130 EMPLOYERS AND WORKMEN 



advent of Pitt, but at that time the nation 

 was in dire distress. In all ordinary times the 

 government is by cabinet : it is so in most 

 countries. Armies and navies are controlled, 

 not by one man whose powers are unlimited, 

 but by many men seated at round tables. In 

 all countries there are at the present day vast 

 undertakings managed in each case by a direc- 

 torate ; such are important lines of railway 

 and of steamships, great distributing agencies, 

 breweries, insurance companies, collieries. 



Finally, great numbers of undertakings once 

 entirely the property, in each case, of a single 

 person or of a family, have been converted into 

 public companies managed by a directorate. It 

 is true enough that, where a business is managed 

 by a Board, there is, there can be, only one 

 president or chairman, and that he may be strong 

 enough to rule almost absolutely. But that is 

 not necessarily the case. The most capable 

 member of a Board may be some one other than 

 the president ; it is quite conceivable that the 

 opinions, the judgment, even the tact, on any 

 particular Board, of a man representing the 

 workmen might chance to be more valuable than 

 these qualities in any other member of the Board. 

 Therefore this particular difficulty is not insuper- 

 able. 



In the second place, the settlement of the pro- 

 portion of profit, in general co-operation, which 

 should belong to the workmen, presents a diffi- 

 culty ; because a fixed percentage of the profits 

 of one particular business would mean some- 



