F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 119 



which extend over a large part of an industry. Trade Unions have been 

 suspicious of attachments of labour to capitalist government within 

 individual businesses, but these objections, it may be suggested, would 

 not be so serious against the representation of organised labour on the 

 government of great combines. The fact that scale of working corresponded 

 to size of organisation on both hands, besides removing the labour objections 

 to sectionalism, might also shift the problem of qualification from an 

 individual to a mass basis, the participation in control being that of 

 representatives, and settled on some broader view of rights of government. 

 It is a feature of the most organised syndicates in Germany that this 

 participation in the general control has been obtained for labour 

 representatives. The horizontal combines, rather than the Concerns, are 

 obviously the most favourable sphere in which to proceed for this purpose. 

 It is to be admitted that the problem of qualification, while simplified, is 

 not solved. For purposes of bargaining the rule is equal representation, 

 whatever the relative importance of the parties. For purposes of govern- 

 ment, in this field, relative importance must count. Great combines 

 render a solution more possible, and also more urgent. Some great 

 fundamental industry, combined either voluntarily or, as in Germany, by 

 law, might develop a solution by the method of trial and amendment. 



Finally, rationalisation by industrial grouping and leadership may 

 enable a further step to be taken in respect of industrial peace. Our 

 present resources for this purpose, on a voluntary basis, are very complete ; 

 but if there is a gap, it is in respect of a method of assuring continuance of 

 work while negotiations proceed. The coal subsidy was of this nature on 

 an unusual scale. In respect of wage disputes in fundamental industries, 

 it seems to be a possible addition to our methods that, when negotiations 

 have narrowed the issue to its smallest difference, and there is yet no 

 agreement, the disaster of stoppage might be averted if the Trade Union 

 could be enabled, pending an arbitration, to advance to its members the 

 whole or a part of the difference in question, subject to guarantee of being 

 refunded as much of its claim as the award sustained. This might be 

 called the method of ' continuation pay.' It would always be less than 

 strike pay, since the latter is about two-fifths of wages, while the difference 

 in dispute would not often be as much as half of that. The Union would 

 therefore suffer less even if the award went entirely against it. There is 

 some approximation to this method in the occasional practice of ante- 

 dating awards, but the community is not thereby cleared from the loss 

 of a stoppage. If a step of a new kind can be taken, it is by way of making 

 ' continuation pay ' a practicable thing. Now the higher organisation of 

 industry does contribute to its practicability, since it enables a more 

 complete guarantee to be offered from the side of employers. It may 

 therefore contribute to a ' rationalisation ' in industrial relationships 

 which would be of great benefit to the community, the more so if some 

 working solution of representative control had been also applied. On this 

 note these considerations of the bearings of the new tendency may be 

 concluded. 



