Common Sense And Labour

tive instinct. If it does not accomplish these results, if it does not give them an intimate familiarity with and interest in the business, the right to have a say is not more valuable than a Cooper Union free-for-all. A second and quite unadvertised side of representation, which is quite as important as that touching the employees, is that to be of greatest efficacy it must also teach the employer something about the adventure in which he is engaged?that is, cause him to look at the business itself and not merely at the bank account. Representation is a blow at managerial incom- petency. If the men get thoroughly on their jobs so also must the managers, and although it is popular to assume that the employer is always right and the worker always wrong, such is by no means the truth, and the more quickly we recognize this fact the more quickly we shall attain that well- balanced industrial condition to which efficient production is a natural sequence. Just as that worker who is loudest in declaiming his rights is commonly the poorest worker, so also that employer who is perfectly certain of the strength of his position is commonly the poorest employer. The right kind of representation will cause not only a far more efficient working force but also a far more efficient managing force, and the two in conjunction will make good business. When we find that a plan of industrial representation which gives a free forum to the workers does not function we can b...