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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0720.PDF
known bank director, and a committee was appointed to inquire into the subject and to make a report. WHAT the Iroquois think of Lieut. Falchaire, a French air-man who flew from Washington to Montreal recently, and who has given an exhibition flight at the Caughnawaga IndianReserve, is embodied in the name, " Giant War Eagle, Chief of the Deep Sky," under which the Lieutenant was admitted tothe tribe. — « mHow this war is bringing our heroes of the trenches to the front has been exemplified again and again, and individualdeeds by the tens of thousands must ever live in history. Air-raids have also been responsible for many a surprise inthe discovery of home heroes in varying grades of life. It is left to Miss Eva Moore to have discovered and noted stillanother case of chivalry for which these nocturnal episodes are responsible. The happenings in this particular instancewere described by Miss Moore last week at a meeting at the Mansion House in aid of the Theatre Girls' Club. A girl,on an omnibus, was telling her friend her experience of an air raid. At the sound of the first maroon a soldier near herput his arm round her waist and when the second maroon JUNE 27, 1918. went off he kissed her. What the girl wanted to know fromher friend was if she met the soldier again, should she bow to him or watt for him to recognise her ? Miss Moore who said the soldier had done what he thoughtwas helpful—and it was a chivalrous action—pointed the moral by asking for the same kind of support for the club. Weventure to think there should be no lack of response. IN Hunland they have a Ludendorff Fund for CrippledSoldiers. Aviation, as in this little island, has been pressed into the service to help forward the wounded men's fund, anaircraft works at Travemiinde in the Baltic, having insti- tuted rides for seaside visitors this summer in aeroplanes,either overland or the sea, at 50s. per trip. ONE who has been watching recent base-ball games near London suggests that here is the ideal costume for special constables and others who have to be in the streets on air- raid nights. This certainly sounds more simple than the proposal of another reader that the safest way to avoid les Oeufs Gothas would be to don a diving suit and get into the Serpentine or any other liquid shelter available, where the risk of fire and explosion would be reduced to a minimum. TRADE PARLIAMENTS AND THEIR WORK. By ERNEST J. P. BENN, Chairman Industrial Reconstruction Council. X THE BIG IDEA IN BUSINESS. THERE will be no lack of material to put upon the agenda paper of the Trade Parliament when once it gets going. Difficulty is more likely to arise owing to the number of questions that the delegates of the various associations and unions will desire to bring up for discussion. When once it is admitted that there is a common interest in a trade which all parties may combine to promote, the possibilities of action widen so rapidly that Trade Parliaments will have to exercise care and discretion in the subjects to which they will devote the limited time at their disposal. It is com- paratively easy, as I - have done in these chapters, to take a subject at a time and state the various problems that arise in connection with it. In such matters as rationing, demobilisa- tion, the disposal of Government stores, or science or educa- tion, the scope of the Trade Parliaments is well defined and obvious, but the work of these bodies will extend far beyond the limits of these special branches of work. Their greatest interest is to be found in the fact that they are the embodi- ment of the new spirit in industry which is the definite outccome of the present war. When the economic history of the last four years comes to be written, it will be pointed out that a revolution, far more important than the industrial revolution a century ago, was quietly wrought in the minds of the people while the guns of the nations were roaring on the battlefields of Europe. Whether it is the result of the comradeship of the trenches or of the general awakening to realities that has taken place since 1914, it is undoubtedly the fact that we are beginning to look upon trade and industry from an entirely new point of view. Instead of the sordid ideas of the past, the sentiments of the future will insist upon the raising of our vocational activities to a much higher place in the social order. Trade as a national service; industry as a social obligation ; production as the source of all prosperity; waste in materials or methods, in goods or in effort as a crime against the community. These are the sentiments which are generally spreading through the ranks of both employers and employed, and which are having the effect of changing the traditional point of view of both parties. It must not be assumed from all this that the workers will in future eease to take an interest in the rate of wages paid or that employers will no longer be concerned with the percentage that can be obtained upon their capital. The reverse is, of course, the case. Labour will never go back to the wages of 1914, while unless the rate of interest upon capital is higher than it was the shortage of that commodity will be sorely felt by industry. Trade of the future must produce more to all parties engaged in it than in the past. In asking, therefore, both employers and employed to shoulder national and social obligations which they have not recognised as theirs in the past, there is no suggestion that they should sacrifice any of that reward which they are entitled to look for as a result of their efforts. Just as by subscribing to War Loan one renders a service to the country and makes a good personal investment, so by taking a national point of view in regard to one's business one may promote the interests of the community and at the same time strengthen one's personal position. The solid fact is that our trades, as trades, have never been given a real chance in the past. They have been torn to pieces between contending parties To begin with, the various firms or companies engaged in a trade have wasted a very large proportion of their energies in senselessly fighting one another, while Labour and Capital have entenched themselves in two opposing camps, and, at the expense of trade, have devoted a great deal of time, money, and effort to squabbling. A simple illustration will make this point clear. The American Government recently conducted an enquiry into the condition of the pottery trade in Great Britain, Germany, and America, and produced a volume of statistics and information which is worth the study of every business man. It is shown in this volume that Labour and Capital between them take 58 per cent, of the product of the trade in America and 44 per cent, here. In Great Britain Capital gets 5 per cent, and Labour 39 per cent., and in America Capital takes 10 per cent, and Labour 48 per cent. If the English trade unions were to succeed in securing the whole of the product of the industry as at present carried on they could only get 44 per cent., whereas their American cousins are to-day taking 48 per cent., and there is still a handsome margin left for Capital. The present suggestion is simply that Labour and Capital should put their heads together, as, indeed, they have done in the National Pottery Council, in order to see how they can contrive to get the superior return from their trade that is secured in America. By combined effort and by scientific study of all the circumstances they can actually secure between them a bigger gross figure than that over which they were inclined to squabble in the past. There is a more serious aspect even than this. With the American trade organised as it is, and with the statistics and information and science which it has at its disposal, it is able not only to take 58 per cent, of the product for itself, but to threaten very seriously every market of the world. These are some of the considerations that have brought Labour and Capital together in the pottery business and that led to the establishment of the National Pottery Council, and I do not doubt that, as a result of that move- ment, the English pottery trade will not only very much improve the personal position of all those who depend upon it, but will be able to re-establish the paramount position of English pottery in the markets of the world. Thus we are gradually beginning to get a new conception of in- dustry, and we are beginning to realise the truth that the whole is greater than the part. We are beginning to under- stand that if we would promote our individual interests, the best way to achieve, that, obje.ct is to join hands with others similarly situated and woTk together for the common good. Patriotism and self-interest run hand in hand in this matter, because while Labour desires to improve its standard of living and Capital is actuated by the same sort of motives, the nation which contains both is in urgent need of a great increase in the rate of production of wealth. If industry, instead of consisting of a lot of factions of individuals striving for their own ends, were transformed into solid masses of citizens working for the national good, the cost of the war— gigantic as it is—would not present those difficulties which economists, who base their theories upon past experience, are so constantly putting before us. 718
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