E.-ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 117 



there may be scope for international agreements of this nature to which 

 no exception could be taken. Thus an agreement against dumping 

 might be negotiated, to overcome the ' falsification of the market ' and the 

 instabilities which dumping creates ; or an agreement for the exchange of 

 patents, or for the organisation of trade information. 



It would seem that acceptance of the claims of combines to rationalise 

 within national limits would be easier if on the international level inter- 

 combine agreements were of this type of ' Cartels of Conditions.' 

 Otherwise, instead of international agreements leading a fortiori to the 

 justification of national combines, they are likely to diminish the consent 

 to, or increase the legal supervision over, them. The chief instability of 

 the present position lies not in the formation of international agreements 

 of the recent type, for these have existed for over twenty-five years, but 

 in the realisation in the last few years of possible undemocratic extensions 

 of industrial authority and leadership. 



XIII. 



So far, the ideas of rationalisation and leadership in industry have 

 taken account only of relations between producers, as the heads of 

 organised units of enterprise. But the membership of an industry includes 

 the great body of workers who are subject to this leadership, and it 

 remains to show the bearings of the argument for ' rationalisation ' upon 

 them. 



As a defence of the Cartel system in this respect, it has been argued 

 by Liefmann that the dangers of ' instrumental ' price policy to the 

 position of wage-earners as consumers are continually being lessened by 

 the growing participation of labour in prices, through its own combination. 

 It has an increasing producers' interest. Or otherwise, the same argument 

 has been put by one great industrial leader, who states that there is 

 practically no pure consumers' interest except that of the rentiers, and these 

 are not to be too seriously considered against plans for a more rational 

 organisation of industry. It is, however, too summary to dismiss the 

 labour question involved in this way. Even if we consider labour under 

 the broad general name of producers, it is obvious that there is a degree 

 of restriction which will affect them all without compensation, there being 

 fewer goods for the whole wage-bill to buy. And if we allow for the 

 diversity of kinds of producers, it is also evident that Group A may 

 penalise Group B, and vice versa, and that it will be difficult to follow the 

 incidence of various group restrictions, though easy to show that there 

 may be a great spread of injurious reaction. The post-war wage position 

 in this country is largely due to such reactions between groups. A general 

 defence in these terms of the restrictive aspect of rationalisation policy is 

 open to Yves-Guyot's pertinent question — ' Qui restreindra la restriction ? ' 

 Against the debit of producers' restriction, it is not a set-off to credit 

 labour combination, since the right way of distributing the product, 

 and the right rate of production, are independent questions. So far as 

 rationalisation implies restriction, it has to commend itself to the working- 

 class community for reasons against which existing rights of bargaining 

 are not offset or debited. 



