TOO MANY “CAPTAINS"

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 454, 8 September 1928, Page 9

TOO MANY “CAPTAINS"

NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION CALL FOR RIGHT LEADERSHIP (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (United Service) T R 9-5 a . m - . LONDON, Friday, liii; new industrial revolution, which has become known as rationalisation,” strangely enough is attracting the attention of widely dissimilar bodies, namely, the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Trades union Congress.

Mr. R. J. Mackey, of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, enthralled the scientists at the association’s congress at Glasgow in a speech on “The Human Aspects of Rationalisation.” He insisted that it was essential to any durable and constructive success that man-power problems should be frankly faced. The recruitment of personnel in industry and commerce was still on the whole primitive, chaotic and discreditable. Given the right leadership much progress might be made under rationalisation. Britain had been suffering from a surfeit of so-called “captains of industry,” many of whom in the Army might be risky selections as corporals. Many were old men, not affected by the war, except in regard to the surprising ease with which they made profits. With the removal of the hard-dying social stigma attached to being in trade, together with its present-day rewards, the nation could expect the absorption

of youth who normally would enter the fighting and the civil services, and other skilled professions. The relations between industrial concerns and the universities would change from illdisguised mutual contempt to serious whole-hearted collaboration. Industry in the future would tend more and more to assume the nature of a well-run public service by rationalisation. Labour, from directors to operatives, could, therefore, claim a corresponding security for employment. The speaker strongly urged less secrecy within business concerns. He said they would draw increasing benefits from pooling and from comparison of information on all matters of mutual interest. Under these developments the old shame-faced plea, “business is business,” would be gradually relegated to the limbo of less glorious days. Whether cricket would become more and more a business or not, business itself would be conducted more and more in accordance with the spirit of cricket.