V
It is of some significance at this point to observe that of the functional associations within the commonwealth to which reference has been made, the most powerful are those which are concerned with the production of the primary commodities, and the means of their distribution. This is no doubt chiefly due to the fact that these associations represent the most numerous sections of the community. Coal miners, engineers, transport workers, clothing makers—it is among these classes that the movement toward combination has been most effectual. One notable exception—namely, agricultural workers—is to be observed here, the significance of which exception will come up for discussion presently. It does not, however, affect the general run of the present argument. The constitution and activity of the labour unions are sufficiently well known to require no exposition here—the main point to be emphasised being that here within the commonwealth are large, growing and powerful groups formed around a particular interest; and that this interest is deemed to be vital is evident from the steady growth of the groups. But we may further infer that the existence of these groups is due chiefly to the fact that the particular interest which concerns them was not effectually regarded in the councils of the commonwealth at large. The interests of the workers were presumably neglected to such a degree that the class concerned deemed it necessary to organise itself in order to safeguard and to enforce these interests. Indeed on the workers’ showing the case was even worse. They argued that not only were their peculiar interests neglected by the existing powers, but that these powers were weighted in favour of those against whom more specifically the worker had to defend his interests. The formation and growth of the Non-partisan League in America is a recent instance of a class nucleation under the pressure of circumstances largely parallel to those here outlined.
The interests here discussed are of an economic kind, but they are vital and essential. It is to be observed, however, that these particular associations are not confined either to the worker or to interests purely economic. Reference has already been made to the Bank Clearing House. This is an instance of the formation of a powerful group to promote the common interests of its members, though in this case its formation was less due to the neglect of those interests by the state than to the fact that the interests concerned have become so extensive in range and so complex in character that the state was palpably incompetent to handle them profitably. In certain cases where the state has assumed liabilities of this kind (as in railway control) experience has not in the long run endorsed the competency of the state for the job. That, however, is less to the point than that we should observe the tendency to form voluntary associations for the protection and promotion of presumably necessary interests, and in some cases assuming (as in the case of the Bank Clearing House) a kind of police authority within its own field. Besides these economic and financial associations, there are also large and powerful professional associations which exist likewise to promote certain special interests. The British Medical Association affords an instance of such association; and here again we have an association which in the exercise of its office also assumes a function of discipline. Just as the Bank Clearing House can put a recalcitrant bank out of business, so the British Medical Association can “unfrock” a doctor who has offended against the professional code. It is true that the excommunicated culprit may in either case appeal to the civil courts for redress; but the rarity of such appeals shows how nearly complete is the authority exercised by these professional associations within their own province. With certain modifications the same general rule obtains in Teachers’ Unions, the Bar, the Co-operative Societies, Churches and other voluntary associations of persons, that gather around the nucleus of a special interest. The case is not so plain in regard to societies of a specially cultural character which do not so directly abut upon the general conduct of life, though the place of the Universities, Academies of Art, Author’s Associations and the like, in the total scheme of social life, makes it impossible to exclude them from consideration in any discussion which looks to the integration of all the legitimate interests of life in an organic full-growing social whole.
Such integration must, from the nature of the case, be a long and tedious process; and the difficulties involved in its extension to such distant and shadowy regions as Art and Authorship may be left for solution until they become more imminent. It is in any case doubtful whether the interests involved in these and similar cases are such as would be served by any formal connection with the machinery of government, except as regards certain narrow legal points (e.g. copyright). This is also true of the Churches whose sole point of contact with the State is in the matter of their temporalities. Fortunately for the moment the task need not take account of these remoter complexities; and it will be a matter for legitimate argument how far associations of a cultural kind are to enter into the organisation of government, when those associations which are already abutting on the province of the state and shearing it of some of its powers have been successfully co-ordinated in a scheme of political management.