25
OUR INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS.
By “Sigma’’ (F. SINCLAIRE, 54 Wattle-read, Hawthorn. Victoria.)
We must begin by setting our aspira-
tions in a reasonable key. Our instrument
is human nature, not as it should be or
might be or is te be, but as it is. We are
legislating not for Utopia or for any
earthly Paradise, but for the actual world.
In such a world the possibilities of change
are indeed great and even incaleulable,
but they are not unlimited. The refusal
to accept limitations is the flaw in the
towering and splendid visions of many
noble idealists. There is almost nothing
amiss with their schemes except the fatal
fact that people will not adopt them. We
begin therefore by humbly disclaiming
the search for a perfect society. ‘“That
no grievance ever should arise jin the
commonwealth,” says Milton, “that let
no man in this worid expect.’ Our prob-
lem is how to produce such an approxima-
tion to perfect justice and perfect stabil
ity as can be attained by men who are
not perfect. We proceed on the assump-
tion that imperfect things may be made
indefinitely better, and that as in the past
56 in the present men who are incapable
of responding to an uitra-heroic appeal are
yet able and willing to esercise intelli
gence and good will in ‘the. effort to re-
move glaring evils.
Co-operation or Conflitt,
We are not the first in the field. Wis-
lom will not die with us, folly was not
born with us We must accept our ine
heritance, for good or bad, as we find 1t,
We are like chess-players called upon to
take a hand in a complicated game al-
ready in process, and we must accept the
Joe and bad moves of those who have
eft the game where it is. In the society
into which we are bern, we observe at
work two opposite fnrces, the principle of
co-operation and the principle of con-
flict. Of the two it is the former that
is the less obtrusive and dramatic. But
it is there, or our society would fall to
pieces. What chiefly attracts our atten-
tion is the more dramatic element of eon-
flict. We live in a world of industrial
strife. Whether we like it or not, the
‘orces of Labour and the forces of Capital
are not acting in perfect co-operation,
“Industrial unrest” is the euphemistie
name commonly given to that outstandieg
feature of our social life which is. somes
times more picturesquely described as the
“class war.” If the one phrase is too
suggestive of violence, the other is a
ludicrously mild description of the actual
facts. Two organised forees, on whose co-
operation we are dependent for our mate-
rial existence, meet from time, to time
in open battle, and in the longer or shore
ter intervals of “industrial peace” are
consolidating their rival forces and pro-
viding against the next battle which both
sides regard as inevitable. As in the
case of wars between nation and nation,
so here each side accuses the other of
aggression, professes to act only in self-
dence—and goes on preparing. Our trade
unions and Silage federations are like
the fellow in Shakespeare who “claps his
sword upon the table and says ‘God send
me no need of thee’ ””; and presently
iraws it “when indeed, there is no need.”
For indeed, as it is the purpose of this
sgsay to show, ‘there is no need.” To
say this 18 not to fall into the error of
those industrial fakes who would end
the conflict by refusing to acknowledge it.
To aim at industrial peace is to begin by
recognising the state of war which exists.
This is not to ram the class war, as
is sometimes foolishly imagined, for that
would be to admit its wisdom and. neces
sity, which is just what we deny.
A Fight In the Dark.
Now the tragedy of all war lies not
nerely in the fact of conflict, for con.
flict in some form or other is apparently
v condition of progress and even of life
itself; wor yet in the waste of material
snd spiritual energy which it involves, for
Pack all vour troubles in your old kit bag and read ‘The Western Mail’
