THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 June 1918, Page 4

THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

GENERAL SHE, A. RUSSELL'S VIEWS. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Hastings, Last Night. The following letter front MajorGeneral Sir Andrew Russell, K. 03., has been received by Mr. Witherby, general secretary of the Empire Service League, Christchurch, from Prance, on April 21: "I am sending, under separate cover, a few copies of a memorandum drawn up by the trades union leaders at Home on the subject of the industrial problem after the war. I am very clearly of opinion that a satisfactory solution can only be hoped for if we approach the problem in the right spjrit. Igo so far as to say that we should definitely and honestly apply the principle of the eleventh Commandment, to love thy neighbor as thyself, to every social problem. You will agree with me that there is only one answer to the eternal question: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' and that is: Thou ar>.' I am sure It iB essential to discover Ad hold on to the true principle of progress in dealing with every problem. .While it is true in war that in tactical operations a bad plan well carried out is better than a good plan badly carried out, the Bame argument is not true in strategy, when you may win local successes and entirely miss the big thing, or, to put it another way, it is no good travelling along a broad, well-built road if it leads you ultimately in the wrong direction. (Better, by far, make your way up a muddy lane, which will eventually lead you to your goal. The present offensive, of which you will be reading in your daily papers with considerable anxiety—l have no doubt as to where its conclusion will find us—is, in my opinion, the very best thing that could have happened. I have no douibt that we shall ultimately | come out on top, though I think it is possible we may have in front of us , yet considerable mishaps and disappointments. The Germans have, undoubtedly, taught u s some very good lessons. They have shown the value of education (for the Allied armies as a whole are not as well educated as the Germans) and organisation, which we have always frankly admitted was a weak point, though I do not see why it should be in democracies, and efficiency and thoroughness, in boiih of which we have fallen behind, owing to the sucj cesses of our forefathers; and, last, but not least, discipline in this war, which is literally a war between nations. It is i the infantry that coujts. A nation like Austria, which lias studied and specialised in gunnery, may have the finest artillery in the world, and a horse-loving and horse-breeding nation will produce a fine type of cavalry, but the infantry represents the nation as a whole, and by its infantry shall a nation be judged, for it represents the sum total of the nation's efficiency, education, and moral fibre. The division i s getting on very well, though we are not out of the wood, and it will not do to crow. The country where we are fighting is an enormous relief to that abominable Flanders. We got out of it just in time."