INDUSTRIAL HARMONY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 169, 11 April 1919, Page 7

INDUSTRIAL HARMONY

MR. WAEDLE'.ON "A FRESH START." Mr. G. J. Wardle, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, delivered a. lecture by invitation of the Industrial Reconstruction Council, at Sndlers' Hall, Cheapside, on industrial unity. Lord Crewo presided. It wa? clear, he said, that we could not restore pre-war conditions. We had got to make a fresh etort. Changes there must be—changes drastic: perhaps even revolutionary—and if they wero to eomo peacefully it must be as the result of co-operation between Ml tho elements in our industrial life. It was generally agreed that increased production was an essential. Tho key of a new departure lay, therefore, in industrial unity. The next stage in industrial development centred round a joiut arrangement and agreement between three great factors—industrial capital, organisation, and labour. Their function must be jointly and not separately defined. The selfgovernment of industry by means of industrial councils and their machinery was an object well within reach, mid would get rid of most of the evils which permeated any industry at the present moment. Now was the time to got rid of •the notion once and for ever that labour was a vommodity or,could be cUssed in the" samo category as a machine. Already something luid been done, botli to educate workmen and employers to "think co-operatively" and to provide the machinery necessary to the practical realisation' of industrial co-operaiton. A more conscious effort, and a far moro potent influence than was generajly realised, had been exerted by various voluntary organisations such as Industrial Reconstruction Councils, the Industrial League, the Industrial Alliance, and other similar bodies. To (hem was in no ..small part due tho gradual change of outlook which had enabled the principle of joint industrial councils enunciated by, the Whitley Report to find general acceptance. 110 deprecated tho multiplication of organisations having approximately the same object in view, and adviseo people to join one of the existing bodies and help to further its propaganda and widen its influence. Councils had already been set up for nineteen different trades, and fourteen others werfi 'being arranged. In eomo twenty-seven other' trades interim industrial reconstruction committees had been sot up. In other industries trade boards wcro already in existence, and in (■■oine of our greatest industries representative joint bodies had come'info ex-, islenco owing to circnmstanccs • arising out of tho war.