INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It seems surprising that you should several times lately make the statement (apparently thinking it a truism) that the working classes, and specially trade unionists, voted solidly for Socialism because they felt they were voting for their own people. As a matter of fact, a considerable majority voted against the Labour Party and have always done so, as no one hates and distrusts it so much as the steady working inan.
. Also may I mention another point—your constant advocacy of compulsory arbitration both in industrial and national disputes ? This seems to be most unsuccessful when it has been tried and has done only harm in Australia. The fatal drawback is that it has been found to set employers and employed in permanently opposed camps which only approach each other through the courts.
Instead of cast-iron principles enforced by legislation,
friendly co-operation is the more modern and effectual method, and compulsory arbitration only a hindrance to good feeling, especially as the decisions given are often most unjust.—I am, Sir, &c., M. J. KIRKPATRICK.
6 Montgomerie Crescent, Kelvinside, Glasgow.
[Since it would be virtually impossible to obtain comparative statistics of the so-called workers' vote, we
must agree to differ from our correspondent's opinion on that point. We suggest that he has misread the Spectator's attitude towards compulsory arbitration. Industrial and international disputes are certainly not on all fours because the national community, the State, has reached that point of government and organization where war (i.e., civil war) has no place. This is not yet the case with the international community. We do hold that some machinery for the arbitration of both political and legal disputes is indispensable to the organization of international peace. In industrial matters, on the contrary, we are not in favour of compulsory arbitration, since it is apt to introduce political factors, or to cause overlapping of functions, as in Australia. It is for each industry to organize its own internal economy. Regular arrangements for arbitration, as suggested for the cotton industry where that proper organization still hangs fire, are not the same thing as that compulsory arbitration which our correspondent has in mind.—En. Spectator.]
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