Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1925-04-24
SOUND POLICIES
ALWAYS PAY
BRITISH LEARN

British employers nave been asked
bv Prime Minister Baldwin TO nave
a lock at their affairs to see II some
of tfe trouble with British Industry
doesn't lie within their Own doors.
Il mas been next 10 impossible to
find in American ewspapers even
partial report Of the important speech
delivered by Mr. Baldwin before me
British parliament, or OF the equalis
important speech delivered BY HIM the
night before at Birmingham.
Bur the premier suggested TO hls
audience Of employers that they eA-
anime into their affairs 10 md Out
whether their industries we're over
capitalized, whether management was
defective. whether there was waste
in IN use of plant and material anu
whether marketing was done as ell
GENTLY as It ought to be done ne
asked them also to observe whe'her
so-called unskilled labor Is more gen
orally used in other countries than IN
England.
Mr.. Baldwin suggested, in his talk
TO the House of Commons, that there
be an industrial truce and JOINT
labor-employer cooperation In exam
ination of the industries OF Great
| Britain. Ii.
Serious things have been taking
place in British industry. Not only
nave the British unions gone through
a period OF slumping membership
but there has been a long and tefIlilc
fight against unemployment. Inc
EMPLOYERS. too, have had their great
trials. Even now they watch snip
building order worth million pouhas
sterling 90 from British ship OWnet'
to Hamburg. And they watch Whlis
German steel undersells British steel
The agreement of the British MN
efs TO enter into a joint committee
with the employers--the committee Il
have eight miner members and "a
many employer members-to exam
inc INTO the reasons for the depfes
sion in the coal trade, domestic ant
export, is no doubt in line with the
:. Baldwin plea.
! Developments of this character In
dictate that something constructive Il
going to be done TO help Brltlsi
workers get up out of the slough mt
which they were plunged after I'M
armistice. These Developments 1901
good. They promise action base,
upon a discovery of the facts.
1t is interesting to recall, however
that il is Just short space back 4
the time when British labor leader
, were telling the American trade unlol
movement how to find short cuts I
salvation. Between 1916 and W.
almost every imaginable panacea wa
offered free of charge to American
labor by British labor leaders and b,
those who in England are allowed L
call themselves labor leaders.
We are offered, one by one, eacI
guaranteed a sure cure, the ssho
! stewards, the Whitley councils, direc
. action, and the political party. Their
: were other minor cures, but thes
stand out as the major offerings
Great Britain has had all of these Il
: liberal doses, but none of them effect
ed a cure. We do not offer the taun'
physician, heal myself" but we d
offer congratuation on what look
at the moment like an abandonment
of hope in panaceas and the adoptlo
, of rational, constructive, scientlfi
action.
1t is something like two years ag
D since the American Federation of La
: Dor, through its president, Samut
: Gompers, offered to American employ
ers in an hour of sore trial, substar
TALLY what is now offered in Englan
"a Joint inquiry into industry to fin
a out what was wrong, to find and sto
! friction, waste, injustice. For a
0 equal period that very same idea ha
been producing results on the Bait
J, more & Ohio Railroad.
Constructive policies vindicate then
selves sooner or later. lmpractic:
5 theorizng ultimately reveals its ow
$ weaknesses. Sometimes it takes
long time, but it is unfailingly thu
: in the end.