The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1920. INDUSTRIAL MATTERS.

Southland Times, Issue 18855, 22 June 1920, Page 4

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 1920. INDUSTRIAL MATTERS.

There has been preceding in the columns of the Dominion in Wellington a discussion between that journal and Mr William Pryor, the General Secretary of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation on that body’s decision that the “time is not ripe” for a national conference of representatives of emplopers and employees to consider national industrial problems. The Dominion has taken up the position that the proposal made by the Nerw Zealand Welfare League represented an excellent opportunity for a free discussion of industrial matters arid that members of the Advisory Board of the Employers’ Federation have shown “u poor sense of their responsibilities to the community as a whole” by rejecting the plea. Mr Pryor on the other hand argues that his federation did not turn down the proposal from any antipathy to meeting representatives of labour, but because it was felt that such a conference at best would lead only to academic discussions which would be of little value. Elaborating the views of the Advisory Board, Mr Pryor says:— It was felt that to agree to a national conference at the present time would be to give way to a proposal put forward by those who had not either the experience or knowledge of industrial matters possessed by those actually engaged in our trades and industries, and that to agree to such a proposal would be detrimental to the interests of the Dominion as a whole. As a matter of fact, the easiest way out for the meeting—looking to the present only—would have been to have agreed to the conference being held, as then the responsibility would to a large extent have been placed on the conference instead of upon the organisation I represent. The question was fully discussed in all its bearings for tw’o long days, and as the meeting proceeded the conviction deepened that to agree to what would amount to meeting those who have been aptly described as “determined to challenge the whole existing structure of capitalist industry” would be to commit industrial suicide, and w'ould still further strengthen the hold the extremists have over labour in New Zealand at the present day.

The first statement may be dismissed as trivial. Mr Pryor evidently does not attach much weight to the argument that i good idea cannot be accepted because it emanates from a body not directly concerned with industry, and we do not see as much cause as he evidently does for fear of the “extremists.” That there are certain noisy extremists connected with the labour organisations in this country there can be little doubt but we think that their power is much exaggerated. In one or two industries they are certainly dominant, and unfortunately they weild power in unions that affect the “key” activities of our industrial life, but the majority of the organised workers do not owe them allegiance and will not be tempted to enlist under their banners so long as they can hope for a “fair run” in their industrial affairs. Mr Pryor is on firmer ground when he pleads for more “spade work to bring the parties into that frame of mind, which by fostering something in the way of mutual trust and confidence would alone enable good results to be secured from a big conference at which all industrial interests would have to be represented.” In other words Mr Pryor wants the cure to “start at the bottom” or in the shops and factories. By this he means that

Better relations must be established between employers and their own workers, and if that is secured it must follow that the way will be prepared for good work to be done by trade and district, and only by that means for national conferences, as in each case then both employers and workers would be educated as to each other’s needs and the way opened for real conferences between those on both sides actually engaged in the trades and industries.

We must admit that Mr Pryor has put forward the practical view of the matter but we think that he is over-nervous when he states his fears of things detrimental to the dominion issuing from a conference of national proportions. But whether this conference is held or not, there can be no question of the value of discussions, even if they

are academic, between what We at the present moment have to call “the parties” in the industrial world. In some parts of the dominion the Employers' Federation has made a point of inviting prominent Labour men to addregs their meetings and we think that a great deal of good can be done by an extension of that idea. There can be no doubt about the urgent need at this moment for a clearer understanding of each other’s problems by both employer and employee and that cannot be obtained through the Arbitration Court or the Conciliation Council. There are many opportunities each year when discussions, academic in the sense that they do hot deal directly with any existent dispute, could not fail to be of benefit and we think that the national conference that has been proposed might easily open the way to a better understanding and could work no injury to the special interests of either side. We are in need of a serious discussion of our industrial problems, not for the purpose of arguing about blessed theories for the millenium, but for the purpose of considering the things of to-day. No one regards our present system as incapable of change. It is evolving, as it has evolved through the years and the changes, though gradual, are continuous. We have seen efforts to expedite this process by violent, methods enjoy a temporary success and then fail and we feel instinctively that the rate of our progress is governed not by this or that organised section, but by the mass of public opinion, which is slow to move but irresistible when it is in motion. The education of public opinion in these matters is a vital th’ng, anti that can be best attained by the “two parties” threshing out their problems in the open, without ranpour, but with the idea of making progress solidly and honestly. Every dispassionate discussion of our industrial problems must contribute to this educational process and we therefore hope for conferences, shop, district, provincial and national whenever the opportunity offers.