RATIONALISATION OF INDUSTRY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19157, 14 November 1927, Page 15

RATIONALISATION OF INDUSTRY.

OPPOBTUNITYFOR LABOUR.

, cOMPAWB EMPOWERING M ' ACT.

liONDON, October 4. llie growth of industrial leadership, rosed in the development of M To «nd trusts, and the impiica- * ofsuch a development, were dislionLibT Professor D. H. Macgregor *Z pVesidential address to the Ecom £ Science Section of the British jgJSTS" "Nationalisation of iB SSor Jlaegreaor pointed out 1 t«£S> the war lhere had been a Liable change in the public attiloVards industrial groupings. 23« the war there was a realisation, *Xd that unrestricted competition destructive,- but there '" M general more towardb the ob- :« remedy of combination. The x jtutv tendency, however, is to 'jL, this attitude; one writer even Soto that "the right thing to do \7 it to form as many international dements of producers as possible"— international agreements pre.ippose national combines ••™ change, said Professor AlacMor "is duo to a few separate mb' The war enforced a good deal *: Mvoperation, since the Government fid to deal with producers as a group 'their industries. For some lndusjfl - jj jej to constructions which the ifjVfct would not afterwards carry at Sr cspacitv, and combination is a odhod of regulating excess of capa- %* But most important of all, as f: ; Geneva documents show, has been ,ke reaction upon national ideas of the industrial proposals. The mmUm of the International Steel Agreement was a powerful influence in ,& direction." Idea of Leadership.

got there is another idea which contnbutei towards the process of com-viution-the idea of leadership. "It ,u the view of the Balfour Comroitt* that, if industry was to be adetuttly responsive to changing conditions »nd was to develop co-operation S' competition, it would specially „«,} the exercise of the highest quaJi--2» of imaginative leadership.' Policy nans leadership, and leadership means (OBirol; to control anything well, it is vagary to control a large part of it. "Uadership may be got either by felting it °ut, the 'method of bankIflitcT,' or by some method of absorpZin one organisation. It is one of •it claims of the combination method Jut whether bv trusts or Cartels, the ktter i» adopted, so that the fringe of miller businesses is more humanely or rttfoiully dealt with than under the 'onner method. On the other hand, the maintenance of over-investment in this »ay is often the basis of criticism .{modern combines, because somehow it mist be a charge on the community •Irough prices, so that it is asserted itot it is not the rational way ot tMrtins system."

Restriction of Output. U an instance of the re---"\ie of _ ah htotry through the effect of combinaiis?, Prof. Macgrcgor, referred to the "Greek Retention" in the currant bad*. When the French vineyards were ranged by disease in 1879, the Greeks traplied the deficiency, and there was tjrejt extension of vineyard planting fa Greece. But when the French yards wavered, France killed the Greek imperta by heavy duties, and the Greek peasant! Were faced with ruin. The Government thereupon stepped in and deHeed that "a large percentage of the pape erop waa not to be exported, but retained at home and used by a Gov«MM»t wnajaay. Heavy taxes were new plantations, and eliminaVuon of anrplai* production was ob:aincd ly financial measures of compenia*ion. Thia was thus the adoption by a Gorenunent of the method of rationalisation -to aolve jthe problem of production. Labour's Position.

.Professor Macgregor then turned to tit/Wings of the argument for nationalJMJtioß on the body of Workers. Sti ar as rationalisation implies restrictiojL he pointed out, it has to commend i«lf to the working-class community Sf reasons against which existing rights tt bargaining are not offset or debited, «M 'the aspect of rationalisation in labour is interested as a further •mice is that of control. pßjr this is meant the sharing of adfcwstrathre industrial control by laWas inch. There are various meth•fi by whieh shareholding may be extend to employees, but in the cases *ty*t sneh holdings give a share in ad■hfrtrative control, they imply that 'fc labour qualification is not itself adepts, and that employees must qualify wgapitalists. Co-partnership schemes Witheir own place in schemes of in*wUl progress; but the question is ■ftttt, how far on the basis of work *» it is rational to distribute shares *|«trol. Jff*n example of the giving of Lavoice in the direction of the *gtry in whieh they are engaged, %£*or Macgregor instanced the New «Wtad Companies Empowering Aet, of ?fi "By that Act it is possible to %''Labour shares/ entitling the holdSi 0 foil voting powers, but Companies ***• themselves to decide what is the 3JW distribotion of these shares in rejfM to those of the holders of cap-

Mlntion, the speaker thought, may ■frionnd in time along the path first **»" hy the New Zealand Act. Mean--I|P«r however, the process of industrial Pig for the purposes of technical tUsation does itself tend to make • » degree of rationalisation as understands it. For it creates enterprise which are on the le as labour organisation, that extend over a large part of the let that seals of working cor-