The Unfinished Programme of Democracy

by Richard Roberts

II

This “charter” will not be granted without a struggle. The greed and amour propre of some employers, and the stupidity of others, will interpose great obstacles to its institution. The great growing strength of organised labour, however, guarantees a comparatively early capitulation of the intransigent employers.[^[16]] But it would be a mistake to suppose that this is all that is implied in the present temper of labour. A good deal of what labour is looking to has not yet reached the stage of articulation, but it is impossible to misapprehend the general direction in which it is moving. The socialist propaganda, even if it has not always been as prolific of conversions as its promoters desired, has been a singularly potent instrument of education, and if the workers as a whole have not accepted the conclusions of the socialist, it is most certain that they have been profoundly moved by his premises. Probably more than any other influence it has stimulated the spirit of revolt against a permanent division of society by a line of economic privilege; and it has encouraged a very real insurgency against the idea, so comforting to the fortunate classes, that it is the duty of all persons to be content in that station of life into which Providence has been pleased to call them. While the rich believed that their duty to their less fortunate neighbours was an affair of charity, the Socialist had taught the poor to cry for justice. The chief achievement of the Socialist movement up to this time lies less in the acceptance of its doctrines than in the new sense of right which it has succeeded in awakening, even in many to whom the very term socialism still represents a dangerous and forbidding spectre. And it is this sense of right, the refusal to accept as permanent and just a state of exploitation, with the demand for economic freedom and independence, which is working as an irresistible leaven in the mind of the worker-mass of our time; often indeed, inarticulately enough, but in the minds of the better educated and most thoughtful workers, beginning to express itself in specific requirements which far outstrip Mr. Sidney Webb’s conservative interpretation of the present need.

[16]. Since these paragraphs were written, a National Industrial Conference convened by the British Government, and composed of equal numbers of employers’ and workers’ representatives, has reported unanimously in favour of a universal minimum wage and a universal maximum week.

The Socialism popularly advocated during the last half-century, is, however, not likely to capture the working-class of to-day. The movement for the nationalisation of the means of production and distribution—especially of the primary necessities of life—has indeed gained strength during the war; and the public ownership doctrine of orthodox socialism is in no danger of being discarded, though it may be modified in the extent of its application. But the orthodox socialist plan of vesting economic and industrial control in the state will not survive the war. The modern doctrine of the state reached its apogee during the war; it is already in process of rapid discredit. This is chiefly due to the revelation of the logic of state-absolutism, which the German performance in the war has yielded; and we are likely to witness a strong reaction from the doctrine of the sovereign omni-competent state in the coming generation. Moreover, in England the working of the Munitions Act has proved that the state may be as harsh and troublesome an employer as a private individual or a corporation; and the workers are not minded to emancipate themselves from the plutocracy to hand themselves over to a bureaucracy.

But how is public ownership to be made practicable without slate control? The experiences of war-time have revealed a possible solution of the difficulty. The Garton Foundation and the Whitley Committee, the former a private, the latter a parliamentary body, and neither committed to “labour” views, have been led by the study of industrial conditions in war-time to advocate introduction of democratic control into industry, and experiments in democratic control which have been made, have plainly demonstrated its practicability and its economic value. In the woollen trades that centre upon Bradford, in Yorkshire, various troubles interfered with the output of cloth. Early in 1916 the War Office requisitioned the output of the factories for the production of khaki, blankets, and other war-material; and a little later the Government purchased all the available wool on the market. The distribution of this wool to the factories was left by the Army Contracts Department to a Board of Control which it established for the whole industry. “The allocation,” says a recent account of the matter, “is carried out by means of a series of rationing committees. There are district rationing committees of spinners, of manufacturers, and a joint rationing committee on which the Trade Unions are represented. These committees ascertain all the facts about an individual firm’s consumption of wool, and the kind and quality of machinery that has been used. From these data the rations are arranged for the several mills of the district, while the Government committee settles the rations for the several districts. It is an extraordinarily interesting example of an industry regulating its life on a principle of equity instead of leaving the fortune of different mills and the fortunes of thousands of workmen’s homes to the blind scramble of the market.” It is of interest further to observe concerning this experiment that when the Government requisitioned the mills, it established a method of payment which eliminated profit-making, and the spinner and the manufacturer became virtually government servants. This is worth remembering when it is urged that the incentive of profit is essential to industrial development, especially in view of the conspicuous success of the experiment. More to our immediate point, however, is that this is a definite experiment in democratic control, for the organisation in which the ultimate control of the woollen industry was vested is composed of thirty-three members, eleven each being appointed by the Government, the Employers’ Associations, and by the Trade Unions.

The experiment in the woollen trades goes farther than the measure of democratic control suggested by Mr. Sidney Webb in his charter. For he contemplates no more than a democratic control of the actual conditions of work, while the control of raw material is vested in the Board of Control of the woollen industries. Mr. Webb’s suggestion is for “workshop committees or shop stewards” in every establishment having more than twenty operators, to whom the employer should be required to communicate at least one week prior to their adoption any proposed new rules, and also any proposed changes in wage-rates, piece-work prices, allowances, deductions, hours of labour, meal-times, methods of working and conditions affecting the comfort of the workshop.[^[17]] Mr. Webb himself would probably like a good deal more than this; but in his brochure, he frankly writes as one who believes that “the most hopeful evolution of society ... lies always in making the best rather than the worst out of what we find at the moment to hand.” But in point of fact, very considerable extensions of the principle are already being canvassed; and it is unlikely that organised labour will be long content with the timid bid for a share of industrial control which Mr. Webb’s proposal represents. It is symptomatic of the present tendency that in the Building Trades a movement initiated by Mr. Malcolm Sparkes, a London Master Builder, looking toward the formation of an Industrial Parliament for the building trades, has already been the subject of serious discussion both by the employers’ associations, and the trade unions concerned. Mr. Sparkes suggests that the Parliament should be composed of twenty members appointed by the National Association Building Trades Council, and twenty appointed by the Federation of Building Trades Employers, and that it should meet regularly for constructive, and not at all for arbitral or conciliatory purposes. To this parliament would be remitted such matters as the regularisation of wages, unemployment, technical training and apprenticeship, publicity, and the investigation of possible lines of trade improvement. But obviously such a parliament as Mr. Sparkes suggests could have vitality and authority only as it stood at the top of a hierarchy of analogous bodies all the way up, through provincial and district councils, from the committee of the single shop.

[17]. The Restoration of Trade Union Conditions, p. 95.

The principle of democratic control in industry has come to stay; together with the doctrine of public ownership it will probably fix the accepted social policy of progressive labour. Already, indeed, this combination is to be found in the British Labour Party’s memorandum on “Labour and the Social Order.” The Party “demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock.” It stands “unhesitatingly for the national ownership and administration of the Railways and Canals, and their union, along with Harbours and Roads, and the Posts and Telegraphs ... in a united national service of Communication and Transport, to be worked, unhampered by capitalist, private and purely local interests, and with a steadily increasing participation of the organised workers in the management, both central and local, exclusively for the common good.” And again, the Party “demands the immediate nationalisation of mines, the extraction of coal and iron being worked as a public service, with a steadily increasing participation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed.” It is no exaggeration to say that the principle of democratic control in industry, especially under the conditions within which the British Labour Party contemplates it, carries with it an entire change in the status of the worker. For when we remember that with democratic control in industry, the British Labour Party demands a universal application of the policy “of the National Minimum, affording complete security against destitution, in sickness and in health, in good times and bad alike, to every member of the community of whatever age or sex,” it is evident that we have the two requirements of that necessary revolution in the worker’s standing which is the corner-stone of a worthy social order. The worker is no longer dependent, a pawn in the game of production, an employed wage-earner, a “hand;” he has become a partner, possessing both the freedom and the responsibility of partnership. And it is no less evident that a great stride has been taken in the direction of separating work from the means of subsistence and abolishing “wagery.”