October 5, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
13 
might be used to bring the King back to his right mind, 
and save his throne. 
There can be no question about the retention of the 
present Greek Cabinet. Whether it\ is a business or 
pohtical Cabinet, matters not : it must go. A dozen 
grocers picked from the nearest shops to the Palace 
would have as much right to govern Greece as this 
collection of sycophants. Too much has been made 
of the pro-German proclivities of the army chiefs. 
Some of them are pronounced pro-Germans, but not all. 
(reneral Dousmanis is one such, and Lieut. -Colonel 
Mctaxas another, but General Moschopoulos is for the 
Entente, and so is General Dauglis, and these two latter 
generals have a large personal following in the army. 
Of the views of the Regimental officers and men the 
writer can speak with first-hand knowledge, for he lived 
among them for three months in Northern Epirus in 
1914. Their pro-British sympathies were undeniable. 
The King can save the situation if he chooses to do so : 
he has only to give the word, and the whole Greek army 
will march as one man against the Bulgarian invaders. 
God grant that he may do so, for if he refuses to bow to 
the people's will, the Revolution must take its course, 
and he will lose his throne. 
Labour, Capital and the State 
By Arthur Kitson 
The writer of this article is well qualified to speak from 
the point of view of Capital, as he is at the head of a 
manufacturing business and has been all his life a large 
employer of labour, both here and in America. 
THE present praiseworthy efforts of many well- 
meaning people to secure industrial harmony 
by bridging the gulf separating labour and 
capital are worthy of every encouragement. 
But a word of caution from one who has had a life-long 
experience in industrial affairs, both here and abroad, 
may save from disappointment many of those who 
fondly hope that all that is needed is a certain amount 
of good will on both sides in order to solve the difficulty. 
Good will alone will not suffice. A complete settlement 
of the labour problem can only be achieved on thoroughly 
sound economic lines, which will involve a complete 
reversal of many old-established theories. Above all, 
it will involve sacrifices — particularly from the capitalistic 
classes— and until these are prepared to meat labour 
upon the common grounds of humanity and honesty, 
all the efforts of our statesmen, clergy, philanthropists, 
and publicists, will end in mere idle talk. 
Let us first dispose of some old theories which at present 
tend to obstruct the path of those who wish to reconcile 
the two conflicting parties. The production and dis- 
tribution of wealth follows certain defined rules, which 
are due partly to custom, to parliamentary laws and 
to ancient statutes, and which have been classified and 
embodied in the so-called Science of Economics. But 
with changing social and industrial conditions, those 
rules which apparently held good for one age fail utterly 
in another. Experience has shown us that many of the 
so-called " principles " upon which orthodox economics 
were originally based, are utterly false. Some of our 
modern economists have long perceived that the orthodox 
science as enunciated by the standard authorities from 
Adam Smith to Stanley Jevons, is merely an incoherent 
ensemble of theories as unreal and unreliable as the 
" science " of astrology. We know now that the arti- 
ficial creation designated the " Economic-Man," is as 
mythical as Frankenstein. Men are not governed by 
greed alone, nor is the acquisition of material wealth 
the sole end and aim of existence.' The trouble with the 
old economists was, that having found certain institu- 
tions in existence and apparently in good running order, 
they concluded that these were of a permanent character, 
and straightway set out to justifv them and regard them 
as based upon certain fixed laws. They then placed the 
whole science in a water-tight compartment, so that it 
had no possible connection or relation with any other 
science. Both Ethics and Psychology were deliberately 
ignored. Forgetting that man and society are organic 
and subject to growth and development," they sought 
to solve dynamic problems by static laws. 
Those who are anxious to secure industrial harmony 
must first, realise that the old system which regarded 
labour as merely the servant of capital is dead— in sf)ite 
of the efforts of certain schools to galvanize it into some 
sort of life. Even so orthodox a writer as Jevons was 
compelled to admit the gross fallacies of the orthodox 
creed. Writing on the subject of labour, Jevons, in 
his Theory of Political Economy, said : 
Although labour is the starting point in production and 
the interests of the labourer the very subject of the science, 
yet economists do not progress far before they suddenly 
turn around and treat labour as a commodity which is 
bought up by capitalists. Labour becomes itself the ob- 
ject of the laws of supply and demand, instead of those 
laws acting in the distribution of the products of labour. 
Economists have invented, too, a very simple theory 
to determine the rate at which capital can buy up labour. 
The average rate of wages, they say, is found by dividing 
the whole amount of capital appropriated to the payment 
of wages by the number of labourers paid, and they wish 
us to believe that this settles the question ! '^ 
The economic world resembles other fields of human 
activity in this, that the introduction • of one evil fre- 
quently brings into operation another which is equal and 
opposite. Indeed it is evident that economic stability 
has hitherto been attained by neutralising one evil force 
by creating another. F.or example, the evils engendered 
by the excessive demands of capitalists, were balanced 
by the organised defence of labour through its Trade 
Unions in restricting output. For centuries legislators 
have found it necessary to oppose the greed of those who 
live on usury by anti-usury laws. The development 
of British trade during the past century and a half is 
largely due to the ability of our commercial men 
to Jevade the monopoly which was granted by 
William IIL, to the founders of. the Bank of England, 
by the development of the cheque system. State en- 
croachments usually call into existence societies for the 
protection of personal rights, whilst the efforts of in- 
dividuals or private corporations to oppress the public, 
are invariably met either by those of voluntary organisa- 
tions who refuse to have their liberties invaded, or by 
Anti-Trust laws enacted by the State. // we are to 
have a new and better economic dispensation after the War, 
if w^ are to get rid of the old wasteful industrial disputes, 
we must have a new data of economics. We must bury the 
old system and recognise it as a miserable failure, which 
it has proved itself to be. The object of the science was 
defined by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations: 
Considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or 
legislator, political economy proposes two distinct objects. 
First, to supply a plentiful subsistence for the people, or 
more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue 
or subsistence for themselves. 
Secondly, to supply the State or Commonwealth with a 
revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes 
to enrich both the people and the sovereign. 
" How happens it then " asked Proudhon, " that in 
spite of so many miracles of industry, science and art, 
comfort and culture have not become the inheritance of 
all ? How happens it that in Paris and London, centres of 
social wealth, poverty is as hideous as in the days of 
Caesar and Agricola " ? And the Economists were 
dumb ! 
^ Ruskin defined the orthodox science as a " mere mercan- 
tile economy, i.e., the economy of merces of of pay " — 
" the accumulation in the hands of individuals of legal 
or moral claims upon or power over the labour of others, 
every such claim implying precisely as much poverty or 
debt on 6ne side as it implies riches or right on the other. 
It does not therefore necessarily involve an addition to 
