572 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



In the case now supposed, sundry pieces of work, after simi 

 lar inspection, would be bid for on one of the recurring occa 

 sions appointed. Offering each in turn at some very low 

 price, and meeting with no response, the manager would, 

 step by step, raise the price, until presently one of the groups 

 would accept. The pieces of work thus put up to auction, 

 would be so arranged in number that towards the close, bid 

 ding would be stimulated by the thought of having no piece 

 of work to undertake: the penalty being employment by 

 one or other of the groups at day-wages. Now good bar 

 gains and now bad bargains, made by each group, would 

 average one another; but always the good or bad bargain of 

 any group would be a bad or good bargain for the entire 

 body. 



What would be the character of these arrangements con 

 sidered as stages in industrial evolution? We have seen 

 that, in common with political regulation and ecclesiastical 

 regulation, the regulation of labour becomes less coercive as 

 society assumes a higher type. Here we reach a form in 

 which the coerciveness has diminished to the smallest degree 

 consistent with combined action. Each member is his own 

 master in respect of the work he does; and is subject only to 

 such rules, established by majority of the members, as are 

 needful for maintaining order. The transition from the 

 compulsory cooperation of militancy to the voluntary coop 

 eration of industrialism is completed. Under present ar 

 rangements it is incomplete. A wage-earner, while he 

 voluntarily agrees to give so many hours work for so much 

 pay, does not, during performance of his work, act in a pure 

 ly voluntary way: he is coerced by the consciousness that 

 discharge will follow if he idles, and is sometimes more mani 

 festly coerced by an overlooker. But under the arrange 

 ment described, his activity becomes entirely voluntary. 



Otherwise presenting the facts, and using Sir Henry 

 Maine s terms, we see that the transition from status to con 

 tract reaches its limit. So long as the worker remains a 



