The churches of all denominations, almost without exception, as an essential part of their reconstruction programs and pronouncements, have laid stress upon the acceptance of their members and the public of certain well-defined principles as a guide for the determination of industrial relations and conditions.

INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE ABROAD.

The need for constructive action was realized abroad sooner than in this country. As early as February 15, 1919, Premier LloydGeorge made the announcement that the British Government would convene a national industrial conference of employers and employees for the purpose of discussing the general labor situation and for ascertaining the basic causes of industrial unrest. On February 27, 1919, in response to this call, 800 delegates, 500 representing employees and 300 representing employers, assembled in London under the auspices of the Government. After debate and inquiry through committees, a constructive program embodying fundamental principles and policies was submitted to the Government, embracing three main divisions: (1) Questions relating to wages, hours, and general conditions of employment, (2) unemployment and its prevention, and (3) the best method of promoting cooperation between capital and labor. A permanent standing committee of the conference was created, and it was provided that the full membership of the conference could be reconvened when it was further required.

The British precedent was soon followed by the Dominion Government in Canada. In the formation of the Canadian Industrial Conference, however, an innovation was made. Representatives of the public were invited, placed on committees, and took part in the discussions, but were not permitted to vote. Altogether the conference was composed of 194 delegates, 77 each representing the trade-unions and employers, and 40 the general public.

Primarily the conference met to discuss and take appropriate action on the recommendations of the royal commission on industrial relations. The program which had been prepared, and which, after some modifications, was adopted, laid down the following nine principal topics for discussion:

1. Uniformity in labor legislation throughout the Dominion.

2. Hours of labor.

3. Minimum wage legislation.

4. Employees' right to organize, recognition of labor unions, collective bargaining 5. Proposed establishment of joint industrial councils.

6. State insurance against unemployment, sickness, invalidity, old age, etc.

7. Proportional representation.

8. Application where possible of the principal of democratic management_recom mended by the commission on industrial relations in work controlled by the Govern

ment.

9. Other features of report of the royal commission on industrial relations or any other proposals bearing on relations of employers and employees.

THE INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE. The interchurch world movement which had been launched in this country in December, 1918, had by the creation of a department of industrial relations manifested its vital interest in the problems of labor and industry. Closely following upon the Canadian conference,

Announce

a conference was called by this department of the interchurch movement to convene in New York on October 3, 1919. ment had already been made by President Wilson of the convocation of a general industrial conference in Washington later in the same month, and it was the purpose of the interchurch movement by a preliminary conference to place itself on record before the more. general conference.

About 200 delegates from the different churches met in New York to consider the functions of the church in relation to industrial matters. The findings of the conference were very significant as showing the attitude of the leading religious thinkers of the country on principles for the regulation of industry.

THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE IN THIS COUNTRY.

Prior to the Canadian conference, President Wilson sent out letters to representatives of the public, of employers, and of labor, inviting them to participate in a general industrial conference to meet in Washington under the auspices of the Secretary of Labor, on October 6, 1919. This action was the culmination of considerable public discussion of the subject and agitation to the end that a basis of procedure should be agreed upon between representatives of capital and labor as a condition of reconstruction. The definite purpose of the conference, as stated by the President in his call, was that "of consulting together on the great and vital questions affecting our industrial life, and their consequent effect upon our people. would be the duty of the conference to "discuss such methods as have already been tried out of bringing capital and labor into close cooperation, and to canvass every relevant feature of the present industrial situation for the purpose of enabling us to work out, if possible, in a genuine spirit of cooperation, a practical method of association, based upon a real community of interest, which will redound to the welfare of all our people."

It

The membership of the conference was selected from three groupsemployers, labor, and the public. The employers group consisted of 17 delegates, the labor group of 19, and the public group of 22 members. The differentiation between groups was not as satisfactory as it might have been and was one of the fundamental causes of the lack of success of the conference. In the public group, for example, among publicists and disinterested students were placed John D. Rockefeller, jr., capitalist and employer; Elbert H. Gary, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the United States Steel Corporation; and B. M. Jewell, president, railway employees department, American Federation of Labor which has a membership of more than 1,000,000 railway workers. Unlike the British industrial conference which, it will be recalled, did not have a public group, and the Canadian conference, which had a public group of engineers, economists, and publicists without the right to vote, the American conference not only had a public group, but the public group was given the right to vote. Under the plan of organization it was further provided that voting should be by groups and that action of the conference, to be binding, must be sanctioned by all three of the groups.

At the beginning of the conference each group submitted a program. That of the public group, as submitted by Bernard M. Baruch, chairman of the former War Industries Board, was restricted to proposed machinery for dealing with labor disputes. Labor's program was the set of principles and standards for which organized labor had striven for years, and with the possible exception of the proposed national conference boards in the various industries, it contained little that was new. The employers' program confined itself to a statement of more or less general principles applicable to the management of industry and suggested practically no concrete methods for carrying them into effect. The adoption of the principle that the establishment rather than the industry should be made the unit of production would necessarily limit the settlement of difficult. problems to the means of adjustment furnished by individual establishments. In a few particulars the programs coincided. provided for a living wage, and both advocated equal pay for men and women doing equal work, one day of rest in seven, and the discouragement of overtime.

Both

Several individual plans for the adjustment of disputes between labor and capital were submitted and resolutions dealing with practically all the varied industrial problems were put into the record of the conference. The Secretary of Labor's plan, submitted by the public group, in keeping with the idea of calling an industrial conference, presented a comprehensive program for the adjustment of industrial relations.

The three farmer delegates at the conference were seated with the employer group. They rarely voted with the employers, however, and in principle frequently supported the labor group. The farmer's part in the industrial world was given expression in a fairly definite program which emphasized the fact that the interest of the farmer was both that of a wage earner and also that of an employer. Attention was called to the need of extending Government credit to the farmers and of removing legal obstacles to the cooperative marketing of their products.

The conference split on the question of collective bargaining and trade-unionism. The introduction of a resolution by the labor group recommending the arbitration of the steel strike raised by implication the crucial question of trade-unionism. After prolonged discussion, and the failure to reach any agreement, the labor group finally withdrew from the conference.

In the absence of the labor group on October 22 the conference was unable to work out any program. The employers group left on the same day. The public group held a few sessions at the urgence of the President, who tried vainly to save the conference. This group, however, finally disbanded on October 24, after making public a statement as to the results of the conference. It also recommended the calling together of a new committee to outline and formulate a series of industrial standards covering both the conditions and the relations of employment.

The hopes which had been entertained since the armistice for an agreement and basis of procedure between capital and labor were thus dissipated. The aspirations of industrial statesmanship were for a time absolutely destroyed There was a reversion to chaos and industrial warfare. The tragedy was all the greater for

the public group as well as the representative, broad-minded, farseeing employers who were in accord. The splendid opportunity for constructive action toward industrial peace and the stability and acceleration of production was lost by the obstructionist tactics of certain extreme or reactionary factions. The failure of the conference was, in fact, a terrible catastrophe both to the public and to industry in general, for it marked the abandonment of high hopes following the war for an enduring basis of industrial peace, and was the starting point for the disastrous series of industrial conflicts and tremendous losses with which the country has been afflicted during the past two years. It has not been until recently that there has been any revival of the hopes for constructive action which had been so ruthlessly wrecked in this conference.

THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE.

Acting upon the recommendation of the public group, however, President Wilson soon convened a smaller conference, composed entirely of representatives of the public, to consider and make recommendations as to a policy for the governing of industrial conditions and relations. It was composed of 16 delegates and assembled in Washington on December 1, 1919. W. B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor, was designated as chairman, and Herbert Hoover, then food administrator, as vice chairman. Exhaustive hearings were held and investigations made. A preliminary report was submitted for general criticism on December 29, 1919, and a final report adopted and transmitted to the President March 6, 1920.

In its final report the conference recommended the establishment of elaborate machinery for the mediation and arbitration of industrial disputes, including national and regional boards of inquiry and adjustment. Unfortunately, as a part of their plan, no principles were proposed specifically for the guidance of the adjustment agencies proposed. There was no provision for a code as the basis of the deliberations of either the National Industrial Board or Regional Adjustment Conferences. The series of adjustment agencies recommended consisted of a system of decentralized regional boards, with the right of appeal to the national board only on questions of fact as to wages and working conditions.

Entirely apart, however, from the system of adjustment agencies proposed, the conference did discuss and express itself on certain of the fundamental principles underlying industrial relations and conditions. Some of their more pertinent declarations in this connection were as follows:

1. Collective bargaining.-The conference did not meet squarely the question of trade-unionism as the basis for collective bargaining. Their attitude was evasive, and neither for or against.

They emphasized "employee representation" or a system of shop committee either as supplementary to trade-unionisin or as an independent system where trade-unions did not exist. No declarations were made either for or against the "open" or "closed" shop. The general statement of the conference as to collectivd bargaining was as follows:

"The conference is in favor of the policy of collective bargaining. It sees in a frank acceptance of this principle the most helpful approach to industrial peace. It believes that the great body of the employers of the country accept this principle. The difference of opinion appears in regard to the method of representation. In the plan pro

posed by the conference for the adjustment of disputes, provision is made for the unrestricted selection of representatives by employees, and at the same time provision is also made to insure that the representatives of employees in fact represent the majority of the employees, in order that they may be able to bind them in good faith. The conference believes that the difficulties can be overcome and the advantages of collective bargaining secured if employers and employees will honestly attempt to substitute for an unyielding, contentious attitude a spirit of cooperation with reference to those aspects of the employment relation where their interests are not really opposed but mutual."

II. Hours of labor.-The conference believes that experience has demonstrated that in fixing hours of labor in industrial establishments at a point consistent with the health of the employees, and with proper opportunity for rest and recreation, thero should in all cases be provision for one day's rest in seven.

The conference believes that in most factories, mines, and workshops, and espe cially in repetitive work, the present trend of practice favors a schedule of hours of not more than 48 hours per week.

The conference does not think that a schedule of hours substantially less than 48-hour standard now in operation is at this time desirable, except in industries where a scientific study of the problem on the basis already outlined indicates that such reduction is necessary for the protection of the health and safety of the workers and is in the public interest.

III. Women in industry.—Women can not enter industry without safeguards additional to those provided for men, if they are to be equally protected. The danger of exploiting their physical and nervous strength with cumulative ill effects upon the next generation is more serious and the results are more harmful to the community. Special provision is needed to keep their hours within reason, to prohibit night employment in factories and workshops, and to exclude them from those trades offering particular dangers to women.

Where women can and do perform work of equal quality and quantity as compared with that of men under similar conditions, they should receive equal pay. They should not be discriminated against in respect to opportunities for training and advancement or the representation of their interests.

IV. Wages. Considered from the standpoint of public interest, it is fundamental that the basic wages of all employees should be adequate to maintain the employee and his family in reasonable comfort and with adequate opportunity for the education of his children. When the wages of any group fall below this standard for any length of time, the situation becomes dangerous to the well-being of the State. No country that seeks to protect its citizens from the unnecessary ravages of disease, degeneration, and dangerous discontent can consistently let the unhampered play of opposing forces result in the suppression of weges below a decent subsistence level. Above that point there may well be a fair field for the play of competition in determining the compensation for special ability, for special strength, or special risk (where risk is unavoidable), but below that point the matter becomes one of which the State for the sake of its own preservation must take account.

The Nation is interested in the welfare of its citizens, not only from the point of view of wages but from the not unrelated one of productivity. If, therefore, the conference recommends the establishment of hours and wages on a basis of justice to employees, it must also recommend that the employees do their part in seeing that the productivity of the Nation is safeguarded. The Nation has a right to ask that employees impose no arbitrary limitation of effort in the prosecution of their work. Such limitation decreases the country's output, and if practiced at all generally is bound to result in a decline of the standard of living. It is gratifying that many leaders of organized labor are in agreement as to the unsoundness of such limitation of output and are opposed to its practice.

If it is for the Nation to insure that wages shall not sink below a living level, and for the employees not to restrict production, it is incumbent upon employers to see that special effort and special ability on the part of their employees receive a stimulating compensation. If increased output and efficiency are met only by a reduction of piece prices, the incentive to such effort is taken away. Employees to do their best work must feel that they are getting a reasonable share of any increased return that they bring the industry. Labor incentive is a factor that is as shortsighted to ignore as incentive to capital.

Other subjects bearing upon labor conditions in industry, such as child labor, unemployment, and housing, were also discussed in the