The engineering trade dispute unfortunately remains unsolved. Sir William Mackenzie,
who held a Court of Inquiry last week, tried in vain to arrange a compromise between the parties.
In his report on the inquiry, which was published on Thursday, he said:— "In my opinion the matter is one in which no agreement, however carefully devised, can wholly take the place of good sense and good will between the parties and an appreciation by either side of the difficulties and point of view of the other."
A few arbitrary employers and a few reckless trade union leaders or shop stewards obsessed by hatred of capitalists can bring any settlement to naught. The vast majority of employers and workmen, we are sure, desire nothing better than to co-operate amicably as they have done in the past, and the task for each party is to bring the intolerant minority under control. Sir William Mackenzie touched on what is probably the main cause of the dispute when he hinted that the skilled engineers fear that many of them will lose their employment if they give way an inch in regard to the minding of machines. it is common knowledge that many new machines can be operated as easily by a semi-skilled or unskilled man as by a trained fitter, but the Amalgamated Engineering Union steadily refuses to agree to the displacement of any skilled men. This was the crux of the great strike in the 'nineties, and it is still unsolved. Yet if the industry is to progress it cannot continue to employ skilled men on unskilled work or to do without the new machines.
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