SHAKE UP, ENGLAND.
Page 11
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Although Very Complete Plans for Demobilization and its Priority are Now Fully Ready, are the Schemes Prepared for Using this Available Labour j any Way Comprehensive or Adequate ?
By " The Inspector."
IN TIMELY FASHION the Editor, in those first columns of this journal which he habitually reserves for the expression of his own first person plural opinions, has, during the last week or so of heartening war news conditions, urged for more tangible evidence that our own particular industry is alive to the so-called reconstruction problems which have now become, in almost miraculous fashion, questions for nothing less than immediate decision. I happen to know?' and ,presumably also so does the Editor, in more or less detail, the proposed plans of some of the principal manufacturing concerns in the motor industry, when they shall once more be released to undertake Peace time work. It. is to be presumed of others that they may have got this question of future activity equally well settled in their own minds, but I am also aware of a number of cases sufficient to make that consideration disconcerting, in which it is a fact that the amount of thought that, has been devoted to the preparation of a programme, that shall become operative so soon as Government contracts begin to fall in or be cancelled is negligible.
The public has from time to time been assured that the after-the-war problems of the nation are being adequately considered for the nation as a whole by multitalinous committees well in advance Of the time when their recommendations will be required to bear fruit. A very great deal of evidence has certainly been taken in various directions, and certain pious expressions of opinion have already seen daylight. But is it not a fact that the whole of this reconstruction question—as apart front demobilization—is not being hustled with anything like the amount of ginger that is imperative if our post-war efforts are not to be characterized by that criminal unpreparedness which has so often bronght this great nation very nearly to its knees? Is it not a fact that we are very nearly as unready for peace as we were for war?
It is true that we all have our hands more than full in these great days, but surely there can be no more
. urgent national problem, particularly now that military happenings bid fair to exceed our most hopeful anticipations, than the immediate framing of a series of trade programmes each taking into account the very special and peculiar circumstances with which each branch of trade now finds itself surrounded, the whole governed by certain broad and general conditions, to which effect can only be .properly given in terms of the peace settlement and also of the domestic and overseas legislation arising therefrom.
Is it not a fact, however, that beyond certain broad generalizations as to the desirable relations between labour and capital, master and man, formless aspirations as to hours of work and hours of leisure, indefinite suggestions as to housing and better education, the nation as a whole is more or less entirely in the dark as to_the detailed steps which it is proposed shall be taken to bridge that gap between war and full peace which may well be a tragic one? Is there not a danger that the bigger minds, which this country has discovered in no meagre quantity during the war, are all so fully pre-occupied with their own commitments, as to be unable to get at this supreme problem with the maximum of energy and the minimum of delay ? Dr. Addison, on Wednesday of last week,
confirmed that complete-plans for demobilization are ready, as of course they ought to be—a not insuperable task and one quite within niilitary capacity, but as to what the demobilized troops are to do, which is what really matters, we are told very little.
It is all very well to rest content, or seemingly content, with the assumption that at least the majority of our manufacturing undertakings have more or less settled in their own minds how they will turn to account for peace time purposes their newfound energy and their re-vitalized and expanded means. Here we are in our own industry as in others suddenly faced with the possibility of conditions ruling within the next few months which may well represent a change over of even more drastic a nature than that through which we lived—one hardly remem bers how—in the autumn of 1914.
And yet how many of us feel any great degree of confidence as to where we are even to get the material for our projected activities, how we are to absorb the vast stores of half manufactured fabric, or what scheme of rationing, other than a very general one already published, is to secure the means to change over without chaotic internal trouble, what is to be done with women labour, how and when are we to begin to absorb the returning troops? These and hundreds of other question a scream for rapid and clean decision or, at least, indication of policy which the nation must Llopt and upon which the immediate future of our national activities is to be erected. The events of the past few weeks render it imperative that there shall be, without a moment's delay, imported into our reconstruction deliberations a deal more of that ginger which rescued us from disaster when we were short of shells, when we were short of men, when we were short of food, and when we were short of shilm. Before many months are over we may well be short of work.
It does not help much to learn of aeroplane factories contemplating the building of chairs and tables, and of others thinking of producing pianos and perambulators, of engineering works here and there hoping to embark on schemes for the multiple production of -sewing machines, trouser presses, and safety razors, but these are isolated and individualistic attempts to map out a programme which should be. a national one, and something much. greater must be done, and done quickly, if we are to keep pace with the stupendous speed up of the war-time time table. We want a bigger and a bolder lead than we have had 0 date. Those numerous reconstruction sub-committees should" by now have yielded collectively all that the industrial life of the country can suggest to secure our business reconstitution. There will be no "Business as Usual" slogan in a few months' time. Business will never be the same as it was and will never -be the same vain, The motor industry of this country has done marvels during the war-time period ; it has expanded enormously in unexpected directions ; it will be by no means the easiest to reconstitute in its new dimensione. If it is to be the power in the business of the world, which it should be, it will need every ounce of commercial statesmanship that can be brought to bear upon it, and that without delay. The State must be constructionally suggestive and helpful towards it.