The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1920. INDUSTRIAL ATROPHY.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1920. INDUSTRIAL ATROPHY.

It is impossible for anyone to bring to bear serious consideration on the many industrial problems of the present day without arriving at the conclusion that there must he something organically wrong with the human and industrial systems. As; with the individual, so with the nation, which is merely an aggregation of individuals. When healthy conditions prevail all goes well, but a variety of causes may contribute to disorders, and if these causes are not removed they will cause disaster. The greatness of Britain as a nation, and its expansion into an Empire of marvellous power, rich in resources and renowned for its intrepidity, was made possible by the virility of its people, aided by initiative and determination, and ever actuated by the conviction that industrial activity and expansion was the key to progress. So the Empire grew and flourished. A deplorable change, however, has set in which threatens to undermine Britain's greatness, and it may even be to destroy its industrial supremacy and thus drain tfee life,

Wood of the nation. If only a' casual glance be taken at the position of affairs at the present time there is no lack of evidence to convincingly demonstrate the existence of a widespread evil which may be designated as industrial atrophy—the deliberate .wasting away of the vital forces on which industry depends. The disease is purely organic, partly due to poison, but is mainly traceable to human passions, the effect of which is to blind the -eyes of the workers to their best permanent interests, to deaden their powers of perception, to induce moral and mental obliquity. That the industries whereon they and the country exist may be crippled, paralysed, and even lost beyond recall, affects them not at all. The poison of propaganda is a factor in industrial atrophy, so are the humors of self-conceit, greed and pleasure. Strikes, "go-slow" and "ca'canny" tactics are the outward and visible signs of the wasting process of British industry. Shorter hours. less work, more leisure, and a constant repetition of demands for more pay and more privileges emphasise the presence of a disease that, unless drastically treated, will kill the nation, drive its capital abroad, leaving ,no alternative but to consci'ipt labor. No country can stand for long under a system whereby "ca'-canny" tactics increased the cost of a single liner by a quarter of a, million sterling, especially as the cost of production is affecting the cost of living until commodities become too dear to buy, industry languishes, unemployment follows. Who knows what disasters may spring from the failure to recognise the danger of sitting astride the lower end of a br-anch when sawing the limb? Nothing but a return to the I sane and virile methods whereon the greatness of the Empire was built will serve to stem the inroads of those industrial cankers which are now menacing the future of the. whole of the Empire. The first step should be to regain a due sense of proportion, and in this the Government must lead the way, then there may come hope of revitalising industry. The situation is far more serious than is generally admitted.