The Dominion MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1910. INDUSTRIAL PEACE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 135, 3 March 1919, Page 4

The Dominion MONDAY, MARCH 3, 1910. INDUSTRIAL PEACE

Attaining the objects set before it, the. Industrial Conference now sitting in London will carry out a great national work. Its essential aim is to establish industrial peace on the securest possible- foundation, and those who regard its activities from widely divergent standpoints will be able to agree _ that the measure of its success will be very largely that of Great Britain s future prosperity. Should it succeed in finding a basis of concord between British employers and workers indefinite prospects of social improvement will undoubtedly bo opened. On thcother hand, it woul'd he impossible to envisage any but a daft: future for the nation if industrial strife in a more or less aggravated form became chronic. . A reversal of the policy of wholesale striking v. Ith or without reason which has lately been adopted by large sections of organised Labour in Great Britain'is an elementary and indispensable condition of social progress. Such reports as have thus far come through about the Industrial Conference are brief and of a preliminary character, but as far as they go are hopeful in tone. In the first place the Conference appears to be genuinely representative in character. Its eight hundred delegates represent ten million employers and workers. There is an important initial achievement in bringing together such a Parliament of Industry. The speech made by Mh. Will Appleton on the opening day could hardly be described as an enthusiastic overture from Labour, but it contained as plain an admission as is to be expected, from a prominent union leader that striking has been carried to insano lengths. It is still more noteworthy that Mb. Appleton emphasised the penalties that must follow upon • serious industrial unrest. Nothing, he said, could so surely promote future unemployment as the destruction of confidepce at the present moment. This commonsense recognition that confidence and the conditions that warrant it are essential to industrial expansion and prosperity, and therefore to the welfare of the wageearning population, offers an absolute and pleasing contrast to the recent tactics of militant Labour in Great Britain. If the Labour delegates face the problems set before them in the spirit suggested by Mb.. Appleton's speech, and are. met half-way by the employers, the Conference should mark a real step towards better conditions.

The scale on which industrial strife has lately developed in Great Britain may suggest that the Conference is faced hy an almost hopeless task.'' As a matter of fact, however, there is a great deal to set against the strikes and disturbances of industry which tell, so heavily against the interests not only of the workers arid employers immediately concerned, but of the whole country. Specific evidence that the merits and benefits of rational co-operation are widely recognised by those engaged in industry in Great Britain is to be found in the progress made in setting up joint industrial .councils on the basis broadly defined by the Whitley Committee. This body I in its final report summed up the objects and functions of 1 the Joint industrial councils in the state-ment:—-"Our recommendations have the effect of conferring upon the join industrial councils, and through them upon the several industries, a large measure _of selfgovernment." The conditions in which these industrial councils, are set up, and the prospects raised, vary to some extent with the conditions that obtain in each industry, but there is implied in every case a readiness on the part of_ workers and employers to substitute cooperation for strife, arid gradually to transform the existing control of industry. This being so, the progress made in carrying the recommendations of : Ihe Whitley Committee into effect may be fairly called promising. , Just hefore he left office, Mjr... George Roberts, who was Minister of Labour in the Lloyd George Government prior to the late election,_ supplied comprehensive information on the subject. He stated that

National joint industrial councils had been established, and have held one or more full council meetings in. the following industries, namely, baking, bedsteads, bobbins, building, chemical trade, china clay, furniture, gold, silver, horologioal (olook and watch-making) and allied trades, hosiery, leather goods, matches, paint and varnish, pottery, rubber, silk, yehicle-building, woollen and worsted (Scottish section). ... In four other industries, namely, municipalities (non-trading services), waterworks, sawmilling, and surgical instruments, the dates for the'first meetings of these councils havo been fixed.- Twelve other industries, namely, boot and. shoe, cable-making, commercial road transport, oloctrical contracting, electricity (power and supply), needles and fish-hooks, newspapers, paper-making, printing:, rollerengraving, tin mining, woollen, and worsted, have already established provisional committees to draw up constitutions for joint industrial councils, and proceedings have readied an advanced stage in many of these cases. In a number of other industries the Ministry of Labour is giving assistance in setting up councils. The Government has approved a scheme dealing with the application of the Whitley report to tho industrial establishment of the Government, and immediate steps nro being ■taken to place tho scheme before the trade unions and departments concerned.

As recent cablegrams have shown some noteworthy additions have been made to these lists, aricl in the mining industry, upon which _ so much trouble centres, the Colliery Owners' Association has approved a scheme under which joint councils would manage certain mines. Evidence thus appears that the spirit of reason to which the Industrial Conference now in session willafford free scope is far from being non-existent in the domain of British industry. At the Conference an attempt will be made to promote boldly and on a great scale the objects and purposes which are being served in detail and by ordered steps in the organisation of the joint industrial councils. I' In each case there is an appeal to employers and workers to unite in constructive activity for the common

good. The success of the appeal is contingent upon each side consenting to make such concessions as are essential to harmonious progress towards a new control of industry. Employers as a class arc asked, in effect, to make necessary concessions in matters of method and gain. Workers are asked to abstain from mere wrecking and are offered the vastly preferable alternative of [ a rear voice in the management of

industry and an _ opportunity of gaining the experience which_ will enable them to utilise it effectively.. Efforts to promote agreement on these lines must be unreservedly approved by all who accept the guidance of reason and common sense and favour a constructive policy. Such efforts are all the more urgently demanded since the Bolshevik elements which are now more or less in evidence in most countries are evidently bent on_ gaining by underground machinations directed against industry the success they cannot hope to gain in any democratic country by open political fighting. It was observed by a correspondent during the late election in the United Kingdom that the more he saw of the campaign of the extreme Labour candidates (he was speaking more particularly of the Glasgow contests) the more convinced he was that they were not fighting to win, but were merely using the election for Bolshevik and revolutionary propaganda. Their political influence, he added, was comparatively small. Their power was industrial, and it was indus* trial results that they were actually working for., _ With such people industrial activities mean,'of course, "direct action." Events have strikingly verified this correspondent's observations. The Bolshevik elements suffered overwhelming defeat at the polls, but already they have done an immense amount of harm in the domain of industry. British experience in this matter agrees in essentials and differs only in degree from that of other oountries in which Bolshevism has lifted its head. The Bolsheviki have. nowhere. secured a popular mandate. Even in Russia they dispersed the Constituent Assembly _by_ the use of armed force. But Britain is not the only, ccmntry in _ which Bolshevik elements after being cast ,-udc in open political conflict are btill a menace on account of their insidious tactics against industry. Such a state of affairs obviously means that minorities are allowing' themselves to be influenced in defiance of reason and with blind disregard of their own interests and the rights and ' interests of their fellow-citizens. Workers and employers, equally interested in suppressing Bolshevism, cannot better approach that object than by concentrating jointly and in harmony upon tho constructive reforms which, would deserve all possible attention for their own sake if Bolshevism had never been heard of.