12 
LAND & WATER 
J 1117-5, 1917 
Ihatanuiuusirymusi t)e controlled by tluMaiiltalist. Industry 
w^s not a great public service, but tlie ])rivate affair of the 
■cniiployer, who was to have full authority over the lives of his 
workpeople. The Socialistic idea of substituting the State 
for the capitalist was a protest against this view of industry, 
aiid as such it was valuable, but it did not satisfy the con- 
ditions of the problem, for it merely substituted one employer 
for anotlier without any guarantee that the new control 
would be exercised on more tolerant. or more democratic 
lines than the old. It was an ai)preciation of this fact that 
■ prepared men's minds for the teaching of Syndicalism, 
the gosj>el that industry should be controlled by the workers 
and that the State should stand aside. 
It was easy to see the flaws in the doctrine, a doctrine 
which carried with it the ruthless and breathless logic (if 
French thinking. Obviously the State cannot stand aside 
and leave the different groups of workers to exploit the 
consumer at their pleasure. The citizen is not merely a 
worker on the railway or a worker in the*i;iine ; he uses the 
railway and he uses "the mine. Some kind of central power 
is necessary to guarantee public and general rights, and to 
substitute "for the State a series of industrial communities 
is to invite chaos. But Syndicalism, like the Socialism 
which was in fashion twenty years ago, had a lesson to teach. 
Socialism laid stress on the v'iew of industry as national service, 
a view which was strange to the old \'ictorian conception 
that the spirit of gain was the power that moved the world 
along the true lines of progress. Syndicalism laid stress on 
another truth, equally strange to our fathers, that the workers 
themselves must have a conscious and responsible share 
in the iiulustrv in which they are engaged. It was in fact 
a challenge to" industry to adapt itself to the conditions of 
democratic life, and a summons to the workman to claim new 
duties and rights for himself. 
How can this be done ? How can the miner or the spinner 
or the glass-blower become as it were a citizen and not 
merely a servant in his industry ? How can industry 
be transformed by this new spirit which regards the cotton 
mill, not as a private enterprise directed by a single will 
exercising authority over a great body of men and women, 
but as a public enterprise in which the whole body of , 
workpeople have some real and recognised share .■' The 
answer is that the Trade Union must become something 
more than a society for protecting the interests of different 
classes of workpeople, and something more than a society 
for disputing the claims of the employer. It must take a 
part in controlling Ihe affairs of the industry. 
This revolution will commend itself to many minds as a 
means of industrial peace, and its value from that point of 
view is obvious. But the proposal must not be confused 
with arrangements for Conciliation Boards. These Boards 
exist already in many industries, and they Would continue. 
These Boards exist for a limited purpose, to keep the bar- 
gaining men and masters on peaceful hnes, and to encourage 
and facilitate settlement by diplomacy as an alternative to 
war. Wliat is wanted is some machinery for enabling employers 
and workmen to bring and use their minds together, not for 
the .settlement of disputes or questions about wages, but for 
the general questions that concern their industry. 
For this purpose a scheme has been outlined by the com- 
mittee set uj) by the Reconstruction Committee to consider 
the whole question of improving the relations of Capital and 
Labour. This committee published last week an Interim 
Report, -recommending the creation of Standing Industrial 
Councils, at which members of the representative organisa- 
tions of employers and workpeople would meet and discuss 
the affairs of^this industry. There would not be occasional 
or emergency meetings. They would be regular and frequent. 
They would be as much a part of the procedure for conducting 
an industry as meetings of Boards of Directors. 
It is important to note that this Committee speaks with a 
special weight of authority. A more representative body 
can scarcely be imagined. If we take the employers' world 
we find the names of great engineering and shipbuilding 
experts like Mr. Allan Smith and Mr. Carter ; if Sir Thomas 
Ratcliti Ellis does not know the coal industry inside out, it 
ivould be difficult to name any man who does, and Sir Gilbert 
Claughton has been secretary to our largest railway company. 
In the world of labour there is no personality so powerful 
at this moment as Mr. Robert Smillie, the President of the 
Miners' Federation. Mr. Clynes is a highly-respected Labour 
member and the secretary of a General Union, while Mr. 
Bulton represents the A.S.E. Mr. J. T. Mallon is the secre- 
tary to the Anti-Sweating League and he has served on a 
large number of Trade Boards. The economists are repre- 
sented by Professor Cliapman of Manchester University, 
and Mr. J. A. Hobson, both men of standing, of whoir^onc has 
made a special study of tlie cotton industry, and the other 
has- a reputation for independence. Miss Mona VVilsun, 
specially associated with the early struggles of Women's 
Trades Unions,- and Miss Susan Lawrence, speak with an 
unquestioned authority on ])roblcms connected with .women's 
employment. It is highly significant thatSuch a body shoiild 
rcijort in favour of giving industry a constitution for the 
discussion of its affairs. 
These discussions will cover a wide range. Taking an in- 
dustry as a whole, there are such qucstionsas those of securing 
that,, when there is a scarcity of material or a" scarcity of 
orders, the best arrangements shall be devised to prevent 
unemjiloymcnt. Obviously it makes not less difference but 
more to the workers than to the employers what device is 
atloptcd ; whether, for example, mills work short timd or 
shut down for one day a week, or whether they try ex- 
periments in a shorter working day. The whole question 
of providing^ security to tiie workmen and regularity 
to the industry is a question in which employers anu 
workmen alike are interested. Ouestions of methods 
of payment, of fixing and adjusting earnings and rates, 
of the use of workpeople's experience and ideas, of 
the encouragement of invention, of the development of 
opportunities of education and .research — these and many 
other questions are not merely tlie concern of a Board of 
Directors. They should form material for the deliberations 
of National Councils or District Councils, on which the 
Trades Unions and the Employers Federations sit and deliber- 
ate together. The workman whose Trade Union elects 
members of these Councils will fejl that instead of taking 
decisions on all the questions affecting his work from a 
superior he is helping to make these decisions. The Trade 
Uni6n has hitherto tried to break the absolute power of the 
employers by impiosing certain restrictions. It will take an 
important !,jS,^^p forward when it shares that power. 
Decentralise'fl Control 
iSJpt tiia't it would be enough to have big Central Councils 
alone. .In the Trade Union world as in every other world • 
power is apt' to drift into the hands of a bureaucracy. Readers 
of Mr. Cole s book The World of Labour, with its illuminating 
discussion of Trade Union jiolitics, know that the discontent 
in the labour world to-day is in part a revolt against rule from 
the centre Jjy workpeople who feel that their officials are out 
of ipuch with the atmosphere of the workshop. A National 
Council would be supplemented by District Councils and by 
Works Committees where the workpeople could discuss con- 
ditions of employment with the representatives of" the 
employer, df the causes that impede the harmonious and 
successful worl^ing of a business, some would be removed 
if the feelings of the workpeople were considered in the arrange- 
ment of the details of administration, others if the workpeople 
did not feel that their independence could only be main- 
tained by resisting every innovation. Joint councils and 
joint committees can release industry from those hampering 
embarrassments. But they will do more than this, for they 
will mark the new character of industry as a species of public 
service in which workpeople can recognise their own contri- 
bution, to the wealth and welfare of the State. 
Such. an experiment has just been launched in the scheme for 
a Builders' National Parliament or a National Council which is 
1 to explore all the questions affecting the building industry 
and to draw up two codes, one compulsory and one voluntary, 
for the guidance of the industry. Among the subjects first 
to be examined are the regularisation of wages, the prevention 
of unemployment, the decasuahsation of labour, technical 
training, the encouragement of research, scientific management 
and means of increasing output. In every one of these ques- 
tions there is a great danger of causing hardship if employers 
act without the co-operation of workpeople. Scientific 
management, for example, would easily become a more in- 
genious and more thorough method of exploiting the work- 
men if it were simply an arrangement devised and intro- 
duced by the employer. Such it is at the present day. But 
a great deal of the economy and improvements for which 
scientific management aims can be effected with advantage 
to all parties if employers and workpeople put their heads 
together and consider where and how waste can be elimiuated. 
The workmen alone can speak with first hand authority on 
the incidence of strain. 
It will be objected that this is a tempting but a very ambi- 
tious scheme; Look at your great variety of Trades Unions, 
Httle competing craft unions, larger general labour unions, a 
world of confusion from which you expect to develop some 
system of effecti\'e representation. The scheme is ambitious. 
It must be elastic to allow for the different circumstances of 
the different imlustries. In highly organised industries the 
main lines of the plan are simple. There are other industries 
ill which organisation is still immature. It is our boast as 
a jx-'ople that we invented representative institutions from the 
exjwriments of our towns. What we could do for politics 
we can do for industry. 
