"IF."

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3452, 6 April 1920, Page 6

"IF."

The full siguifieance of Sir Robert Stout’s qualifying remark concerning the good times that are coming, “if we help them toy?’ is realised when consideration is given to the enor-r mous losses sustained through indus-i trial inactivity and unrest. He points out that in the years before the war, if more than five million working days were lost in the twelve months by industrial‘ disputes, this was right? ly regarded as unsatisfactory. In the first eight months of last year, however, nearly five times this loss took place, and by now it must be getting ,on towards ten times the normal loss by reason of industrial disputes. No nation can continue solvent for long under such unsatisfactory conditions! During the first seven months of 1919 ! some six millions of persons had. their hours of labour reduced by an aggregate of nearly forty million hours per week. This reductioii equals abbut about. twelve times as much as the aggregate of the previous twenty-five year-s——that is, a rate of reduction 500 times as rapid as the average annual rate for a quarter of a century. Sir [Robert thinks it will be disastrous if

fsomething cannot be done t 6 stop this

present Want of co-operation of thought and action -between different sections of thecitizens of the country. Those who sympathise with the lworking class are more numerous , each yeai-——in fact, all are prepared to Eback up at any cost Wise measures set forth for increasing their future welfare. ‘ He says that no one‘ begrudges -a reasonable reduction in the hours of labour-—it is desirable——but reduction of hours combined with industrial disputes, means a serious‘ attack on the nation's credit. He‘ ul'ges_ workers to be patient, especial- I 1y as the future is so wonderfully I