SYNDICALISM 19 



37, Norfolk Street, Strand, London). As they point out, the documentary materials 

 for a detailed study of syndicalism are not easily accessible, but it may be useful to give 

 (with some corrections) their note on the literature of the movement, under the influence 

 of which its ideas have recently spread so widely: 



"The series of pamphlets by Mr. Tom Mann, under the general title of The Industrie, 

 Syndicalist (Bowman, 4, Maude Terrace, Walthamstow), from June, 1910, onwards, are 

 perhaps the most important English source; together with The Miners' Next Step (Robert 

 Da vies & Co., Tonypandy, 1912). Of easily purchaseable books in English there are not 

 many. Far and away the best is The Labour Movement in France, a Study in Revolutionary 

 Syndicalism, by Dr. Louis Levine (Columbia University Series, 1912). A corrective on the 

 other side is Syndicalism and the General Strike, by Mr. Arthur Lewis (Fisher Unwin: 1912). 

 A volume by Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., on Syndicalism (Independent Labour Party 

 Office, 1912), should be consulted. But for the best exposition the student must turn to 

 France, and must there go through the files, especially of Le Mouvement Socialiste, and, 

 further, of La Voix du Peuple, L' Action Directe, La Vie Ouvriere, La Bataille Syndicaliste, and 

 other weekly and monthly journals. No less characteristic are the numerous pamphlets 

 by Edouard Berth, Paul Delesalle, Victor Griffuelhes, A. Labriola, Hubert Lagardelle, L. 

 Niel and Emile Pouget (mostly published by Marcel Riviere, Paris). The most considerable 

 "intellectual" on the Syndicalist side is GeOrges Sorel x (Reflexions sur la Violence, 1908 

 and 1910; La Decomposition du Marxisme, 2d edition, 1910; and various other works). 

 Other Syndicalist books are: La Greve Generate et le Socialisme: enquete international e, 

 opinions et documents, by Hubert Lagardelle (Corn61y,, Paris, 1905); and the very explicit 

 Comment vous ferons la revolution, by E. Pataud and Emile Pouget (Tallandier, Paris) a 

 lengthy "Utopia" describing both the process of revolution and the way the new society 

 organises itself. Of expository and critical books, the reader will find most useful Syndi- 

 calisme Revolutionnaire et Syndicalisme Reformiste, by Felicien Challaye (Alcan, Paris, 1909); 

 Syndicalisme et Democratic, by C. Bougie (Paris) ; Le Syndicalisme contre le Socialisme: origine 

 et developpement de la Confederation Generate du Travail, by Mermeix. Les Transformations de 

 la Puissance Ptiblique: les Syndicats des fonctionnaires, by Maxime Leroy, 1907, will be found 

 suggestive. For modern Trade Union history in France, .see Histoire des Bourses du Travail, 

 by Fernand Pelloutier, 1902; L' Evolution du Syndicalisme en France, by Mile. Kritsky, 1908; 

 and Histoire du Mouvement Syndical en France, 1789-1906, by Paul Louis (Paris, 1907.) " 



: The account given by Mr. and Mrs. Webb, as the result of their careful study o'f 

 Syndicalist literature, should be studied in full, but a few extracts may be made here in 

 summarised form. As to the class-feeling behind the movement, they say: 



"The manual working wage-earner sees himself and all his fellow wage-earners toiling 

 day by day in the production of services and commodities. This toil is continued without 

 cessation year in and year out, under the orders of persons of another social class who do not 

 share his physical exertion. He sees the service and commodities that he feels he is producing 

 sold at prices far exceeding the amount which he receives in wages. He has, of course, been 

 told that this price has to pay large salaries to managers and other officials, and has to cover 

 payment of rent and interest to the owners of the land and the capital. But this does not 

 satisfy him of the reasonableness of the enormous and constant inequality between the wage 

 he receives and the income enjoyed either by the owners of the instruments of production 

 or by their managers and agents who rule his life. This inequality of income results in a 

 society in which one-tenth of the population own nine-tenths of the accumulated wealth; 

 in which one-fifth of the adults take to themselves two-thirds of the annual product, and 

 allow only one-third to be shared among the four-fifths who are manual working wage- 

 earners; in which, in spite of a wealth-production greater than the world has ever known, 

 one-third of all these manual working wage-earners have scarcely a bare subsistence, 

 whilst most of the other two-thirds are so little removed from this low level that the 

 slightest interruption or dislocation of industry reduces many of them to destitution. In 

 dramatic contrast with this penury and destitution he sees hundreds of thousands of wealthy 

 families wasting in idleness and senseless extravagance hundreds of millions of pounds 

 annually out of the wealth that is produced. Something is radically wrong with a society 

 that produces this inequality. To the wage-earners who are 'class-conscious ' the explana- 

 tion seems simple. Whilst they and their fellows are contributing the whole of the physical 

 toil involved in the production, distribution, and exchange of commodities, they are excluded 

 from the ownership both of the instruments of production and of the products of their 

 labour. The ownership of the land and the other instruments of production carries with it 

 the power of giving orders as to how they shall be used. The manual working wage-earner 

 finds himself spending his whole life in subjection to the arbitrary orders, even the irre- 

 sponsible caprices, of the employers and their agents. 



1 M. Sorel however has recently abandoned Syndicalism and become the editor of a 



French Legitimist journal. 



