DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 92, Issue 14255, 5 January 1920, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

Lord iLevertiuhne, on industrial unrest: "In approaching the suDHigh .Wages ject of industrial unrest Good we are too apt to imagine For Tcade. that the workman is /! . something different from Ids employer. What faults we may see in ..the workman we can equally find in the employer, but there is little difference, .that the employer has learned tone.or.two valuable lessons in the hard battle to keep out of the Bankruptcy. Court. It may be that the workman.has not yet learned them.' The employer depends for increased profits on increased business. If he has one mill his .ambition is to have two, and if he has two he feels better equipped to serve the public more cheaply because his overhead charge is divided among a greater output. This is a modern phase of the .employer. The workman

has seen during the last 5 years object lessons that would seem to tell him he is right. He has seen in the 30 years' quiet, peaceful pursuit of hid industry his wages raised barely 15 per cent., and he has seen.his hours reduced by barely 5 to 7J per ce.it. But he has seen since eighteen million men withdrawn from competing with him, and another eight million taken from .their ordinary peaceful wocations to produce shot a.nd shell, .and he has achieved more in advance of wages, reduction of hours, and acceptances of all his demands in four and.a-haif years in these conditions than he achieved in the 34J preceding. Don't you think that each of us, if we had such a iesson as that staring us in the face, would be a little dillicult to move from the idea that to : make one man's job serve two men might be a means of prolonging these artificial conditions? .Don't you think tliat the mere handling of large sums appeals to the imagination of success and prosperity? I believe the present success of the nation depends on the payment of high wages- Our great handicap in competition wilJi the United

States has been our low rale of wages. You never need to fear any competitor who pays low wages. The naan to fear is the man who pays high wages. The unrest we have at present js perfectly natural. I am certain thai no nation in the world has kept its head more cool than ours has, and no workman could have served his country better in time of war, and could have returned after the war less demoralised by the effect of war than have our workmen. There is in the labour unrest a general feeling on the part of the workmen that they are 100 much cogs ;n the industrial machine, and they would like to be something better than cogs. What could be better for the nation than an ambitious workman? Could there be anything more appalling than apathy, indifference, and acceptance of conditions on the principle of taking it lying down ? If that is the state of the workman to-day there will be disaster for ■the British Empire written up from one end of the map to the olher. But it is not. It is ambition that is written —a desire 'to get nearer to the heart of things to fit themselves better for taking an intelligent part in Ihe industry] in which I'.iu; - life is spent."