" A permanent and invaluable contribution to the sum of human knowledge. . . . We commend to the public a 



book which is a monument of research and full of candour. . . . Indispensable to every publicist and politician." 



Times, 4th January, 1898 (day of publication). 



Post 8vo, Two Vols., xxix. and 929 pp., with Two Diagrams. 



Price 25s. net. 



INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. 



By SIDNEY and BEATRICE WEBB 



{Authors of " The History of Trade Unionism") 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



In this work the authors of " The History of Trade Unionism " deal, not with the 

 past, but with the present. They describe, with the systematic detail of the scientific 

 observer, and in the same objective spirit, all the forms of Trade Unionism, Factory 

 Legislation, and other regulations of industry to be found in the British Isles. The 

 whole structure and function of Labour Organisation and Restrictive Legislation in 

 every industry is analysed and criticised in a manner never before attempted. The 

 employer in difficulties with his workman, the trade unionist confronted with a fresh 

 assault upon his standard rate, the politician troubled about a new project for 

 Factory Legislation, the public-spirited citizen concerned as to the real issues of a 

 labour dispute, will find elucidated in this work the very problems on which they 

 are thinking. It is a storehouse of authenticated facts about every branch of the 

 "Labour Question," gathered from six years' personal investigation into every 

 industry in all parts of the kingdom ; systematically classified and made accessible 

 by an unusually elaborate Index. 



But the Book is more than an Encyclopaedia on the Labour Question. Scientific 

 examination of trade union structure reveals, in these thousand self-governing 

 republics, a remarkable evolution in democratic constitutions, which throws light on 

 political problems in a larger sphere. The century-long experience of these working- 

 class organisations affords unique evidence as to the actual working of such expe- 

 dients as the Referendum, the Initiative, Government by Mass Meeting, Annual 

 Elections, Proportional Representation, Payment of Members, and, generally, the 

 relation between the Citizen-elector, the chosen Representative, and the Executive 

 Officer. The intricate relations of trade with trade have an interesting bearing 

 upon such problems as Local Government, Federation, and Home Rule. Those who 

 regard the participation of a working-class electorate in the affairs of government 

 as the distinctive, if not the dangerous, feature in modern politics, will here find the 

 phenomenon isolated, and may learn how the British workman actually deals with 

 similar issues in his own sphere. 



The analysis of the working of Trade Unionism and Factory Legislation in the 

 various industries of the United Kingdom has involved a reconsideration of the 

 conclusions of Political Economy. The authors give a new and original description 

 of the working of industrial competition in the business world of to-day ; and they 

 are led to important modifications of the views currently held upon Capital, Interest, 

 Profits, Wages, Women's Labour, the Population Question, Foreign Competition, 

 Free Trade, &c. The latter part of the work is, in fact, a treatise upon Economics. 



Finally, it should be stated that the authors, in the Preface, describing their 

 investigations, propound a new view as to the scope and method of Political Science. 



LONGMANS. GREEN, & CO., 



LONDON, NEMT YOEK, AND BOMBAY. 



