The labor standard., 1919-05-15
LABOR'S DEMANDS
 IN OLD ENGLAND
Committee of Eighteen Appoint
 ed at Conference of London
 Manufacturers and Employees Make Very Interesting Report
(Rv Mrs. A. G. Porritt.)

April is an important month for British labor, and in the week begin ming April 20 annual conferences of general meetings of a large number of labor organizations were in session. The most important of these were the conference of the Independent Labor Party-the party led by Philip Snow den and Ramsay Macdonald, and that of the National Union of Teachers. held at the same time were those of the Clothier Operatives, the Shop Assistants Union, and the Union of Cooperative Employees. The Shop Assistants Union marks the progress of men and women who are employed in what has been the worst paid and least privileged of any class of English labor. The National Teach ers' Union marks the uprising of a class of workers who were formerly unwilling to adopt the methods of the trade unions, but who have discovered that only through union conducted on strictly trade union lines, is it pos sible for them to insist on better pay and improved conditions for all the teachers in the public schools of England, Scotland, and Wales.
 Industry Belongs Neither to Capital or Labor"
 Just at the time that all these con- ferences were sitting, a committee which had been appointed at a confer ence of London manufacturers and employees made it's report. The com mittee consisted of nine representa- tives of the employers and nine of labor, and it's report was a compro- mise accepted by both. This compro- mise, although it does not concede to the full the demands put forward by English labor, is an indication of how far the employers are willing to go to avert what appears to them to be a threatening revolution.
 The principles agreed upon by the committee are as follows:
 1 Industry rightly belongs neither to the capitalists nor to labor. 1t IS the organization by which are pro- duced the commodities necessary for which they form the industrial consti- tuents, and in whose service it should be carried on by them in trust. 2 Capital and labor are morally and economically partners in industry, and by reason of their different func- tions, no distinction can exist in the relative importance of the services rendered by each.
 Neither the control of industry nor it's benefits can rightfully be claimed or advantageously possessed either by owners of capital invested or labor engaged to the exclusion of the other.
 The function of capital is that it be applied productively and sufici- ently for the general good.
 The function of labor is to pro- duce to it's full capacity.
 The standard of living, repre- senting as it does, the division of the commodities produced by the commu- nifty among it's members, is directly proportional to production, provided that the said division is equitable, having regard to services rendered. The rewards rightly due for ser vices rendered are as follows: Firstly secondly to capital in respect to money secured by assets, reasonable fixed rate of interest, sufficient to secure it's employment; thirdly to labor fifty per cent. of the net divis- ible profits to Capital 50 per cent. of the net divisible profits.
 The term labor comprises work CTS both by hand and brain, and in- cludes management.
 The report also recommended scheme of control of industry by General Works Council composed of an equal number of representatives of the management and the workers. This scheme is somewhat elaborate and does not concede to the full the present demands of labor. But on the part of capital there is the distinct recognition that the workers are en- titled to a voice in the management of industry, which marks long step forward from the attitude still taken by the majority of employers.