The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1919.

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 178, 23 April 1919, Page 6

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1919.

INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATION ■—$ Men of widely varying opinions are able to agree that the unparalleled industrial achievement compassed in Great Britain during the war is bound to influence heavily the reconstruction and development of peaceful industry in Britain and elsewhere. There is by no means the same unanimity in regard to the best means of turning the experience thus gained to account. The ruling tendency under the Lloyd George Government, as is to be seen from the sale of the national factories and in other ways, is to restore to private enterprise the field from which it was partly ejected by the creation of Stateowned and controlled war industries. It has been stated authoritatively that the Government has no thought of continuing as a State concern enterprise in which a sales organisation would bo necessary. Some people in Britain,' chiefly members of the Labour Party, maintain that this is a mistaken policy,' and that the right aad natural sequel to the remarkAle industrial achievement of the war period - would be the general nationalisation of industries. One of the ablest exponents of this view is Sir Leo Chiozza Money, some-, t'.mo 'Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Shipping, who unsuccessfully contested a seat in the Labour interest in the late general election. He recently contributed an article to the London Observer on "War Industry and its Lessons," which is interesting and thoughtcqm polling oven to those who are unable to accept some of his conclusions. Sir Leo bases his whole case upon what was accomplished in British industry by national organ-, isation during the later vcars of the war. "The British working na, tion of 1918,'' he observes, "owing to the devotion of nearly all our finest_ young men to the Army, was inferior both in point of number and quality to tho British working nation of. 1914; yqt national organisation made tho British working nation of 1918 much superior to the British working nation of .1914. When our labour power was at its minimum- our production of food and munitions was at its maximum." While laying due emphasis on the fact that the work of women in industry was utilised asnever before, Sir Leo holds that this by no means accounts for the industrial miracle which was accomplisM in about three years. 'The fact is," ho says, "that we so organised our depleted working forces, so improved their scientific working equipment, and so diverted their labour to appropriate ends, that wc caused a reduced working army to do effectively work of the kind and quantity needed by the nations-work which the much larger working army of 1914 and 1915 failed to accomplish." Some of these contentions might be challenged, but even if we accept them without question in basing upon these and related facts an advocacy of the immediate and widespread development of State Social ism, Sir Leo Chiozza Money seems to be relying nnon an entirely inadequate foundation. He argues that since the wonderful industrial results of tho war period were the outcome of a hastily-improvised and necessarily imperfect Socialism much more might be accomplished on similar lines after demobilisation, with full working power restored, and in conditions making undue haste unnecessary. It is obvious, however, that there is an enormous gap in this chain of reasoning. The idea that nothing but the apathy or obduracy of a set of politicians prevents a smooth and easy transition from the'national_ organisation of industry'in war time to a similar organisation in-time of peace must be" .set down as a complete fallacy. It is to bo noted in the first place that although the national organisation of a section of British industries and tho wonderful output in those industries during the war period were attained in spite of heavy handicaps, there wore some compensate ing factors which could not have been introduced except in an.acute national emergency of limited' duration. A greatly increased industrial output was in part made possible by greatly extending the hours of labour, and by eating heavily into working capital. Therewas the stimulus of patriotic fervour to increase production, and there was also the influence of the urgent necessity which called for speedy production "regardless of cost." The degree of national industrial organisation attained in Britain under stress of war was largely made practicable by the declaration of a, temporary truce between the parties engaged in industry. Sound industrial discipline is as necessary to tho successful operation of State industries as of those privately controlled, and how far such discipline is from being in prospect in Great Britain is sufficiently indicated in the tremendous outburst of industrial strife which followed closely upon the cessation of hostilities. The militant attitude of Labour _ supplies a potent argument against attempting to comprehensively remodel the constitution of industry by Act of Parliament. The test of practical experience docs not support the view that Labour would modify this attitude if it found itself in all cases dealing with the State instead of with private employers. Another and .equally important a sp.?9l Pf the matter js touched upon by Sir Leo Chiozza Money, though ho doeß not bring out its .full bearing on tho issues at stake. .Se .obßery.es that under ijon.

ditions only 7,000,000 persons in Great Britain (including more than a million under 18), were industrial workers, though the male population of 18 years and over numbered more than 13,000,000. "The frustration of production'and the ill distribution of wealth," he adds, "had diverted from industry the labour of many millions of people, to which, unfortunately, has to be added that no small part of the producers wero producing not wealth but illth—the rubbish furniture, rubbish houses, rubbish clothes, and rubbish food upon which the masses spent their meagre wages. . . ." Sir Leo quite fairly points to these conditions as illustrating the scope for thebetter and more efficient organisation of industry, but such conditions above all arrest attention in the cvidenco they afford that the people ,as a whole are far from being educated to the point at which they would be prepared to concentrate their industrial energies undividedly upon useful production. An ill-regulated consumption of wealth—made manifest in Britain before the war in the diversion of such a vast body of'labour into unprofitable channels—is the result at bottom qf imperfect education and understanding, and a defective sense of values. There is no sudden cure for this state of affairs, and it seems to follow that a vast amount of economic waste must continue until through a slow process of education a better sense of values has become general. It would be assuming too much to suppose that State organisation and control of industries would set a period to wasteful and ill-regulated consumption. If all the industries of a country were brought under State control, the only practicable course to follow would be to cater for the existing demand. An attempt to suddenly terminate wasteful consumption by concentrating solely upon useful production would bemore likely to bring about a condition of chaos than to promote social betterment and reform. It is not, of course, suggested that the lessons the war_ has taught in the value of industrial organisation and the remarkable results it makes possible have been thrown away. But it seems fairly evident that realisation of the benefits thus brought into prospect will be measured much less by the extension of State ownership and control than by the development of harmonious co-opera-tion between the parties engaged in industry.