Now, we are faced with the task of reaching. conclusions and there again, the question before the writer must be, how far is it fair to state what, after all, is personal opinion which may be' used to embarrass certain industrial firms. The writer has adopted a certain standard: there are four.or five industrial enterprises in Shanghai which compare favourably with enterprises in, other parts of the world. Taking those as a criterion, he has tried to find out why the others fall short of this standard, He has listened to. many explanations but none of, them sound plausible. His own explanation is that the less efficient, ive plants are inadequately managed and that ideas in control of them which are antiquated and destruc tive both of efficiency and profits. He finds that some mills, having! good conditions, make profits spite of constant' political difficulties, while other mills lose money. int spite of no strikes or strikes of trifling duration. The differential ies in eMfcieney and the handling of Tt hasbeen the experience in the United States' and Europe that the most profitable businesses are those which have the fewest labour: troubles. One need but cite Ford, Port Sunlight, Colman's Mustard, Cadbury's and Rowntree's Chocolates, and other well-known enterprises where there is never a strike and where a Bolshevik agitator would probably be strung up by the labourers, because con tions are so favourable that labour would not tolerate outside interfer ence. Labouy must reach such an attitude here, if industry is ever to be placed on a sound basis. The problem is more difficult and complicated in Shanghai than in Europe! or America because of politienl considerations and the constant flare-up of anti-foreignism on small questions. This complication has to be considered in all judgments of; begining of the 19th' century, indastry was patriarchal, the employer caring for his apprentices. and journeyman. The beginning of industrial revolution produced callousness to human suffering hardly conceivable: to those of us who live in a period of veritable socialism, To-day the capitalist is again patriarchal. He is vitally interested in the welfare of his workers: Every important factory in the West maintains special departments to look after the welfare of Labour. Every civilized country has labour codes. The League - of Nations maintains a special labour department.. Only in China, where there ig no governmental control, because of the civil wars, are the labour: left to themselves, to individual bargaining and individual conditions. The worst example of this anarchism is the retention of contract labour, 4 form of management discarded in western countries, except in the prisons and under certain favourable conditions. Contract labour must
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.