ORGANISATION OF INDUBTRV. 487 



2.— THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY. 



By ALFRED DE LISSA. 

 (Diagram.) 

 The one great problem of civilisation is to give to the masses 

 in civilised countries the means of supplying wants which 

 civilisation renders, increasingly with advancing time, in a 

 more or less degree, necessities of life. That population did 

 increase in the ancient world faster than the means of sub- 

 sistence, and does so increase now, where nature is unaided 

 by the progress of science and invention, are probable facts ; 

 and there appears to have been ground for the contention of 

 those who have concluded that the Gorgon law of war, 

 pestilence, and famine was nature's remedy, and was neces- 

 sary in the past ages to decrease the numbers of hfe. The 

 mind of the nineteenth century repels such an idea in con- 

 nection with its civilisation. It would be an evident fallacy 

 to say to economists that the progress of knowledge, science, 

 and invention have decreased the means of subsistence, or 

 that which may be the same thing, the means of employ- 

 ment ; yet, there are writers and speakers who assume and 

 even assert that this is the case, and that the most advanced 

 civilisation brings with it lessened means of sustaining life 

 for large masses of people in every country. The condition 

 referred to is thus stated by Henry George — " Where the 

 conditions to which material progress everywhere tend are 

 most fully realised, that is to say, where population is densest, 

 wealth greatest, and the machinery for production and 

 exchange most highly developed, we find the deepest poverty, 

 the sharpest struggle for existence, and the most enforced 

 idleness. It is," he says, " in the older countries — the 

 countries where material progress has reached late stages — 

 that widespread destitution is found in the midst of the 

 greatest abundance." He speaks of the " new communities 

 where Anglo-Saxon vigour is just beginning the race of 

 progress, where the machinery of production and exchange 

 is yet rude and inefficient — where the increase of wealth is 

 not great enough to enable any classes to live in ease and 

 luxury — where the best house is but a cabin of logs." Of such 

 a stage of progress he says " there is no luxury, but there is 

 no destitution, and everyone can make a living." He then 

 remarks, in reference to the progress of such a community, 

 " that as the greater utilisation of labour-saving machinery 

 makes possible greater economies in production and exchange, 



