Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1919. SHORTER HOURS AND COPARTNERSHIP.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1988, 10 June 1919, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1919. SHORTER HOURS AND COPARTNERSHIP.

IT has been decided upon by Lever Brothers, of Port Sunlight, to embark upon a six-hour working day for their employees. In a recent publication, Lord Leverhuhne says that from observation and experience he concludes that six hours a day are in many industries enough for a man to -work. He postulates (hat within the six ■hours the men will do the best that is in them. Given this, he thinks that in skilled industries where highly complicated machinery is used, the change will benefit both employers and employees —the employers because the work-done in that time will be of the highest standard both in quantity and quality; the employees because more of them will be absorbed, and because they will be able to satisfy their desire for more leisure and a less monotonous life. The result will, of course, depend on the management as much as on the men. Men must be properly selected and grouped,Af they are to produce as much in six hours as in eight. They must he prepared to work in conse- 1 cutive. shifts, and the juniors must be prepared to give some of their leisure to that technical education which they now approach with tired and sleepy brains. Co-partnership is also in operation at Port Sunlight, and was started to give employees an interest in the business and to overcome one at least of the objections tu the wage system, Cer-

tificates arc issued gratis, which entitle the holder to,slightly less than the ordinary dividend, and whichhad a nominal value of about onetenth of liis wage. The dividends are paid into a Savings Bank, and the holder has the option of talcing them out or of exchanging them at par for a, class of deferred ordinary' shares created for his benefit. The certificates have no cash value; the ■ •■■■ have,, although they cannot ’<• -.!••.'] outside the company, and through them many employees have' accumulated some thousand pounds worth of savings. Lord Levorhnlme claims,for his scheme that it is not charitable; that it gives the employee an interest not only in the profit of his business, hut in its losses; and that it distinguishes between two naturally distinct things —shares in profits and shares in management. Lord Leverhnlme is a highly successful man of business and a model employer. He was a grocer, and the son of a grocer. He is now at the head of one of the most important industrial undertakings in the Empire, and is fife founder of Purl Sunlight, which is the model of a garden city and of a system of welfare work which is the unattnined ideal of other industries. 'His arguments gain a triple strength from his experience and his example.