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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0455.PDF
APRIL 25, 1918. TRADE PARLIAMENTS AND THEIR WORK. By ERNEST J. P. BENN, Chairman Industrial Reconstruction Council. I —INTRODUCTORY.THE industrial world is beginning to realise that if we are to reap the full benefits from all the sacrifices of this great warit is essential to think well ahead, and so plan ( ur trading machinery that we shall be able to get on rapidly and smoothlywhen once again we resume our peaceful occupations. In thinking out arrangements for the after-the-war pcricd wemust not allow ourselves to be carried away with the idea that the war is coming to an end, or is likely to come to anend in the near future. There are some unthinking people who are inclined to dismiss reconstruction schemes with asneering injunction to " get on with the war." These people misunderstand the whole spirit of reconstruction. They failentirely to realise the spirit of the war itself, and they will experience a rude awakening when the war does come to anend and they find themselves in a new world brimful of new ideas, new hrpes, new standards, and new conceptions. Itwould indeed be little short of a catastrophe if when we have spent the best of our blocd and trea:-ure in this great strugglewe should be unprepared with plans for reaping the just reward of such sacrifice, and the least that those of us whoremain at home can do, in justice to our fighters,is to endeavour so to arrange matters in the Old Country that when the•soldier returns he may truly say that it has been worth fighting for. There are still many people, and I regret to:say they exist very largely in the business class, who are hugging the fond delusion that we are going back to themanners and methods of 1914. I beg them to believe that nothing of the kind will happen. Those who had the oppor-tunity of hearing Mr. Ernest Bevin at the inaugural meeting of the I.R.C. at the Guildhall, London, are under no mis-apprehension on the matter, and they will agree with me that there are only two alternatives now before the businesscommunity. Trade, industry, business, commerce—call it what you will—has either to face a revolution on a scale suchas we have never experienced before, or there must be a frank acknowledgment on the part of employers as well as-employed that it will be carried on in the future with very different ideas from those which have prevailed in the past.Wages and profits, which have hitherto been regarded as the only things that mattered, must be put into their prcperplace, and each trade must realise that it is a part of the social organism, a part of the national life, and that thera'ion expects from it that it will take its full share of the burdens which have come to us from the war—that it will, infact, have to be carried on as a branch of national service, and that labour, management, capital and all parties willhave to join together to see that these things are done. Thanks to the growth of trade organisation and the develop-ment of the co-operative spirit, these ideals are getting a little nearer. Twenty years ago it was the exception ratherthan the rule to find two men of a trade who were on speaking terms ; to-day it is difficult to find a manufacturer who is not working in close association with all his competitors-The same process has been going on in the ranks of Labour, until it may b? said that the work that remains is surely nomore difficult than the work which has been done. If we have succeeded in eliminating most of the follies which kepttradesmen of a kind from association with one another, surely it should be as easy to eliminate the follies which are keepingemployers and employed in the same trade in two opposing camps. The work of the immediate future which centresaround the Whitley Report is simply in effect to complete the prccess of organisation, which has now reached a remark-able stage of development. I propose in this series of articles to endeavour to help onthat prccess by sketching briefly in a practical way, some of , the work that is urgently waiting to be done by Trade Parlia-ments. I shall take it for granted that the Whitley Report is accepted by the reader, and that labour and capital arejoined together for every trade in a Joint Standing Industrial Council, or, as I prefer to call it, a Trade Parliament, for thebenefit of that trade, and I shall endeavour to show, by discussing the work that lies before these Councils, the needifor bringing them into being without further delay. To form a Whitley Council it is necessary to define a trade,'and this is, perhaps, the greatest difficulty that has to be faced. It is, for instance, agreed that 'glass-bevelling is partof the furniture trade and not part of the glass trade. This one illustration will suffice to show how extremely difficultis the task of demarcating industries. Having defined the limits of a trade, it then becomes necessary to find organisa-tions of both employers and employed, whose limits are also confined within the trade, and arrange between these bodiestheir respective rights for representation upon a Council. It will, therefore, be seen that the formation of a TradeParliament, or a Whitley Council, is not and cannot be simple. The definition of a trade and the drawing up of aconstitution are in themselves two very big and complicated problems. When,' however, we come to consider, as we shallin succeeding articles, the importance of the work which is awaiting these bodies, and the vital necessity that this workshould be done, it will without doubt be agreed that no effort is too great to overcome these initial difficulties. In conclusion it may be well to set out exactly the constitu-tion of a Trade Parliament. It will consist first of representa- tives of associations only—that is to say, no individuals assuch will have any rights upon it ; seats will be equally divided between representatives of employers' associationsand representatives of trade unions ; it will, when constituted, act as the link between the Government and the trade, and will,it is hoped, take over many of the functions now exercised by Government Departments so far as its trade is concerned. (To be continued.) CAPTAIN BARON VON RICHTHOFEN KILLED. WHEN the official German communique of April 21st,.announcing that " Cavalry Captain Baron von Richthofen, at the head of his trusty nth Pursuit Flight, has gained his79th and 80th victories in the air," was being published, this famous fighting pilot was lying dead in the Somme valley,which he described in his book as his happy hunting-ground. He had been brought down in the British lines, and was buriedwith military honours on April 22nd in a village near where he fell, his coffin being borne to the grave by six officers cfthe R.A.F., and there was a firing party of Australians. According to the Times correspondent, Capt. Richthofen wasflying a Fokker triplane, No. 2,009, with Le Rhone engines, made in Frankfurt in March, 1918. The official German account of the end of Captain vonRichthofen, as received in Holland, says: "Captain Baron Manfred von Richthofen failed to return from a flying raid-on the Somme on April 21st. According to the unanimous declarations of those accompanying him, and the observationsof various spectators on the ground, Captain ven Richthofen pursued an enemy battleplane to the ground. He was at alow altitude, when apparently a defect in the motor forced him to land behind the enemy lines. As the landing waseffected, without mishap, there was hope that Captain von Richthofen was captured unhurt. Reuter's report of April23rd, however, no longer leaves any doubt that Captain von Richthofen met his death. Since Captain von Richthofenwas the pursuer, he cannot well have been hit by his oppo- nent in the air; he appears rather to have fallen a victim toa chance hit from the ground." " A very interesting d cument, which may throw some.light upon the cause which led to the death of Baron von Richthofen has come into our hands," says Reuter's corre»spondent with the British Army. " It is a request from ' Group-Commander of Aviation No. 12,' who would corre-spond to a British corps wing commander, to the ' First Pursuit Squadron,' until Sunday last commanded byRichthofen, and runs as follows:— "'Airman reports that it is not possible to fly over theAncre in a westerly direction on account of strong enemy opposition. I request that this aerial barrage may be forcedback in order that a reconnaissance up to the line Marieux- Puchevillers may be carried out.' " A more convincing testimonial to our activity in the aircould scarcely be conceived." The Captain's name first appeared in German communiques .on February i^th, 1917, when, as lieutenant, he was said to ; have won his 20th and 21st aerial victories. By April 9thhe was credited with 40 ; on September 4th with 61, and on March 27th of this year with 70. It was claimed thaton April 28th, 1917, he shot down five enemy machines. He was appointed commander of the nth squadron afterhe had brought down his 16th machine in the beginning of 1917, and two days later he was decorated with the OrderPour le Merite. On the occasion of his 50th victory he re- ceived a letter of congratulation from the Kaiser, and duringthe last month he was given the Order of the Red Eagle with crown and swords. Captain Richthofen had his first experience of aerialfighting in Captain Boelke's squadron. It may be recalled that when Captain Boelke was killed in October, 1916, !hewas officially-credited with 38 victories, while Immelmann had only 15 to his credit when he fell in June, 1916. 45$
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