SOCIAL RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 371, 2 August 1946, Page 12

SOCIAL RELATIONS IN INDUSTRY

REPORT ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN NEW ZEALAND. By A. E. C. HARE, M.A. (Cantab.), Ph.D. (Lond.), Research Fellow in Social Relations in New Zealand Industry. Victoria University College.

Reviewed by

F. L.

Combs

tials are given above’ because they are quite as essential to the work he has for five years been doing as those of a medical man to the performance of his calling. Years of experience and study-probably nearly 20-lie behind his report and the experience was gained in an old country before additions to it were sought in a new one, Dr. Hare has done a very important job and done it very well. The importance lies in the fact that the Report produced by it has to do with the basic conditions connected with the work of over half a million New Zealanders, In examining the conditions under which they work Dr. Hare was also inevitably dealing with the circumstances under which they live two-thirds of their lives. Dr. Hare does not, like Ruskin, attempt to answer these searching and comprehensive (almost cosmic) questions. If he did our economito-industrial civilisation would be no more interested in the answer than it has been in Unto this Last during the century (almost) since Ruskin wrote it. We are still blandly if blindly certain that poets like Wordsworth and Ruskin and Arnold knew nothing about life. Dr. Hare himself, however, is by no means unappreciative of tke poetshe quotes Bridges at the outset: Reason shamefast at heart and vain above measure Would look to find the first fruits of intelligence Showing some provident correction of man’s estate Toward social order. And one feels that he shares the ironical bitterness of the lines he quotes. But in the volume which follows he sticks to his* order of reference which may be set forth thus: Here is a scheme of things concerned almost entirely with production for [_) ten ts HARE’S creden-

profit. How, bringing to bear "a wise discriminate purpose in clear contrast against the blind habits of brutes" (Bridges again), can this scheme be made to function more harmoniously and efficiently? In short: Can it be induced to produce the goods-and perhaps more goods-with less human wear and tear and consequent wastage of manpower? Such an order of reference demands a disciplined mind; one that can assemble and assess evidence in a scientific spirit. It calls for uncommon powers of orderly, logical thought and of lucid statement. Dr. Hare has all these quelifications. But he is possessed of other qualities at least equally important. These are moral. Wolsey salved from the wreck of his fortunes "his integrity to heaven." At least he said so. One feels as one reads this Report that his integrity is one thing Dr. Hare, cost what it may, will on no account part with. Not that he is in the least emotional. Able as the Report is, there are parts of it that are dry reading to a layman. But it is dominated by a respect for facts, and when those facts point to inferences the inferences are made without fear: or favour. "The ball no question makes of ayes or noes, but right or left as strikes the player goes." Whether. you are an employer or a worker or an official or a party man, or just an ordinary citizen, there are parts of the Report you will by no means relish. But, taken as a bitter tonic, it is going to do New Zealand good. We have been rather complacent about our advanced social and industrial legislation. (I write as a man in the street for fellow men in the street). Well, the Report is not written to shatter that complacency. It is not written to do anything-except to carry out its assigned task. Incidentally, however, it does provide salutary corrective to our complacency. We are in many respects not in the van; in many respects we are in the rear. Take one example: Factory Conditions (Chapter E). Most of the factories are not in buildings designed as factories. The vast majority are in premises unsuited to the purpose for

which they are used. In the solid buildings little thought has sometimes been given to health conditions and to providing amenities for the workers. As a rule the factories of superior design are those erected by firms domiciled overseas. Many examples could be quoted of floors and stairs which are seldom cleaned, of walls that have not been cleaned for years, of lavatories which are only cleaned at rare intervals, of windows that-are blackened by dirt, or work benches that are not cleaned down. "Dirt is degrading, demoralising, and disease-producing in the factory as much as in the home. . . . Untidiness and dirt go hand in hand and an easy tolerance of the one leads to a philosophic acceptance of the other." (The passage in quotation marks is from the report independently made to our government by Dr. J. M: Davidson, one of His Majesty’s Medical Inspectors. of. Factories, who came to the same conclusions as those Dr. Hare had already written into his partly-completed report). Readers who feel either restive or provoked by the criticisms, often drastic, made ,in the earlier chapters, will find that, if the writer does not hesitate to indict a "wrong way," he is quite prepared to face up to the difficult task of pointing out a right one. But Dr. Hare has accepted the responsibility of thinking scientifically. His style is therefore impersonal and detached. What vigour it has is derived from the will to tell the uncompromising truth. Beyond doubt therefore his attitude is that of a good liberal. His main emphasis, even in a quiet way his passion, is for freedom, freedom to think, freedom to be self-respecting and properly independent, whether as a worker or as an employer. He can therefore see no benefit in things done under compulsion. Industrial Democracy, for instance, can, as he views it, only arrive at its goal if it accepts voluntarism and regards the coercion of any individual as reactionary. In conclusion the debt owed to H. Valder, of Hamilton, should be recognised. It was his generosity and altruism that made Dr. Hare’s five years’ tenure of his fellowship possible. The result will prove a very conspicuous: milestone on the road to what both he and Dr. Hare have most at heart-the ordered freedom of all connected with our Industrial institutions.