Part 1 — CHAPTER X

INDUSTRIAL COUNCILS

To secure industrial peace on terms just and honourable to both sides would be to double the national strength whether in industry or citizenship.—MEMORANDUM OF THE GARTON FOUNDATION.

Under this head it will be convenient to treat not only of the steps to be taken to prevent disputes or secure their settlement by peaceful means, and to promote a more hearty co-operation of employer and employed, but also of various other questions affecting industry, such, for example, as increased production and increased saving. Without industrial peace there will be no industrial or commercial prosperity, and without a fair amount of prosperity it will be very difficult if not impossible to preserve industrial peace. As the War proceeds these questions become more and more urgent; after it, they will be more serious and more pressing than ever. Already the need for taking certain steps at once and for preparing a future policy is recognised. Anyone who wishes to have before him a clear statement of the industrial situation and of the effects of the War upon it, cannot do better than read, and read with care, the revised memorandum prepared under the auspices of the Garton Foundation and published in October, 1916. Singularly impartial and judicious, it does not gloss over the difficulties and perils which must be faced, but throughout there is a note of hopefulness—an anticipation of a better state of things—if while "the forces of change are visibly at work we do not allow

A memorandum which has official sanction states that the chief duty of the Trade Boards, on the other hand, is to fix minimum rates of wages which can be imposed by law. They are needed primarily to insure that in trades where the workers have no official organisation to guard their interest a living wage shall be secured for all. They are statutory bodies set up under an Act of Parliament just passed, and will be connected with the Ministry of Labour, by which their members are largely nominated. The work of such Boards is being extended.

Detailed discussion of the character of the work

Already before the War the tendency to crush out individuality was becoming stronger and stronger, the private firms of manufacturers were being squeezed out by highly organised combines, or tempted by high prices offered to hand over their businesses to them. In banking, similarly, the absorption and amalgamation of smaller banks has been going on with startling rapidity. The personal relationship between the customer and the banker, who would grant loans and overdrafts because he knew the character and position of the borrower in each case, will no longer exist. The business was safe enough when the manager of a country bank probably knew whether a customer's butcher's bills were becoming excessive. Now everything must be referred to London for decision according to some fixed general rule. The convenience and the accommodation of the man with a small account count for very little. A more serious question is the effect which these amalgamations may have on the relations between bankers and those who are engaged in manufacturing business.

The old personal relationship between the mill-owner and his employees, when his garden adjoined the mill yard, when they spoke of him by his Christian name, and he knew their family affairs and was ready to help in time of difficulty and distress and to take a lead in any local effort or support any local charity, has been rapidly disappearing. There still are, however, many employers to whom the happiness and welfare of their workpeople is a matter of deepest concern. They have a human interest in them, and take a pride in improving the conditions of their life. They have

The more complete organisation of trades under powerful councils may tend to a virtual monopoly being obtained by a limited number of large and influential firms, and the result may be prejudicial to the consumer by limiting competition. That is not certainly the object, but it may be an incidental effect of the organisation which is needed for full development of the system of councils. In some cases State support and control acting in conjunction with private firms of great influence is to be introduced to unify an industry under one management. Support and control may possibly be necessary in some cases, but the extension of such methods should be jealously watched. In the manufacture of dyes, for example, it seems that the Government and a very powerful manufacturing firm or combination are arranging to act together. Those outside this combination will have no chance of competing. In this particular case the scheme may be useful, but careful provision is necessary to protect customers for the commodities produced. It may become a very serious thing for manufacturers of piece goods when struggling to maintain their position in the world markets, and the slightest addition to cost of production may close a market to them, if they find that they cannot purchase the dyes they require in the cheapest market, or those who dye goods for them must increase their charges, because one organisation can fix prices, and import from abroad is prohibited in order to protect a special home industry.

All along the line, too, the big firm is favoured at the expense of the smaller. The position of the small tradesman is often a very hard one. The shopkeeper in a village or small town near the metropolis pays heavy rates for the upkeep of roads which are torn to

To return from this digression. One great advantage of the councils would be that those who represent the workmen upon them will probably be men who are actually engaged in manual work in the trades concerned, or have been so engaged, and who will look at each question practically. The agitator who lives on grievances and disputes, the politician "on the make," or the well-meaning and half-informed enthusiast from outside, is not likely to find a place on councils whose object it is to see how interests which investors, managers, and workmen have in common can best be promoted, and how the share of each in the work and its profits can be more fairly assigned and distributed instead of attention being concentrated on matters in which their interests seem to be in conflict.

LONG HOURS

There is no doubt that among the causes of unrest one of the most serious, probably much more so than either employers or workmen are generally conscious of, is the long hours of work. Those who have had to hear questions arising out of labour disputes have noticed the state of tension produced by the weariness and strain of too prolonged and continuous work. Even in the domestic circle an overworked man is often found less amiable and more ready to find fault. A harassed manager and a deputation of jaded workmen may be really very good fellows and yet find that some comparatively small question raises strong feeling and mutual recrimination, and then leads to rash action resulting in open strife, strikes, and lock-outs, and the judicial proceedings which may be necessary in consequence of them. "A Skilled Labourer," writing in the Quarterly Review, mentions as the first of the four principal grievances of workmen—"the hours are too long." Long hours have been accepted on both sides partly because during the War the call of the country for increased output, especially of munitions, was so urgent, and partly because it was thought that higher profits would thereby be obtained, and certainly higher wages earned. It seems, however, well established that longer hours do not necessarily mean in^[5]

The great and often permanent physical injury caused by too prolonged work is specially serious for women. Many women are such willing workers that they go on overtaxing their strength. Among girls and women students the fatigue from overstrain in preparing for examinations, from which boys and men

It is impossible to have a healthy nation if the majority, or any very large part of it, work for excessive hours even in the factories where the best methods are employed to make the conditions as healthy as possible. Medical men of the highest authority regard the influence of too prolonged hours of work as one which urgently demands attention. Enlightened and experienced men of business like Lord Leverhulme have expressed very strong views on the subject. Man, however, cannot be looked on as a mere machine for production, nor is even health the only question for him as a human being. He must have time for other pursuits, for recreation, for a fuller life. As civilisation and education advance this need becomes stronger. The duller the work the greater the need for those who have any natural mental activity to find resources of interest outside. The pleasure derived from literature and science should be open to all. No one who knows working people can deny that the demand for it exists. A fitter on weekly wages used to show in a poor cottage one of the best collections of British butterflies and moths, made entirely by himself. Many of them had been captured late at night on Chat Moss. A hair-dresser has told how to watch the habits of birds was the delight of his Sunday bicycle rides; his assistant called attention to some little known poet whose works had a special appeal for him; another said it was the study in his rare holidays at the seaside and in local museums of some form of animal life—the name of it, now forgotten, would convey no meaning to most University graduates—that made his interest in life. You may find a large audience of workmen interested in a lecture on Shelley, and some of them as well acquainted with his poems as the lecturer. Such cases

The success of the Workers' Educational Association shows both the strength of the demand among the workmen, and sometimes, too, among working women, for intellectual life and their capacity to make use of any opportunities offered for regular study. It is to be hoped that its promoters will not forget that some branches of natural science and literature, opening new realms of interest removed from the ordinary cares of life, are at least as important subjects for study as economic and social problems, and that one of the most important of such problems is how to give those who must earn their daily bread by work that is often dull and wearisome, the opportunity of sharing as far as possible in the intellectual life. We may well wish Mr. Mansbridge and his friends success as pioneers in the work of reconstruction, and renewed and extended activity when the pressure of War requirements is removed. It is to be hoped that the original ideals of the Association may never be forgotten.

The aim of the Association is neither technical, i.e., to make workmen better qualified for their special work, nor to attain a higher general education with a view to their obtaining employment of a different class and ceasing to be manual workers. It is to enable them, while continuing to earn their living by manual work, to participate in the fuller life given by intellectual activity. There are some subjects which can be pursued and studied thoroughly with pleasure

The idea of erecting an educational ladder by which all will proceed from the elementary to the secondary school and thence to the University, is a false one. Any such ladder must continue to be narrow at the top. It is impossible in any economic conditions that we are likely to see in our time that the majority of our people will be able to devote their whole lives to study until the age at which a University course can be finished. Indeed, for all classes there is a modern tendency to prolong the school period unduly, to keep boys under the discipline and following the methods of the secondary school until nineteen years of age, so that they finish a University course, which is also becoming more prolonged, after twenty-three, and then at last take up their vocational training. Neither parents nor the nation can afford to make such a course the normal one. It is no doubt of the greatest importance to secure a career for special talent so that poverty shall not prevent a really able boy or girl following such a course of study as would enable his or her talents to have their full scope. The old Grammar Schools, especially in the North of England, afford many examples of poor boys who by means of their school and University scholarships were

FOOTNOTES:

[5]

Since the above lines were written I hear that a Committee of Inquiry has been appointed by the Government to report on the subject.

WAGES^[6]

How shall we better distribute the product of industry, and allay the unrest of which we hear so much? There's only one way—by improving our methods of production. To effect this the earnest and active co-operation between those engaged in industry must be employed.

... No longer must a man be supported by his union when he refuses to mind two lathes because the custom of the factory confines him to one. No longer must an employer assign as a reason for cutting prices that the man's wages are too high.... Each side must endeavour better to understand the outlook of the other.—SIR HUGH BELL.

The second grievance mentioned in the Quarterly article already referred to is: "The wages are too low." To remedy this grievance, increased productivity, along with greater economy in working, is the first essential in order to obtain the funds out of which higher wages can be paid; the second, to get a fair allocation and distribution of the profit made. Increased benefit will also be a stimulus to better work.

For a crowded country like ours to maintain a leading position in industry is obviously a necessary condition either of welfare or progress. It is of first importance to secure work of high quality. A highly civilised and trained nation must hold its own by the superior quality of the articles produced as well as by being able to supply both its own needs and to compete in prices with others by the quantity of output. It may be possible, for example, to hold the market for fine spinning when other countries are well able to supply coarse yarns from their own factories.

It is essential if the workers are to make it their aim to increase production and to use every effort with that object, that they should know that of a certainty, and at once, they will get a benefit from what is done. At present it is commonly the case that in order to obtain an adequate wage the worker works overtime, and presses to have overtime work, because the rate of pay for overtime is higher, and that during the normal hours of work he does less. Cases have actually been known in which the worst class of workmen play during the greater part of the week, and then have gone, during the War at all events, to work for the week-end, including Sunday, at a very high rate of wages at some other place. In the short time of working at abnormal rates they have gained as high wages as the steady and efficient workman who keeps steadily at work through the normal hours. As long as such conditions exist we shall not have the shorter hours which are necessary for healthy and happy life, and we shall have the friction and irritation which arise from too long hours of work. A higher rate of wages during shorter hours of work, when the work is done with vigour and efficiency, and the certainty that the wage will be increased if results are favourable, are necessary conditions for industrial welfare and industrial peace. The wage system should be so designed as to make it clear that the wage is a share in the industry's earnings which is to advance as these earnings advance. A "regulated slide of wages rising with the prosperity of the industry as a whole" would help to secure this without friction. Methods of industrial remuneration giving an assur

The methods already tried include the more general adoption of piece-wage, progressive wage arranged in various ways giving a fixed rate for the hours worked plus an additional sum proportionate to the excess of output over a fixed standard, collective piece-work, contract work, co-operative work, sub-contract, profit-sharing in various forms including special bonus, product-sharing, and industrial co-operation.

Each method should be considered on its merits, in the light of the experience already gained, and having regard to its applicability to each class of industry. The aim and the principles which must guide endeavours to achieve it are clearly stated by Mr. Schloss:

"But while a reduction of hours of labour, say to eight hours in the day, may readily be admitted to be on grounds both economic or social highly desirable, yet it is no less desirable that during those eight hours every working man in the country shall use his best available tools and machinery, and, performing as much labour as he can perform without exerting himself to an extent prejudicial to his health or inconsistent with his reasonable comfort, produce an output as large as possible. In the interest of the people as a whole it is expedient that the remuneration of the labour of the industrial classes shall be increased, and since this remuneration is paid out of the national income, it is a matter of great importance not only that the working classes shall succeed in obtaining for themselves a far ampler share in the national income than they at present receive, but also that the productive powers of the working classes shall be exercised in a manner calculated to secure that this income shall be of the largest possible dimensions."

FOOTNOTES:

[6]

This chapter is intended to refer to what may be regarded as normal conditions. In some cases the recent rise in wages has been excessive. The present position is chaotic, and the ill-advised manner in which the 12-1/2 per cent. advance was made has added to labour troubles and will cause great difficulty in the future.