OUR INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS. 
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(By * 
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lar Plexus.”) 
To help in unravelling the knotty ques. 
jon—how to improve our industrial state 
Jf affairs—it will be necessary to take 
the gloves off and without any com- 
promise show where the fault lies, and, if 
nossible, give some constructive ideas that 
may help to do good to the masses. So, 
if during this article, should at any time 
the remarks appear too caustic, the writer 
would ask the reader to remember that 
he (the writer) has been a unionist for 
nearly twenty years, and has always had 
at heart the interest of the workers and 
their families, and was (to the best of his 
belief) the first publicly fo propose Child- 
hood Endowment. 
The first question is, is there anything 
wrong with Australia from an industrial 
point of view? 
To answer that question we must con. 
sider how industrial matters should be in 
Australia and how they actually are. 
During the last ten years Australia’s 
main exportable articles have been cons 
sistently bringing phenomenal prices and 
wealth, through them, has poured into the 
country, and if all were well anyone who 
chose to work should find it easy to obtain 
highly remunerative employment. 
and others that contain tens of millions 
of pounds’ worth of gold and other miner- 
als that should be going into the pockets 
of the workers, shareholders, and other 
members of the community, are marking 
-ime waiting a better assurance of the con- 
tinuity of labour, and many manufacture 
ing industries for the same reason have 
been afraid to start. The remark over- 
heard some days ago of one working man 
to another discussing the outlook. sums 
up the situation: “I reckon any capitalist 
putting his dough into a business nowadays 
is a b—— mug” 
We have now diagnosed the industrial 
aondition, and it is, we will say (not to 
on our friend’s more virile adjective) very 
sad. 
Before attempting to apportion the 
slame to any one or more parties it would 
se well to consider the proportional ine 
terest of the different members of the 
sommunity in the average industry. 
It is so palpable that the average indus- 
ry pays very much more money directly 
to the workers and indirectly to the coms 
munity than it does to the so-called owner 
that the closing down or checking of any 
such industry does far more harm to the 
two other parties than to the so-called 
owner. This being granted, industries 
now existent and in embryo should be helps 
sd as much as possible by the workers 
and the general public. as well as by the 
IWners. 
To give an example--some years ago, 
quoting from memory, the output of the 
W.A. mines was given as 140 million 
pounds, of which 19 milljons had been 
returned to shareholders in the shape of 
dividends; the bulk of the balance, about 
120 millions, had been paid for labour and 
material, ete. 
Further, all parties should be agreed that 
labour should obtain the best wages and 
conditions that the annual wealth of the 
country ean give, while recognising the 
fact that too high a standard will only 
ripple industries and cause unemploy-e 
Tent on a large scale. We now have these 
sastulates:— 
Is it too much to assume that if the 
two great factors in the production of 
wealth—labour and capital—had worksd 
together amicably they would have gare 
nered the fruits ready to drop, and Aus. 
tralia would be to-day the most prosper 
pus and contented country in the world. 
Now what is the actual situation? With 
all the wee'th pouring in but without a 
great deal more that should be pouring 
in, the industrial position is in a fearful 
state; unemployment is rife, poverty is 
rampant; and no one can look ahead with 
any assurance of things being better. The 
coal export trade has been strangled, half 
the coastal shipping is lying rotting, our 
Nommonwealth Line has had to go, mines 
‘hat should be payable had closed down 
The Complete Home 
Paner is 
“The Western Mail”