THE INDUSTRIAL FUTURE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 244, 9 July 1919, Page 8

THE INDUSTRIAL FUTURE

MR. WHITLEY ON THE NEED FOR

CO-OPERATION

.THE,DIVINE IN MAN TO BE \ RECOGNISED.

_ The, Eight ,Hon., J. H. Whitley, M.P., in an address at tho annual meeting of tho Croydon Adult School, Toferrcd to the newt in industrial as well as iuteiv , national life of something more than a temporary, patched-up peace, of a settlement based on tho needs of mankind and the. recognition of t'ue Iranian factor. In -tho past organisations in industry, both of employers and employed, had been de"sijjffeil" as' if for warfare, with uarlied <>W° entanglements always bristling ana with ' competing armaments ■ growing thigher. and ; hjghor.

.■""".Then, continued Mr. Whitley, while ho . had; ■ great -faith in agricultural reconstruction, it'must still remain true that Britain has. to purchase the balance ol her food supplies from across the ocean. .That required a continuing and increasing export of goods, and unless-'that was 'provided on a sound basis the country could not go forward and was bound to go'teckward. He deprecated the use ot the word "baxfcer," and he urged that tho interchange of products between, nations should bo regarded as services .rendered <"bybn'e to the other and should be not „merely looked.at from their matai-iai side." Another essential was the recognition, in , an entirely new way of the ' human factor in industry. If he' read recent history aright, tho great contest ju.it closed had been won, after giving ~all dues to tho technical and organising power, becauso the spirits of free men :,who: took up the gage of battle proved ..superior to tho spirits of men who had ■ : -Keen brought up under the systems of the '.Central Empires. That was some-'-thing' which must register itself for the future in our peacetime life. It must be one of the. first of our high endeavours) to put to the best peace-time purpose ."those qualities which had been revealed during this last tremendous agony. The proposals of tho Whitley Eeport would mean nothing • unless tnere was running through them the spirit which . reepgnised the full value and possibility'of the human factor. Meetings round the conference tables proposed in thu .report would be of immeasurable advantage even in cash measurements, and ,vould render a service to the common•wealth which could not be. appreciated ' jitl'.hard facts. If industries would organise . themselves into something like .the old.craft guilds in the Middle Age*. ' men might find a pride in.being, workers in".' this', or that industry in the service of the whole community, and it was proiVdsed.to put indushy oil to thosb lines. ■'.Hβ referred to the National Councils composed half of employers and .half of trade union leaders, district councils : and i factory 'councils. They did not propose to take away any powers from the trade'unions on the' one hand or from .the special functions. or leaders. of industry on the other, but to bring them together: into a constructive v co-operatipa in which.mutual knowledge and understanding, would remove the causes of strikes and lock-outs. Twenty industries had formed ' councils and thirty others had got interim joint industrial councils. There was only one thing -which could, mako the scheme succeed in the'.way"nV hoped. People mnst havo the'' consciousness that man, given ali the brain they liked and all tho acquisitions of training and science, was nothing more than a olever beast , unless at the , back of all things he had .tho compelling belief that in each man and woman was a bit of ihe Divine. Unless tfiis was realised in all matters of industry they''wore bound to come to grief, and ■ it.'iwae precisely in that connection, 'that the adult school movement was so Valuable a factor.