16 
OUR INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS. 
By “Alter Ego” (COLONEL BYRON. 7 Pine-street. West Perth.) 
Tt is, I think, both unnecessary and inad- 
visable to probe into the causes which 
have brought about the present friction 
setween the employer and the employee— 
between “capital” and “labour.” What- 
ever the causes are or were, their discus- 
sion can be of ne help towards finding a so- 
lution which will be a permanent benefit to 
both parties. Two things, however, are 
quite clear to my mind—first, that any 
sound solution must take time to evolve 
and, secondly, that considerable self-sacri- 
fice must be forthcoming from both sides. 
If a permanent solution is to be sought 
for, it is necessary in the first place to 
set up some sort of objective at which to 
aim, and then to.formulate a constructive 
scheme which will definitely lead up to it. 
[ have no fanciful “Utopia” in my mind, 
but a standard of industrial conditions 
which are both equitable to all concerned 
and, at the same time, perfectly practical. 
This standard is embodied in the following 
principle:—“That capital and labour, each 
of them being indespensible to industry, 
have an equal right to share in the fruits 
of industry,” and it is upon this prin. 
ciple that the relationship between the 
two must be built up. 
And here I would like to give a word of 
warning to ‘capital’ —something like the 
warning which the “old men” gave to 
King Rehoboam in ancient Jewish history. 
Unless “capital” is prepared to hold out 
the hand of goodfellowship to labour, and 
accept this principle now, the time will 
certainly come—I do not say to-day or to- 
morrow, but within the life time of the 
present generation—when labour will make 
demands which will be a hundredfold more 
disastrous to “capital 
The First Step. 
I am quite sure that no scheme can 
have any las ing good effect until a com- 
plete change has been brought about im 
the mental relationship between the em- 
ployer and the employee. As with the 
great nations of the world who, having set 
up in the League of Nations as the ma- 
chinery for preventing war, now find it 
necessary to enter into a pact for the re- 
pudiation of war for the purpose of 
creating an atmosphere of peace among 
themselves, so in the industrial world it 1s 
sssential to ereate an atmosphere of peace 
and. goodwill—a feeling of inter-depend- 
ence and partoership, if you like—before 
any industrial machinery can be success- 
fully set up to improve the material rela- 
tionships between capital and labour. 
This “atmosphere” zan be created out 
here in Australia in exactly the same man- 
ner as it is being created by degrees in a 
large number of busine. houses in Eng- 
land and in America, to-day; that is by 
“Factory Welfare” work. 
_At home, as a member of the Rotary 
Club, I served om the “Factory Welfare” 
committee and had the opportunity of 
studying first-hand what is, I believe, the 
most important factor in bringing about 
the right relationship and perfect under: 
standing between the employer and the 
employee. I will give just one instance. 
The factory was a large one, employing 
7,000 hauds, and we were, therefore, able 
to see a complete scheme of welfare work 
in one establishment. Such a comprehen- 
give scheme could not, of course, be car- 
ried out in its entirety by small places of 
business, but these are now, in many 
places, co-operating together with exactly 
the same end in view and are reaping exact- 
ly the same benefits—both emvlover and 
amployee. 
At the factory which 1 have in ind, 
there are eleven men and women who do 
nothing else but welf. re work, supervising 
organising and improving it. Young boys 
and girls who are taken on at the Erctory 
have to pass a short general-knowledge 
examination, and are then taken round the 
factory and shown all the departments; 
which ever department they faucy, they 
are put into. provided there is a vacancy. 
Al' threneh ‘their growing aze they are 
Rrichten Your Home with “The Western Mail.”