Editorial Comment

Progress, Volume XIII, Issue 10, 1 June 1918, Page 221

Editorial Comment

The recent batch of nineteen appointments to the Legislative Council shows how hopelessly alienated politics is from honest everyday business. We are supposed to be stimulated to

“ National ” in Name.

high patriotic sacrifice by the sight of party politicians thrusting their party squabbles behind them for the period of the war, so that all may unite under the, National banner in the only duty which matters to-day. The National Government stands, we are told, for unity, and the temporary sacrifice of political ambitions. Yet, when it came to making nineteen nominations to the Upper House, how was the process conducted? Did the Government look around for the best business brains to help in guiding the nation’s affairs in a time when business administration is proved to be one of the great war-winning factors? Did the National—save the mark! Government put its composite head together to find out some people who, by reason of organising ability shown in war service have won the right to recognition from the State? No, the Government simply resolved itself back into its old party shape, each side nominating a man, until the list was full of the political rubbishthe rejectsof both Reform and Liberal camps, and His Excellency the Governor was then advised to “call” these estimable party hacks to a sphere which they had failed to reach or to hold by the right of the people’s votes. If there is any value in the nominative system at all, it is in the fact that it gives governments power to call to the nation counsels men of ideals and constructive capacity who lack the talent for wooing demos, but who become excellent servants of the democracy so long as they have not to stand for election against more experienced ticklers of the public ear. In failing to live up to the high national ideal for which it is supposed to stand, the National Government went down a hundred per cent, in the estimation of the business community, which now realises, and

declares emphatically, that politicians form a class apart from the useful people of Ncav Zealand, and the useful people arc glad not to be too closely associated Avith them.

Among a number of important Avar pamphlets sent to Ncav Zealand by the British Minister of Information is a very valuable brochure on the work of British Workshops for the

The State as Employer.

war. The story it tells of business organisation in the face of huge and growing tasks is one to make business people proud of their class. England has not been backward in honouring her great business men, and her notable recognition of their war service makes the New Zealand Government’s recent failure to take a good opportunity of doing this makes our so-called National Government look very pitiable and mean. It would take too long to oven summarise every phase of organisation described in this small booklet, but we turn with great interest to what the writer, the Et. Hon. Chrisotpher Addison, P.C., M.P., has to say in regard to the State’s relations with its great industrial army, for this experience is bound to have an effect on New Zealand’s future after the Avar. Under the Munitions Branch, national xactories and “controlled” industries have run during the Avar with only om--third the number of disputes experienced before the Avar, notwithstanding the enormous increase in the number of workers, and the stress oi Avar production. “One day,” says the author “you are confronted. Avith a demand for aeroplane Avorkers, another day it is augmented production of chemicals for smoke clouds, another day it is acetylene Aveldcrs that are wanted for bombs or mines, another day it is workers in T.N.T. and poisonous compounds, then it is a demand for long-range guns, then for agricultural tractors, then for iron-ore Avorkers, and so on and so on, requiring ever-changing adjustments and improvisations— time-rates, piece-rates, movements of labour and all the rest of it. Me face our critics without apology, and avc shall find, I believe, that in the rates of pay of Avomen Avorkers, in the reduction of the hours of labour and in humaner methods of employment, as well as in many other directions, the Labour Department of the Ministry of Munitions has made an enduring contribution of high value towards our industrial methods.”

Very hopeful is the outlook of the lit. Hon. Christopher Addison as a result of his experience of the State as an employer. He puts his finger

Problems of Reconstruction.

unerringly on the weaker spot in industrial relations when he states; “Nothing in the relations between Capital and Labour gives rise more to difficulty and distrust, than two customs which are dependent upon one another. The first is the cutting of the rates of pay on piece work so as to limit the rise of earnings when improved methods of manufacture, leading- to a great output, are introduced. It is not the practice of the best employers, but it is adopted by many. This practice—or the fear of it — has inevitably led to the second and retaliatory practice of the restriction of output. The influence of

these two practices in our industrial life is thoroughly poisonous. We must establish a system whereby both parties have a direct interest in the introduction of improved methods. Without it our progress will inevitably be accompanied by endless disputes. The accounting side of the Ministry has abundantly proved that modern methods of production are not only well able to afford good wage rates, but are benefited by so doing.” This is exactly what we have been long preaching, for America’s example in the metal manufacturing industry shows clearly that high wages are not a bar to world-wide success. The war has done good service to British industry in forcing the scrapping of slow, out-of-date machinery and creating a broader outlook in the minds of capital and labour. Perhaps New Zealand manufacturers will also learn the lesson that high wages and good machinery mean capable workers and a big output, and that protection is not likely to be swallowed if it is simply used to bolster up inefficient plants.

Though the war at the time of writing docs not give promise of an early evacuation by the Germans of the rich and fertile lands of north-

Extensive Town Planning.

cast France and Belgium, the people of those countries, with the magnificent spirit which they have shown throughout the struggle, have set about the plans for reconstruction in thorough earnest. One of the most attractive and appropriate schemes, which originated in America, is to make some city or district in the United States responsible for financing the reconstruction of the dwellings in some particular area devastated by the Hun. The extension of this principle can go on indefinitely, and unfortunately the need is so great, that this form of organised private generosity will not meet the whole situation. The Governments concerned have already laid out the main plans of reconstruction, and we shall see town planning come into action on a vast scale, which will provide the world with an object-lesson of the value of this science. Already the French Minister for the Interior has had an investigation made concerning the supplies of building materials likely to be available for reconstruction purposes at the conclusion of peace. Among the materials thought to be available in sufficient quantities are stone, lime, sand, tile, building hardware, and wall paper; while lime, iron piping, street paving materials, and sandstone may also be secured in France. In the groups of materials in which there may be a shortage are plaster, timber and lumber, slate, structural iron and steel, heavy hardware, tin, zinc, lead plumbing supplies, pumps, sanitary appliances, heating apparatus, paint and glass. The necessary steps are to be taken to encourage the larger production of those materials by the resumption of operations in plants that were shut down; the exploitation of mines and quarries; the re-opening and improved equipment of brick yards, tile works, and establishments engaged in the manufacture of lime and cement and other basic building materials, and the adoption of measures to increase the available supply of labour.