MORAL PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2368, 8 December 1908, Page 7

MORAL PROBLEMS OF INDUSTRY.

THE RIGHT TO WORK. CAN A BUSINESS MAN BE A CHRISTIAN? A most interesting discussion, in which some eminent authorities took part, too£ place on “Moral Problems of Industry and Commerce” .at the recent Church Congress mt Manchester. CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION. Professor D. H. Macgregor, the University, Leeds, in a paper on “Moral Principles in Trade and Industrv,” referring to th© development of industrial peace by the means of conciliation land arbitration, said : —No one wood contend that conciliation was a good high-water mark. It implies antagonisms that have to be overcome; it excludes the ideas ol partnership, community of interest, and any real kind ol sharing. The fact that in the most highly organised trades, in tho highest products of industrial]ism, committees of men anci masters meet at stated times for purposes of conciliation is pleasing or the contrary, according as wo look backward or forward. As an industrial ideal this cannot possibly bo linal. We must remember, too, that tlie right to strike is jealously maintained, and that compulsory arbitration is not popular in England. Proposals to do away with the industrial right to resort to a trial of strength would in any case not come well from Governments which maintain that it is onlj great .armaments which preserve political peace. . This is not the place to enter into a technical argument, but .it is possible to indicate broadly where it seems to me that want of very ordinary consideration creates the distress we call unemployment. If a firm’s trade slackens by 10 per cent., what is done at present? Ten per cent, of the men ttre dismissed. This is the very crudest way'of reducing the. wages bill. A set-back has happened to a body of producers; we should expect it to be borne proportionately by them all. Each man, that is, should lose one day’s work in ten. If we use the method of proportionate reduction instead of . that of proportionate dismissal when trade Sails off by a certain amount, then every workman has the right .and the powep to obtain that degree of work which the general industrial conditions, of the time make available. There is. no ethical right to more work than this. “MAN IS. A HUNTING ANIMAL.” Dr Arthur Shadwell, a well-known' authority on industrial questions and the liquor problem, dealt with the question, “Can a Business Man be a ■Christian ?’ ’ He said: —It is often saaid that what man desires is wealth, or possession, or power, or fame, or superiority, or something of tliac. kind. No, the formula never fits the facts; for there are many men. leading very strenuous lives who care for none of these things. What man ■really desires and enjoys in all cases is the chase. Man is a hunting animal, the most hunting of all animals; tho next most hunting animal —-the only other universal hunter-—us the dog; and that is the explanation, of the unique relation between them, which has no counterpart in the Jiving world. To apply this to the business man. He hunts business. Incidentally he

.makes a living by it; but to the pure type, the born man of business, the chase is the thing. He .wants to do business well, to do a great deal of business. But that need, not in the 'least prevent him from being a Christian, which means, I take it, in this connection, doing his duty to his neighbor, X Jsuow business men; and

very good ones too, who «re as good Christians as any one else, and much better than most. Sordid aims and avarice are not essential to the business man,'who llias no monopoly of them. Great nonsense is talked about competition. Business competition is supposed l to be the root of all evil; that,is a fundamental axiom of economic Socialism. But it enters into every walk of (life, and produces tlie same result. No man can do his best at, anything without competing with another, and if he does better lie keeps the other down. Take the Church; if a man is more learned, eloquent, saintly, industrious than others he gets preferment—not .always, lor I regret to say that- in that profession promotion does not always go by merit, but often he does, and he keeps down the less learned, eloquent, and industrious. What, then ? Is he not to be learned, eloquent, and industrious? Take another pursuit—as far as possible removed from business—singing. The better singer gets the better engagements, more appkuise, more fame, and keeps the other down, may starve him out of the profession altogether. Is he, then, not to sing as well as he can? Are we ndt to do with our anight whatsoever our hand finds to do ? But, it may be said, is there not in special temptation in business to be hard, to take advanage, to outwit, to do to others as ive wouSd not be done by ? j It may be so; I do mot know. What I do know is that a man need not j .yield to the temptation, that it is not essential to business. I also know that we all have temptations, and that no man is so good a Christian as he might be. Believe me, it lies in the man, not in his function; it is not the thing he does, but the way he does i.t. If tlie way is wrong, let us put the blame on him and hold fast by that. If we make excuses, if we put it all on “tlie system,” land relieve the man of responsibility, our case is hopeless. For no one made the system but man himself to suit himself, and if he is beyond tlie roach of appeal the same impulses '" ill operate in the same way under any system.