Second Industrial Survey

Of all the sciences in New Zealand the social sciences have been the most neglected, particularly with regard to indigenous research. The few investigations that have seen the light of day have been brought about by political expediency and not by scientific inquiry. Political expediency seeks facts that fit into preconceived conclusions and disregards facts that controvert them. Scientific inquiry, on the other hand, seeks to collect facts and to consider what conclusions can be derived from them, As a result of the novelty of social research in this country, the impartial investigator is immediately confronted with the questions: What vested interest is sponsoring this inquiry; what is its ulterior motive? The basic and ever-present conflict between labour and capital will always limit the social researcher's available information and this is more so where industrial development is of recent origin than where relations between worker and employer have become fixed into established grooves. This becomes particularly evident when you compare the relative lack of obstacles of a social research organisation such as Mass Observation in Britain, with those which confront Dr. Hare. The comparatively early demise of the Social Science Research Bureau after the publication of A Survey of Standards of Life of New Zealand Dairy Farmers in 1940 is also food for thought.

Seemingly work of this nature can only be carried out independently of government departments or government control. The truth is, I think, that any investigation that pleases both employer and employee can have some hope of immediate success, as is witnessed by the Industrial Psychology Division, where increased production and better working conditions are the primary subjects of inquiry.

Accidents

Despite these obstacles Dr. Hare has succeeded in presenting a most creditable account of contemporary labour conditions in New Zealand. There was a section that proved to be of particular interest in Labour and New Zealand, namely, that dealing with "Accidents." The main thesis of two columes, part of a world survey of labour conditions from 1750 to the resent day, by Jurgen Kucynski, one-[unclear: me] statistician to the American Federation of Labour, is that as a result of the increasing intensity of work in industry, the standard of living of workers is progressively declining in, spite of shorter hours, etc. As one of the main measuring-rods for intensity of work, Kucynskl has taken the accident rate which he quotes in the chapter on New Zealand as having increased by 20% in the 1933-38 trade-cycle over the 1923-33 cycle. This is of importance in that the report reviewed also quotes an increase of 58% in the accident rate between 1934 and 1939, while the increase per 1.000 of factory workers has risen from 34 in 1938 to 68 in 1942, an increase of 70% in five years. Thin "rapid and brutal increase in the intensity of work" is a tendency that, from Kucynski's investigations, appears to be common to all capitalist countries and one which should cause no little concern to a Labour Government. The lack of any "Safety First" campaign is in consequence a serious deficiency in New Zealand.

Works Councils

The existence of works councils seems peculiar to periods of war, times only when both capital and labour are confronted by common enemies, thus encouraging mutual interests. Dormant in peacetime or, at the best, relegated to social committees, they become in wartime, or should become, the motivating agents for increased production and better working conditions. But the same basic factors that Operate in peacetime to prevent their success operate also in wartime, and too few employers are willing to cooperate in assisting to increase production if it also means improving factory conditions with possible capital outlay. Dr. Hare in his report on works Councils in New Zealand has covered virgin ground—no other survey of a similar nature has been made. A copy of this book should be in the hands of any organised group that contemplates employer-employed co-operation.

Need for Education

Both of these reports are important steps in the investigation of labour conditions in New Zealand, and every individual who has some degree of social conscience should read them, for, as the investigator has said, "If there is one conclusion of more importance than any other which has been forced upon the investigator by the year's work it is that industrial troubles are due, more than anyone is likely to suspect, simply to want of knowledge and of education. Education by itself would contribute very greatly to remove many of the present troubles, but unfortunately, as is generally the case where there is little knowledge, there fs a complacency about industrial problems which stands in the way of knowledge.

—M.L.B.