The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1919. FEDERATION OF INDUSTRIES

Taranaki Daily News, 12 April 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1919. FEDERATION OF INDUSTRIES

Under »the new conditions which the war has caused, especially the advance in wages, industrial activities will be compelled to adopt fresh methods or take a back place in the competition, which is bound to arise in the near future. America has proved that cheap articles can still be produced, in spite of wages and cost of production being much higher than before the war, but this result can only be achieved by organisation. Hitherto the organisation of manufacturers has been almost entirely restricted to eombinatidii and cooperation by a few individual firms within particular industries. One of the great object lessons learned during the war period was the standardisation of ships in order to expedite construction on the most economic lines, while another lesson was the great valui of unification. The principles which governed these two successes—also other notable achievements in war work —was organisation, and it is this same principle applied to industry that will alone make it possible for the British Empire to attain to industrial efficiency. There is nothing speculative in the idea of a federation of industries, for it is founded on sane and sound lines. Upon the increase in production everything depends, and the experience of agriculturists in Britain during the war demonstrated that an expansion of production can take place even with greatly reduced man power. In New Zealand we have only to note what co-opera-tion has done for the dairying industry by providing creameries, factories, freezing works, butter boxes, cheese crates, favorable shipping freights and other facilities for marketing our produce. We do net claim that the organisation of the dairying industry is even yet complete, but it is developing and expanding along satisfactory lines. "Why, then, should not other 1 industries be organised and dovetailed so as to secure the best and ' most economical results'? There is 1 no doubt that if capital and labor, 1 working in harmony, produce r what the nation is capable of producing, we can bear the lieavv load of our great debt well enough, and that the whole Empire, working in

that direction, can soon be again safely on the road to a prosperity far greater than has ever previously been enjoyed. There is an organisation in Britain which has for : its object the federation of industries, and it has been doing remarkably good work. No more • striking movement has occurred within the great world of British industries, and the creation of the Federation is in itself a sign of the vi'ality of the manufacturing trades. The second annual report of this Federation proves that many of the most important manufacturers in the country understand that they must create for i themselves, as it were, a General Staff, and that this Staff must act not only in the interests of the trades themselves, but in the interests of the nation. The employers also plainly profess that they owe better terms to the workers, not only as a matter of conscience, but as a condition of higher production. Industrialists have been brought to recognise that no economic system can long survive unless its results are socially justifiable. This is a distinct advance on the old system and opens up a new era in which production should be stimulated, not at the expense of the worker, but by his receiving a just return for his labor. The Federation breaks new ground by instituting a coherent system of classification of trades and building up the organisation on a thoroughly democratic foundation. It is considered there are seventeen basic trades, and British industries have, therefore, been divided into that number of main groups, firms belong to the Federation being invited to decide into what group they would be placed. These groups have been divided into sub-groups, which, in turn, split themselves where necessary into sections, the object being to arrive at the real commercial unit in each case Each section and sub-group elects a standing committee to co-ordinate the views of these sub-groups, and sections, and can therefore express its opinions definitely and work for the attainment of its best interests. The scheme also provides for standing committees composed of representatives from each of the different groups, the grand council being elected under the system : of proportional representation. It is apparent that the plan provides an efficient intelligence department, the need for which has been stressed in connection with obtaining new markets overseas. It is a bold scheme, not free from dangers and difficulties, but it meets the needs of the age, and should rave the way for a better understanding between capital and , labor, for the more capital there j is the greater is the demand for t labor, and the higher must wages J me, accompanied by an increase | in the standard of comfort. The example set by this British Feder- ' ation is one that may well be seriously considered by the Dominions,