The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 3, 1920. CONFUSION AND THE REMEDY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 186, 3 May 1920, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, MAY 3, 1920. CONFUSION AND THE REMEDY

It is a matter for unmixed congratulation that the railway strike has been called off, and that the locomotive men, as well as those in other branches of the service; havo agreed to rely instead upon a full investigation of their claims. The dispute, it may be hoped, is now in a fair way to be settled amicably, and on conditions satisfactory to

all concerned. An incidental, but vitally important, purpose will lieserved if the circumstances of this dispute assist as they should to concentrate public attention ou the absolute necessity •of establishing such an understanding as will provide a definite basis for the, regulation of industrial affairs throughout the Dominion. Thinking people in ■ all walks of life, and not least those who belong to organisations of workers and employers, must havo been forced to the conclusion lately expressed by the Welfare League that existing conditions of industrial friction and uncertainty will lead to disaster if they are not remedied. No doubt' it will bo agreed as widely that the Government will take the most hopeful step open to it towards amending these conditions if it summons a national industrial conference at the earliest possible moment. The case for holding such a conference hardly needs to be elaborated. It would give thji representatives of Capital and Labour an opportunity of calmly reviewing a state of affairs which threatens to degenerate into hopeless confusion. It is too much to hope that the parties engaged in industry would be able at once to bring their ideas into complete conformity, but they would show themselves lacking in ordinary intelligence if they were not enabled in frank and open discussion to agree upon the abandonment of_ methods and activities which quite obviously serve no other purpose than to undermine the prosperity of the'whole community. ■ The fatal weakness of industrial organisation- at the point to which it has been carried in this country is tho'absence of national standard's and a national point of view. T(> a very great extent the turmoil and confusion now in evidence arc the outcome,of a common disregard of the factor of mutual obligation— an assumption that this or that section's entitled to frame and enforce demands regardless of the right? and interests of the rest of the community. Now that this departure from, sound principles has done so much to intensify the stringency occasioned in any case'by tho "economic waste of the war, and the diminution in production which is stillin evidence, a great deal mav be hoped from a calm survey of industrial' conditions- and relationships by practical men representing Capital and Labour, and if possible the general public as well. All'who are honestly intent on constructive progress and the greatest possible improvement in living, standards ought to be able to agreo that the methods by which it is becoming more and more the fashion to express discontent and emphasise demands are precisely those'which in-, tensify existing cviln and 'make it more difficult to find a remedy. Such conditions as obtain to-day arc satisfactory only to .those who aim at fomenting strife, and desire kast of all things'to see. the Bominiop prosperous, and its people. happy and contented. Mischief-makers of this type are certainly an incon■< sidernble minority, and so much the more might be hoped from the proceedings of a conference which would approach from a national standpoint the problem of promo* ' ing industrial harmony. It is no 1 because there is any insuperable obstacle to promoting industrial har- i monjv but for the reason that there is a serious neglect of well-planned efforts in this direction' that the : outlook at present gives ground foruneasiness. ' ,