A BRIGHTER OUTLOOK.
And so, in some other key industries, where the still more serious element of foreign competition is added, costs of production are being maintained in a manner which is handing over trade to rival countries and, moreover, is injuring other industries here by reason of the fact that it is impossible to cut down costs of pro- duction as a whole. It will be noted, however, in the epitome given of developments in connexion with the L.M. & S. Railway, that the various trade unions concerned are at the outset, at all events, promising the movement hearty co-operation, and that is why I have headed this article " The Spirit of Industry," for I am firmly persuaded it is a change in the spirit of industry which is needed more than anything else. Hitherto the disposition on the part of trade unions and their members has, not unnaturally perhaps, been to anticipate that co-operation simply means sacrifice on the part of the workers. What it may mean is- that at the outset mutual sacrifice by Capital and by Labour alike will be required to _meet the present needs of the situation, but what it also should mean is that, like all sacrifiee and wisely directed effort, great results may be expected to follow. If Labour and Capital will only co-operate, first in sacrifice and then in the allocation of its rewards, the outlook for the industries of this country shMild be brighter than at any time in its history. But thetru,e spirit 'of itnrustrY,- as bat heel[-.solorcibly Zemonstittal by Henry Ford among other great industrialists, requires that there should first be a giving out before the rewards can be secured, and the curse of industry during the past decade has been the profiteering spirit begotten of the War period which has afflicted the worker and the capitalist alike. If that spirit can only be exorcized and replaced by the new and better spirit of co-operative effort, all may- yet be well. ARTHUR W. KIDDY.
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