INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1921, Page 5

INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM.

TEAM THEORY PROPOUNDED. WHITLEY COUNCIL’S FALLACY. London, Sept. 10. Mr. Austin Hopkinson, M.P., in opening a discussion on industrial arbitration at a meeting of the economic section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Edinburgh, seized a piece of chalk, and, turning to the blackboard, put down- horizontally a line of crosses and a line of noughts and said :■ — “It is a totally wrong conception that there is a community of interests Between the crosses, representing the employers, and the circles, representing the workmen. The conflict is between one employer and his workmen against the other employer and his workmen in the sume line. There is a tendency to jolt into the blind alley of Whitleyism, which is a totally false view of industry, and can only encl in a morass. “I am not endeavoring to down the man 1 employ, but the fellow I am after is the employer in the same industry as myself. The riht theory of industry is the team theory in competitions between groups rather than classes. “Regarding wages, we cannot define what is a just wage. Mr. Clyne’s definition has no meaning at all, unless civilisation means simply full stomachs and nothing else. If we have not been taught the fallacy of that belief during the last seven years there is not much hope for civilisation.”