The Daily News. MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 1920. LABOR REPRESENTATION IN MANAGEMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 January 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 1920. LABOR REPRESENTATION IN MANAGEMENT.

The serious attention which is being concentrated on all phases of the Labor problem is indicative of the earnest desire on the part of employers and the more intelligent section of the public to find a plan capable of being utilised as a basis where va can be built m a successful eolation of the problem, so as to end the unrest which is so injuriously affecting both employers and workers. Industry is the life blood of every nation, and thousands of managers are studying how to increase industrial efficiency by enlisting more interested co-operation on the part of the workers. A great many plans are being tried and developed, and this is the natural course of progress. The aim of all industrialists is success, and it is only by experiment and demonstration that the problem can be worked out. Success is more likely to be evolved this way than by the interference of any authority. The question of * labor representation in management, doubtless, appears to many as being a move in the right direction and capable of being easily arranged; so it is, if the proposition is limited to the conditions which directly surround the employment and does not include the determining of general policies on which the success or failure of a business depends. There can be no hard and fast rule about the representation of Labor in management. It is not a question to be settled by theoretical arguments, but by the test of results, for any scheme under which business is unsuccessful is worthless to Labor. The worker has to remember that he cannot at the same time exercise the authority of a proprietor and yet be free of all responsibility and risk in the outcome of the i business. Authority and responsibility go together. That is prob--1 ably why, when the British Government offered the Labor Unions two shipyards on very favorable terms, including work that would keep the yards full for three years at least, the Federation turned the offer down, on the ground that its policy was nationalisation. If we are to take this policy as representing the views of Labor generally, it is evident that the workers will run no risks of losses, but rely on the power of the caucus to control the employers. By declining proprietorship the men practically close the avenue to advancement and largely discount any claim for representation in management. At 'the same time it must be. admitted that modern industry is essentially co-opera-tive, in the sense that it is mutually helpful and dependent, based upon the division of labor. The wage system is co-operative, the worker contributing his labor and accepting a fixed wage, while the employer contributes' the necessary capital and assumes the responsibilities and risks of conducting the business. Labor's interest in industry is very practical; it wants the largest possible return and a certain one. Every business must have a directing head vested with authority, if it is to succeed, so that, in competition with rivals, co-operative undertakings in which everybody is a proprietor and the business run by committees are likely to fail. "With the progress of education, with the levelling up of the masses, with the spread of experience and the development of intelligence, cooperative undertakings should, prove successful, provided the management is in the hands of a few of the most competent members. Manifestly, if Labor is to benefit by having a voice in management it can only do so by production being greater than previously. Often as this economic law has been stressed, Labor does not appear to Jiave fully grasped its real significance, and not until this lesson has been taken to heart will the solution of the industrial problem be possible. The main thing for Labor is to get ahead as best it can—getting better homes, 'better education, more comforts, more experience, more knowledge, co-operating with the system that produces these day by day results, and being assured that gains of this kind lead to everything else. Nothing can stop the,natural evolution of society, the great merit of the existing system being that it is a developing system—not stereotyped or fixed. It is an economic law that the surplus profits of capital and excess earnings of individuals, when invested in production for the public market, become public capital. Nothing justifies injustice, but the natural economic law has its own way of correcting injustice, and even the unusual gains resulting from profiteering, as a rule, go back into industrial development. The most simple and natural development of profit-sharing is through participation by the wage workers in the ownership of industries in which they are employed. Ob- | viously, if this policy was steadilv it would soon accomplish 1

much in modifying antagonism between employers and employees, but the latter must first realise they will have to take the rough with the smooth —the losses with the profits. One thing is certain: where the employees make a business more prosperous the result will be beneficial to all parties, and that is the goal at which they should aim.