Our Industrial Problems. 
47 
men and markets. or transport, or other 
consequences of our youth, size and iso- 
lation. The fundamental problem, here as 
elsewhere, is the reconciliation of these 
apposing forees. Time and industrial peace 
would solve tiie minor problems, were this 
nne solved, But this is only a re-statement 
of the problem, not a solution. It remains 
to inquire by what nieans such a recon- 
eciliation would be clfected. 
eas, www waves ta dgnore Fis insistence 
in the spirit of brotherhood, that we in 
the twentieth century are beginning to 
glimpse as a solution of all our problems.) 
Not even en history do the sceptics base 
their claim. As a world-famous lecturer 
sald in Sydney the other day: “If I'd 
zone to one of those Italian city States of 
500 years ago, and told them that one day 
their walls would crumble, and Milanese 
xd Florentines “would be living together 
under one nationality, they would no more 
bave believed me than you will believe me 
when I say that the vast walls of armas 
ment which encase the Powers to-day will 
crumble and pass, that people will realise 
an ideal of fellowship greater a million 
times than the savage impulses of suspicion 
and distrust.” 
All through the ages there was never a 
great cause preached, mever a great ideal 
held up before. the people, but found its 
followers. It was the same in the Great 
War. The men who went did not go only 
for fun or adventure or because it was the 
expected thing. These motives played 
their part, but they saw the war as a 
righteous thing, a defence .of something 
weak, a needful oposition. to something 
cruel and arrogant. 
On what grounds then, would it be claims 
ad that the great masses serving in one 
way or another in the armies of industry 
ave incapable of being roused by a great 
ideal~the ideal of peace in industry—coms= 
mon service for the common weal? Are 
they of different flesh from the Crusaders 
or the early. Christians, or the tommies in 
the last war? 
ce 
Means of Feconeiliation, ~° 7° 
Let us consider a parallel caze, Was it 
not a similar problem, and on an equally 
vigantic scale, that bought into being the 
League of Nations? The League of Na- 
tions in an attempt to solve the problem 
of mternational war. The grim alternas 
tive is war aud vet more war, increasingly 
horrible and increasingly cHicient in whole. 
sale destruction, till civilisation has des- 
troyed itself. Men have come to sce that 
the one possible solution of the age-old 
problem of war is the creation ‘of a spirit 
of brotherhood. Few would deny that, 
though some might deny its practicability. 
The League of Nations aims to create, 
and to give expression to, such a spirit of 
brotherhood. * It is aiming in the field of 
international velations, "at the enormous 
task of changing the ideals of governments, 
[ts success and failure will in the end 
depend on how far the average man, the 
individual, is imbued with the same spirit. 
And fhat is the bed-rock difficulty. Is it 
possible to change human nature? 
Before we attempt to discuss that, let us 
turn back from the international to the 
industrial problem.- Is not the parallel 
clear? The world of industry is a world 
at war, with intervals of truce. It has its 
alliances, its combines, its trusts, its na- 
tional and international unions of workers. 
The industrial problem, like the inter- 
aational one is: How, by the removal of 
injustices, to bring permanent peace to all 
these conflicting forces. 
To create industrial peace, to substitute 
co-operation for the strike and the locks 
out, team-work for tariff wars and dump- 
ang and the cut-throat tactics of inter 
national trade—is this quite hopeless—just 
a beautiful dream? The League of Nations 
gives every sign of being a great vision 
realised.” It has had already an effect un- 
paralleled in history. But not yet can we 
be gure of its final success. That depends, 
as does industrial peace, on whether hu 
man nature is capable of improvement. 
The Challenge to Australia. 
But men will not be roused to a spirit 
Jf brotherhood by words. It needed the 
Great War to produce the League of Na« 
tions. Let us Lope that peace in industry 
may not have to be bought at so costly a 
price. The leaders of Labour and Capital 
are waking to the dangers of industrial 
warfare, are growing weary of incessant 
strife. Let Australia take the lead.. Let 
her create a League of Industry, in which 
pvery great group of workers and of em- 
ployers shall be represented. Let the aim 
of the League be to remove injustices and 
preserve peace. Let its members be fired 
with the whole-hearted will that ever finds 
the way. 
And behind the League of Industry must 
be a body of goodwill and belief from the 
rank and file of the nation: To create 
this, to maintain this, is the task of those 
who see visions and dream dreams, They 
it is who will convince, persuade, inspire, 
and just as a little boy, skillfully guided, 
directs his pugnacions instincts into cons 
gtrnetive channels, so the grown-up child 
ren, shown a loftier ideal, will turn from 
the suicidal folly of warfare to the beauty 
and benefits of peace. 
Tet us have the courage of our ideals, 
fs Human Nature Unchangeable. 
The majority of people do believe that 
puman nature is unchangeable. On what 
lo they base this belief? 
Not on evolution, for the whole story of 
svolution is a story of change, 
Not on religion. The central eore of 
the teaching of Christ was the possibility 
of transmuting human dross into gold. 
Men, comfortable in their ordinary selfish- 
Tha 
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