DAY BY DAY

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17984, 1 April 1930, Page 6

DAY BY DAY

“We have come to regard the cooperative movement Employees on the Cana di a n in National Railways as Partnership, our greatest asset,” says Sir Henry Thornton, the president of the Railways, in Industrial Welfare. .“The fundamental principle of this new arrangement is that employees become partners. The present co-operative plan is in effect at all of the shops of the Canadian National Railways, and embraces about 16,000 men. That means that me now have in our shops 16,000 partners instead of 16,000 employees. Stabilisation of employment has risen from 73,6 per cent, -in 1924 to 83.4 per cent, in 1927. In 1924 the disturbed time factor chargeable to the company was 20.1 per cent., while in 1927 this was reduced to 8.5 per cent. Tile improvement in continuity of employment has resulted, as far as we can estimate, in raising the average earnings of all our employees by aboul 150 dollars per year per employee. These figures stamp the whole movement as an .unqualified success, 'the partnership shop movement has been so satisfactory that it has been extended to maintenance-ol'-way employees, and should this extension meet with success Ihe movement will be introduced in train and engine and clerical services. In time, the entire staff of the Canadian National Railways in all departments will be operating under appropriate co-operative partnership plans. This means that so far as details arc concerned the administration of the railway will become practically automatic, responsible officers will lie relieved of a mass ol details, and will be enabled to devote themselves lo the development of more efficient methods.”

After the war there was a wave of popular interest in Market, Crash spiritualism. Since the Inspires slock market crash I\iew Cults, (says the New York Times), the public reaction has manifested itself in the sprouting of various new cults. A Variety dispatch reports that Chicago is finding them extremely popular, particularly with “performers.” When a speculator found that the bottom had dropped out of the market, and out of his own purse Loo, he turned away in despair from the material things of life. Hence the sudden epidemic of culls, some apparently quite sincere, others simply new rackets- But all “put on good shows,” with mysterious rites and ceremonials. The basis .of nearly all of them is the power of mind over matter. They teach that happiness lies not in yachts and motor cars, country clubs and coupon-clipping, but within one’s self. Failure, misery, poverty and presumably overdue hills arc only manifestations of evil thoughts. They offer a comfortable "defence mechanism" to a man who might otherwise have been kicking himself for not having followed his own “hunch” and sold out sooner. But their stock may ho expected to drop with the return of prosperity.