20 



be compelled to pay to the Unions a maintenance allowance for all 

 members affected by such unemployment, and one motive for the 

 offering of unscientific inducements to Labour will disappear and in 

 addition a big step will have been taken in the direction of 

 decasualisation. 



I have omitted from this paper far more than I have put in, and 

 I have preferred to dwell at some length on a few points to ranging 

 breathlessly over the whole field. I do not pretend that I have surveyed 

 Scientific Management ; but I have tried to bring out those features 

 of it which seem to me to have the clearest application to the conditions 

 of our own industry to-day. Scientific Management contains many 

 good features to which no objection can be taken ; but its claim to 

 be a watertight and complete scientific system for industry is as false 

 as its claim to be democratic. Our problem in industry is the creation 

 of an efficient and democratic system. We must apply science ; but 

 we must not allow science to be a class monopoly. The Trade Unions 

 must train themselves for control ; and, in doing so ; they must resist 

 all changes which would have the effect of destroying or weakening 

 their economic power. They must not, for their own sakes, block 

 all industrial change ; but they must adapt it to their needs as well as 

 themselves to it. We cannot expect a truly efficient system in industry 

 until we have an enlightened democracy capable of controlling industry : 

 we cannot abolish the class-struggle with a blast from the trumpet of 

 science. But we can make up our minds that the end towards which 

 we must strive is industrial self-government ; and we can test the 

 schemes of Scientific Management by means of this principle. If we 

 do this, we shall not find it wholly bad ; but we shall find in it many 

 dangers against which Labour must be on its guard. 



In speaking on his paper, Mr. Cole said that the paper could not 

 cover the whole ground, but he had tried to work out a few of the more 

 important points in relation to Scientific Management. In particular, 

 payment by results had been selected because it was the crucial 

 question at the present time, and would play an important part 

 between Capital and Labour after the war. The tremendous 

 claims made by the founders of the system would not be 

 put forward by advocates of Scientific Management at the present 

 day. From the point of view of the employer and the industrial 

 expert, the main claims were efficiency, to meet the need for 

 greater output, and the effect upon wages that is, the claim that 

 under right management the workers would get an increase in wages. 

 This seemed a sufficient argument to many advocates ; but a mere 

 increase in wages was not enough. We must not ignore the effects 

 which the system might have on the working class the loss of 

 independence and the power of self-government. Even if the 

 system did offer an increase in efficiency, he would oppose it if it did 

 away with the possibility of self-government for the organised workers. 



