122 EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN 



the extra length that is due to wider knowledge, 

 to the power of more rapidly forming ideas, 

 more easily exchanging those ideas with others, 

 and acting more effectively in union. And if 

 speed is necessary, it is also more necessary 

 that any action taken by these men should have 

 a right direction, and not a wrong or doubtful 

 direction. 



Is it not true that the workmen everywhere 

 have great need to be reminded of this ? 



It would be impossible now to revert to 

 primitive times, and do away with the modern 

 fine division of labour : that must remain, not 

 merely because it is only by working thus a 

 nation is able to hold its own in the general com- 

 mercial rivalry, but because it is only by work- 

 ing thus that the present population of a country 

 can be so fed, housed, clad, and amused as 

 to be able to live usefully. It is impossible, 

 therefore, to alter the existing conditions of 

 modern work, and what must be done is to 

 introduce some entirely new condition that shall 

 extinguish the monotony of work and give it 

 interest. 



This, then, is the object of the change that 

 has to be made. The new condition must so 

 act as to thrust out of sight the feeling of 

 monotony, and make the abiding feeling some- 

 thing quite different from monotony. And the 

 change must go farther than this. Its action 

 must be such that the old feeling of antagonism 

 between the employers and the workmen is for 

 ever obliterated ; and such that in tending to 



