RELATIONS OF CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1745, 25 October 1917, Page 3

RELATIONS OF CAPITAL AND LABOUR.

EXTREMISTS SHOULD BE BANISHED.

STRIKE LESSONS NOT YET

LEARNT,

In his speech at the annual meeting of delegates to the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, at Wellington yesterday, the president (Mr T. Shailef*Weston) said: — “The year has been a strenuous and anxious one. Commencing with the drivers’ dispute, there has been a constant series of industrial troubles since last November. The extremist leaders of the Labour Party have made use of the 'go slow’ 1 policy and the sectional strike in order to force concessions. Large increases in wages have been granted during the year, and this has been one of the factors which has led to the increased cost of living. This increase is pressing hardly upon the general public, and it is high time that they should realise that they are the people most directly interested in these wages disputes. They must grip what is really a commonplace, that the costs of all strikes and increased wages is in the end paid by them. Knowing this, they must be prepared to take a hand in their settlement. To do this, they must be chary of jumping to hasty conclusions after listening to popularly worded generalities. Labour disputes nowadays depend upon very minute defferences, and only after a careful scrutiny of the whole of the facts in dispute, can any one hope to arrive at a correct solution. Once the general public realises that the employer in refusing an increase of wages, which will be paid by the consumer and not out of his profits, is really protecting the public, newspapers and their readers will hesitate to speak of capitalists’ greed, intolerance, and lack of generosity to their men. If mot, then the employers in the future will find it easier to give way to the men and earn a cheap reputation for generosity at the expense of a blind public. It is for the public to choose. MENACE OF HUGE UNIONS.

‘‘Having been very closely,in touch with all the labour disputes of the last twelve months, one is driven irresistibly to the conclusion that if Labour and Capital in New Zealand are to be drawn close to each other after the war, then each side must banish from its leadership and executives men of extreme and intolerant views. There is no doubt the lessons taught in the New Zealand 1913 strike and the recent great Australian strike have not yet been learnt. The Labour leaders in Australia hoped two months ago, and oven yet hope by collecting all Labour in one big union under the thumb of a small executive to be able by paralysing all industries in a country at one. blow to secure all their demands legitimate or otherwise. These tactics failed in 1913 in New Zealand, but there is abundant evidence that this design is still cherished in Now Zealand by some of the extremists. Employers and the general public who will be the main sufferers must be on their guard against this menace of huge unions comprising members of diverse trades whose control will be in the hands of a central executive. Extremists are constantly urging the helplessness of Labour against the greed of the employers. This war cry is a mere fetish. Whatever its position was 20 years ago, to-day Labour is so organised that no employer would be so foolish, to put it on the lowest ground, as to attempt to refuse Labour its just rights. The employer has far too much to lose by a stoppage, far'' as defence is concerned, Labour sufficiently well armed now, and any further combination is not defensive, but offensive. MUST-BE MORE CONFIDENCE. “If Labour and Capital are in the future to co-operate more closely, there must be more confidence and mutual trust. Any business man knows that between firms whose word is their bond business differences are few. It is this trait in Englishmen which has been one of the greatest factors in the building up of the British Empire, In Thibet the bill of an Englishman was honoured where that of no merchant of another nation was. Labour and Capital must see to it that their leaders must always keep good faith with their opponents. In the present seamen’s strike an agreement was come to upon the express representation by the seamen's representatives that one, two, or three men could be worked in a watch. Upon this understanding they received certain concessions. Because those concessions unexpectedly' to both sides did not result in the gains anticipated by the seamen, those leaders deliberately started to boom a public agitation on the ground of safety against the ver3 T principle of one man in a watch to which they with a full knowledge as seamen of its effects, had agreed as safe. How can trade unions expect employers to meet in a‘ round table conference leaders who can be guilty of such a shocking breach of faith? How can there be that trust in their motives without which concessions can only be grudgingly given after the very closest scrutiny?, BROKEN AGREEMENTS. “Look, too, how agreements when come to have been broken during the , last year. The waterside workers received in April last a new agreement, with easier conditions and higher rates of pay. There is now • no better paid unskilled labour in New Zealand. Their leaders, when . these concessions were niade, stat-

ed that, friction would now pease and .the men would give a square deal. Yet, because unions in Australia had entered upon what is now admitted to have been a foolish and unpatriotic strike, a steamer with transhipments for New Zealand urgently required was boycotted and allowed to*lie undischarged for over three weeks. This action did not help the Australian unions. The ship was not returning to Australia. The only people injured was the New Zealand public. Surely, before inflicting injury upon their own country, the members of a trade union might satisfy themselves whether the workers in Australia will benefit by their action, and' even if they would, whether those workers are in the right. FOLLOWERS BLAMED. “In these cases of sectional strikes, the Labour leaders always throw, the blame upon their followers: “It is their'action,” they allege, ‘we have nothing to do with it, we did not urge it upon them, and we will not make ourselves unpopular by opposing it.’ The letters and records seized by the Government, and put in evidence in Auckland during the prosecution of certain leaders in connection with the coal strike, shows how hollow this contention is. Only last week, in the prosecutitQn of the two members of the Seamen’s Union Executive, we had another typical example. The loyalty of rank and file of labour to their leaders is exceptional, and the least those leaders can do is to keep them from conduct which they themselves are afraid in a Court of Law to avow as their own. THE ONLY-TRUE SOLUTION. “It cannot be too often reiterated that in the future a rise in wages without a corresponding growth in efficiency is not the proper method of improving the status of labour. Wages in New Zealand arc so high, compared with other countries with whom we trade, that further increases will only weaken and destroy industries. The only true solution is increased production due to mutual trust and cooperation between Labour and Capital. Labour must work more faithfully—Capital must be fair in granting to Labour its share of such belter effort! To ensure this co-op-eration, Labour must not pin'its faith to leaders who write ‘No working class organisation with a semblance of backbone or the slightest knowledge of their position would subscribe to an organisation, one of whose objects was to provide a good understanding between the employers and employees, to leaders whose word is not their bond, who are prepared, by making admissions, to gain ends, and those ends gained, to disavow their admissions; who are prepared to treat their agreements’ as scraps of paper, and who will urge their followers to commit acts which they themselves are afraid to admit as'their own. The employers will have to do their part. Selfishness and greed in an individual employer is bad because he injures hot only himself but his class. So far as is economically possible he must consider the interests of his employees, and their comfort as he would his own. Both' sides will have to' learn much, but if both sides do learn, they will be helping to build up a very great and happy nation.”