The Connecticut labor press., 1919-08-02
VANDERBILT WRITES IMPRESSIONS OF LABOR CONDITIONS IN ENGLAND Lord Leverhum Hour DayArthur Henderson Looks a socialized state-Labor
 Leaders

Frank A. Vanderlip, the well-knowr American banker, recently returned tc this country after survey ot Euro pean conditions. In his impressions ot his trip he writes at some length about labor in England, He says:
 Land owners whose title dated back to royal grants made i'll the 14th cen turv were being distressingly grilled lr public as to why a royal dispensation ir the thirteen hundreds entitled them to levy tribute on every ton ot coal to- day, when human beings who happened to be miners were left with division that gave them share in the prohts of an extremely profitable business which would not maintain standard of living under present conditions.
 q regretted that this examination did not bring out as it might the true req son why land titles should be protected The reason is not because those titles were granted some centuries ago. 1t IS because ill the main 1t has been well demonstrated that it is better for society that land titles should be protected Every communistic experiment ln hold ing land has in the end led to deterlora- ton of the land and to less efficient cultivation. It is not for the benefit ot the individual land holder that land should be protected. It is because the weight of evidence indicates that 1t IS better for society itself. Tt> must be admitted in the case of the English coal lands, however, that the action ot the owners had certainly obscured this point.
 "The labor leaders with whom 1 talk ed impressed me profoundly. They were men who had come up from the ranks, but they were not agitators. They were patriotic Englishmen with great love for their country and with hope for 5 its future Some of them were men with no great amount of culture, but with wide knowledge. They had an un- derstanding of economics that could only have been obtained by men who recognized that these laws were of transcendant importance and that the principles of action under which they led unions embracing half a million men must be formulated in accordance with sound economic principles or the leadership would go astray.
 ''In the main these leaders wanted nc Socialistic state and believed that the best future of English labor and of the British state lay in a maintenance o1 the present social order. Some ot them, notably Arthur Henderson and Prof. Cole, did not agree with this view and looked forward to an ultl- mate Socia1ized state. But they pre-, sented their views with a saneness anc moderation of programme which, tc say the least, entitled them to re spectful hearing.
 All agreed that the wing of the Labor party which believed that it wa: desirable ultimately to overthrow the present order of the capitalistic state and to substitute for it communlstft society did not represent over 10 to l. per cent of the organized 1aborers, bu it was agreed that this minority wa! led with great skill; that it understood the power of propaganda, while the more conservative maj jority was phleg matic and lacked assertion. It wa! agreed, too, that while the radica minority was at present small, its rank; would be potentially increased if llv ing conditions became more seriously difficult
 The great employers of labor whom I met were probably representative O. the most advanced and liberal thinking employers. Lord Leverhu1me, for ex ample, is the open advocate of a si2 hour day, having reached that conclu
 
 accomplish as much in six hours as il longer working period, but he think industry must use its machinery to ; greater advantage than keeping it em ployed for one-third of the "A hours He therefore concludes that two shift of six hours a day present the ult1 mate solution.
 II cannot but believe that there i still a great mass of Tory thought il the employing classes. It Is certain tha broadly speaking, employers are thor oughly awake to the necessity for con sessions to labor. There is an awak ened consciousness of responsibility 10 unemployment The industrial theor. that labor is a commodity to be bough when wanted on the best terms that tn bargain can be made is disappearing The idea that there should be a genu inc minimum wage, varying with differ ent localities and conditions, but ap plicable to every one, is gaining ground
 Employers minds are beginning tC wonder If industry has not been short sighted in leaving labor always i'll state of apprehension i'll regard to tn stability of its position and at least tt question, if not fully to admit, tha - industry would gain in efficiency unde system of unemployment insurance The aspirations of labor for a large voice in the management of industry i being listened to with attention, anc on every hand there is recognition tha in the future labor will have, and il justice should have, larger division of profits of industry either in the form of profit sharing or, what seems more practical for the present at least, maxi mum wages above minimum standards So far as the government officials art concerned they seemed intelligently anc keenly awake to the various questions involved in the labor problem, but li<, all governments, move slowly in posi- tive action"