How We Can Win The Trade War

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue 23, 7 November 1924, Page 1 (Supplement)

How We Can Win The Trade War

Mr Dudley Docker’s views on tlie struggle to regain Britain’s trade are those of an expert. He is a director of many great industrial enterprises, representing- together a capital of over £180,000,000, and is therefore eminently w»3ll qualified to write on this subject.

In view of what he describes as tlie present necessity for dealing with British industry in a vigorous and effective manner, I am asked by the editor to draw on my own experiences, and in the columns of the Sunday Express to point the way by which our pre-war prosperity and pre-eminence may be recovered. The task is not easy. The new light that has dawned on social questions has brought a great and permanent tax upon our resources. Housing, health, education, insurance, and pensions all have to be paid from the earnings of industry, and these charges can only be met by larger output and greater efficiency. THE PRUNING-KINFE. I believe there is much to be done with the pruning-knife in all or most of our industries. To meet competition and the lower prices demanded by a poorer world, overhead charges must be cut to the minimum. There is no room to-day for inefficient and overpaid officials, nor for figure-head, aged, or weary directors. Wisdom and experiences arc essential, but so are science and

youth and courage, and room and full scope must be found for all these in our great undertakings. I know of more than one great industry That is heading straight for extermination, due in no small measure to bad leadership. Apart from the loss of capital, loss of employment., and of gain to the national wealth are involved, and T make this call to those responsible, as well as to the shareholders and the bankers who finance these ill-led industries, to face the situation at once and to insist on reforms in management—reforms, in many cases, too long overdue. Furthermore, as this is an age of specialisation, grouping wthin our industries is absolutely essential. To obtain the greatest output at the lowest cost, in order to meet competition in the markets of the world, there must be the fullest possible combination of brains and skill, not the eternal jealousy and waste of substance and effort that unfortunately obtain bet een many firms today, who appear to be more occupied in producing paving stones to bankruptcy than in IJie consolidation of the particular industry in which they are concerned. They arc fighting among themselves for the shadow and losing the substance, which can only be won by a combination of all that is best in each industry to ensure the highest production at the lowest cost. It is not only in these directions

By F. Dudley Docker

that we nave to take stock and see where we are going. Our Government counts among its members many prominent and able trade unionists, some of whom I have the pleasure of knowing, and have even battled with in my younger days. These will have explored during the past mouths, with fresh minds, many economic questions from a national standpoint, and new light should dawn therefrom on our trade union policy. The cost of production, and consequently our capability of competing depend so much on output that ally limitation of output, as a studied policy, must be as harmful to the community as it is to the best interests of the workers- Let the trade unions continue to see that the interests of their members arc protected in every possible way, but let them sec also that they do not in any way hamper output or the efficient conduct of our factories.

In this direction the more enlightened leaders of trade unionism, and even the Labour Government, carry a large share of the responsibility of making or marring the future. There are many critics who see no good in he happenings of the last few months for they have before them the evidence of constant strikes and unrest, but the critics hould comprehend that the Labour side must have a fair chance and time to find itself in the light of its new knowledge and understanding. The Labour leaders will have already realised that the enormous national revenue required by the new social conditions can only be obtained by being earned, and that industry cannot become profitable with master and man continually at loggerheads. There must be more give and take on both sides. When large orders have to be taken in competition with foreign countries without profit the men must do their share to sec the thing through; and when a great cut in prices is required in order to keep works running, they should in my opinion be given every opportunity to understand the financial side of the business in which, on the Labour side, they have such a great stake.

UNIMPAIRED SKILL. With the removal of inefficients, reduction of overhead charges, grouping in order to specialise and with the full encouragement of trade union leaders to their members to 1 work willingly and freely to obtain a better output, I believe we shall be able to do more than hold our own in the markets of the world, as they slowly re-develop during the coming five years. For we have remaining to us unimpaired the skill of our workers and the spirit of leadership, our coal mines, our mercantile marine, and our banking and credit organisations reaching to all parts of the world, a combination of advantages which no competing nation has or can have to tlie same extent with- : in our lifetime.