January 24, 19 18] 



NATURE 



405 



for the influence of direct representatives of labour 

 upon national affairs is likely to increase, and it 

 would be unwise to stand altogether apart from 

 the organisation which will control it. It w-as 

 stated in the British Medical Journal a few weeks 

 ago that the Labour candidates to be adopted 

 for the next general election may include some 

 members of the medical profession pledged to 

 support the scheme for a State Medical Service. 

 ^^'e suggest that the British Science Guild, which 

 exists to promote the adoption of scientific 

 methods in all national affairs, should consider 

 at an early date whether steps should be taken 

 to secure similar representation of scientific 

 workers. The efficiency and . progress of the 

 modern State depend upon scientific knowledge. 

 The Representation of the People Bill makes it 

 possible to give that knowledge power in Parlia- 

 ment, and scientific workers should take active 

 measures to attain that end, by association with 

 other groups concerned with problems of national 

 reconstruction. 



What is to be the principal feature of the indus- 

 trial reconstruction contemplated? Those who 

 have thought much on the subject will probably 

 reply in one word, "self-management." This 

 implies, in the first instance, that each trade or 

 group of trades has an aspect in which it is to 

 be regarded as a corporate whole. We have been 

 familiar with this kind of unity in the Church, 

 the medical and legal professions, and, to a 

 certain extent, in the combination which is known 

 par excellence as "The Trade." The Bar com- 

 prises a great number of individuals each of whom 

 has his private interests and competes with many 

 others in the humbler or the higher ranks of the 

 profession ; but to the outer world the Bar is a 

 corporate unity prepared to defend its privileges 

 against all comers, and possessing its own 

 machinery for self-management and even for dis- 

 cipline. A trade, on the other hand, consists of 

 the several companies, firms, or individuals whose 

 names are to be found in the trade directory, to- 

 gether with their employees, and, as a rule, there 

 is no connecting link whatever between these 

 scattered units, while in each firm the interests 

 of capital, brains, and labour are regarded as dis- 

 tinct. The war has introduced many new phases. 

 We have seen whole industries placed under 

 Government control. Each firm has retained its 

 integrity, but it has been required to work in 

 co-operation with other firms, so as to secure, on 

 the whole, the maximum output of the goods 

 required at the time to meet the exigencies of 

 war. W^hen this demand ceases Government con- 

 trol will also cease, but great efforts will be made 

 to secure that the advantages of a central guid- 

 ance of each industry shall not be lost. 



This guidance must come from the industry 

 itself, and from the industry as a whole. Labour 

 and capital are to meet at the same board on equal 

 terms. The Whitley report recommends that these 

 councils shall l>e ' ' composed of representatives of 

 employers and employed, regard being paid to the 

 NO. 2517, VOL. 100] 



various sections of the industry and the various 

 classes of labour engaged." The various classes 

 of labour must include those who work mainly 

 with their brains, as well as those who work 

 mainly with their hands. It is true that the 

 Food Controller, in specifying voluntary rations, 

 makes a broad distinction between these two 

 classes, and does not admit that hard think- 

 ing produces as much metabolism as an expendi- 

 ture of energy which can be more readily measured 

 in foot-pounds, but the new Labour Party, in its 

 draft constitution, makes no such distinction. The 

 modern psychologist recognises not only that the 

 brain controls the hand, but also that the use of 

 the hand develops the brain, and that sometimes 

 in an unexpected direction, as when the power 

 of speech is developed by manual training. The 

 Labour Party recognises the unity between hand 

 and brain, and is prepared to admit the brain- 

 worker to all the advantages which it hopes to 

 derive from reorganised indu.stry. 



The suggested industrial councils should each 

 form an Upper Chamber in the interest of its in- 

 dustry. They should consist of representatives, not 

 of particular firms or individuals, but of associa- 

 tions of employers and employed wherever such 

 exist, and care must be taken to secure the fair 

 representation of all such associations. At the 

 meetings of the councils the representatives of 

 labour will unite with employers in the con- 

 sideration of the most difficult problems which 

 the trade has to face. If it be true that 

 the industrial unrest of the past has been 

 largely due to a feeling on the part of labour 

 that it has been kept in ignorance of trade 

 politics, the remedy is here provided, for labour 

 will be given seats in the industrial House of 

 Lords. The national industrial councils will be 

 in touch with district councils, and these with 

 works committees. Through this machinery the 

 industrial councils will exert their influence in par- 

 ticular works. 



The Whitley report indicates under eleven heads 

 some of the questions with which the industrial 

 councils should deal. Reference may here be made 

 to the better utilisation of the knowledge and ex- 

 perience of the workpeople, securing to them 

 more responsibility for the conditions under which 

 their work is carried on, technical education and 

 training, industrial research and the utilisation of 

 its results and of inventions and improvements 

 designed by workpeople. Besides these and the 

 other points for consideration indicated in the 

 report, a number of very important problems will 

 arise immediately on the cessation of the war, and 

 these make it imperative that the councils should 

 be formed at once, or the opportunity of organ- 

 I ising British industry on a basis on which it can 

 } meet foreign comp)etition without a handicap may 

 I be postponed indefinitely. The council will be the 

 I parliament of the trade. At its meetings all ques- 

 tions affecting the trade will be discussed, and 

 the results of the discussion will be public to the 

 whole trade, so that the smallest manufacturers 



