Page:The humanizing of commerce and industry, the Joseph Fisher lecture in commerce, delivered in Adelaide, 9th May, 1919.pdf/31

 night's holiday on full pay to all employees who attend regularly, but has provided a holiday resort eighteen miles from Port Pirie, to which employees and their families have the right to go at week-ends, on holidays, or on annual leave. Port Pirie is unfortunately situated inasmuch as, though it is close to the Gulf, it has no sea-beach; it is low-lying and the climate is hot. The Company made a search for a suitable place at which to establish a holiday camp. An ideal spot was discovered eighteen miles away, on the opposite side of Spencer's Gulf, and it was named Weeroona. The only drawback is that fresh water has to be carried in barges from Port Pirie. There is a beautiful beach, good fishing and shooting. A main dining room has been erected, at which meals are provided by a permanent staff; each family has its own table, and one of its members does the waiting on the others. Sleeping accommodation is provided in well-furnished military tents equipped with wooden floors. The only work visitors have to do is to make the beds and keep the tents clean. For the rest of the time they may enjoy themselves in the way that pleases them best. Each night there is a concert or dance, or an open-air picture show. The camp is equipped with electric light, and water is laid on adjacent to every tent. It is a prohibition area. Hundreds of employees and their families have this year enjoyed a holiday at low cost. The Company provides free transportation for the men and their families to and from Weeroona, and they only pay the bare cost of living. In this way a healthy, recuperative holiday is brought within the reach of all.

Probably no innovation at Port Pirie has created more interest than the establishment of a co-operative store. This was the outcome of an investigation into the cost of living. The matter of cost of living is becoming a bugbear to every country in the world. Everywhere you can find large sections of employees who declare that they are no better off to-day when receiving, say, eleven and nine-pence a day, than they were some years ago when they received seven and sixpence a day. In industries where the increased cost represented by an increase in wages can be added to the selling price and passed on to the consumer, it is comparatively easy to put up with the rise in wages, but in an industry such as the production of lead, this easy expedient of passing it on is not possible. Of every hundred tons of lead produced at Port Pirie, ninety-five tons