LABOUR 267 



method, it is to be feared, would, if carried into execution, help 

 neither the public nor the working men. 



But it is the latter argument which very clearly, as I hold, points 

 the way to further progress in dealing with the question of employ- 

 ment, showing in which direction peace and settlement are to be 

 found. 



It may be permissible at this point to revert to the rather striking 

 analogy, already pointed out, observable in the advance severally of 

 political and industrial revolution. For a " revolution " it plainly is 

 that we have to deal with in industry, such as we have had previously 

 had in politics. In the political development of things " the people," 

 long held in something like serfdom, began by resisting tyranny. 

 It next turned against class rule. Inch by inch it advanced on its 

 road to freedom, till at length it acquired what satisfied it : that is, 

 equality and an equal voice in government, and " self-determination " 

 in all that concerned it. Its first risings were tumultuous, unruly, 

 marked by terrible abuses. Macaulay has pointed out the endurable- 

 ness of these outbursts, troublesome as they were at the time, in 

 view of the result that they led to in the case of the first French 

 Revolution. He compared that to a terrible, prostrating illness in 

 a human body, which racked it with pain and left it almost 

 exhausted. But the morrow, so he argued, showed that it had 

 wrought great good, whatever the price. For the patient of yester- 

 day rose stronger and healthier for the ordeal. There is something 

 of the same sort in the present industrial unrest, and, plainly, 

 similar aspirations as those which guided the uprising populace are 

 moulding the thoughts of the working class. The industrial revolu- 

 tion has not yet reached the same advanced point that the political 

 has, but it seems following the same track. Masters' rule has been 

 thrown off, class rule is tumbling ; but the ultimate aim made for, 

 unconsciously as to a large extent it may be, is self-government, 

 equality in the ordering of things and, proportionately, in the fruits 

 of production. This is clearly indicated in the most recent protests 

 that have come from the working men's side. The grievance 

 therein brought forward is the supposed or real excessive profits 

 recently made by employers being in no wise balanced by correspond- 

 ing improvement in the remuneration allowed to workmen. The 

 workmen loudly ask for " fair do's." Working men talk about 

 " nationalisation " as a means of throwing off present shackles and 

 bringing about equity in the division of the fruits of production. 

 What, however, the hurly-burly of to-day points to olearly is the 

 admission of the workers — manual workers, let us say, although 



