour joined together in harmony, but it is a mockery to speak of a partnership when the whole great element of, Labour is denied any real controlling voice in tho settlement of the conditions of work. What is wanted is a continuous association of capital, management, and labour in the conduct of the business. The time has come when employers must take their workmen more into.their confidence. Workmen are not going to submit to. scientific management imported from America or elsewhere. They regard it as Prussianising industry, and they will resist it."