VII
Up to this point we have considered the more general problems of fellowship in the community as a whole; we have still to consider some of the questions raised by the more particular associations which form themselves within the community, and in which by far the largest measure of the community’s vitality resides. F. W. Maitland, in an interesting passage, reviews the endless variety of social forms in which men group themselves together. He speaks of “churches, and even the mediæval church, one and catholic, religious houses and mendicant orders, nonconforming bodies, a presbyterian system, universities, old and new, the village community, which Germanists have revealed to us, the manor in its growth and decay, the township, the New England town, the counties and hundreds, the chartered boroughs, the guild in all its manifold varieties, the Inns of Court, the merchant adventurers, the militant “companies” of English condottieri who, returning home, help to make the word “company” popular among us: the trading companies, the companies that became colonies, the companies that make war, the friendly societies, the Trade Unions, the clubs, the group that meets at Lloyd’s Coffee House, the group that becomes the Stock Exchange, and so on even to the one man company, the Standard Oil Trust, and the South Australian statutes for communistic villages.” The prevailing political philosophy of our time has stated its problem almost wholly in terms of an abstract state over against an abstract individual; and one of the most heartening signs of the invasion of political thought and practice by a more healthy humanism is the growing recognition of these many-coloured nucleations of life. There are important and difficult questions bearing upon their political and legal status, but these are only to be answered by a frank acknowledgment that groupings of this kind come into being because they meet a real need and answer to certain facts of life and human nature. No political philosophy is likely to stand the racket of historical experience which does not stand upon the assumption that these associations have a real and inherent right to form themselves, to exist, to thrive and to multiply; for it is in groups that are voluntarily formed around a living interest that the most significant and important part of our life is lived. To the more direct political implications of this type of association we shall turn at a later point; here we are concerned only to emphasise the need and the right of such bodies to live, and their importance for the preservation of the balance of life, and therefore, of stable social progress. Their real importance may be seen from the circumstance that the struggle for religious liberty in England, which has historically been the spring of civil and political liberty, was a struggle not for the liberty of the individual but of the small voluntarily associated group.
These voluntarily associated groups will form themselves around any interest of sufficient importance; and, as we have seen, they are of the most various character and raise the most various questions concerning their relation to the commonwealth.[[35]] This is a subject still in the earlier stages of exploration and likely to be of increasing importance for our political and social philosophies, especially as it comes to be recognised that for the most part the groups which are here spoken of represent interests and needs more vital to human nature than the accidental aggregations represented by political states. It may, moreover, be held that the multiplication of such groups within the commonwealth, insomuch as they bear upon real interests of life, is much to be encouraged; and the commonwealth which knows what is good for its people will impose no restrictions upon their power and readiness to form themselves into combinations of this kind. And indeed, however absolute the authority of the state, it cannot prevent the formation of voluntary associations. If it be not permitted to form these associations openly, they will be formed secretly; and the secret society is the undoing of commonwealths.
[35]. The commonest and the oldest type of freely associated group within the commonwealth is of course the Church, and on this point the reader may be referred to the present writer’s book The Church in the Commonwealth.
As a matter of fact, the state has always been apprehensive and suspicious of combinations of any kind within its own bounds and has endeavoured either to repress them or to establish the principle that they exist only on sufferance. But no attempts at repression when they are directed at associations that represent real human concerns have been permanently successful. The repeal in 1824 of the British Acts against combination, intended chiefly to frustrate industrial unions, whether of employers or of workers, is typical of the fate of such legislation. These Acts went against the actual facts of the human situation and naturally proved disastrous. It is in this region of industrial combinations that we have the best modern illustration of the spontaneity and inevitability of voluntary human association. In the Guild period it was broadly true that Capital and Labour being in the same hands had interests which were identical; but when power-driven machinery separated Capital from Labour and lodged them in different hands, and as the rift widened through the operation of laissez-faire, and the interests of Capital and Labour became antagonistic, it was natural that the capitalists and the workers should severally combine in defence of their interests. The state prayed a plague on both their houses at that time, being equally afraid of both; later, the state became more complaisant to the powerful owning classes; and looked askance only at the workers’ unions—an attitude which led to a very material strengthening of the latter. This schism of Capital and Labour dominates the present social situation, and it is at this time, even more than the state, the gravest hindrance to the natural activities of social energy. Its disintegrating and antisocial effect is plain far outside the region where the immediate issue lies, and it is questionable whether an organic social life is possible until the antagonism is overcome. Something has been done to mitigate the worst asperities of this unsatisfactory position by welfare work, copartnership, profit-sharing; and still more will be done by the introduction of measures of joint control of the conditions of industry. But the fact still remains that this antithesis and separation of capital and labour is artificial and unnatural, as it is also essentially undemocratic. For power goes with ownership under the conditions imposed by the current doctrine of property; and concessions and benefits which are granted as from the voluntary bounty of the employer (however worldly wise they actually are in their intention) involve an assumption of patronage which the present temper of the workers makes entirely unreal and obsolete. The danger of social disruption lies in this quarter; and so long as the present tension remains, it tends to retard the free and varied expressions of fellowship in which a living society should abound. Society divided into two camps, with interests radically divergent, is condemned to a state of tension which is hostile to the free ferment of association natural to men; and this despite all well-meaning efforts to reconcile the conflicting interests by compromises which leave the framework of the schism untouched. So that we have come to this—that it is not only the traditional attitude of the state which is hostile to the free efflorescence of social groups but the actual condition of society under the present industrial system. A state of war, even of suppressed war, makes for a forced fellowship of partisans, and not for the free fellowship of partners. It is in the interests of the genuine socialisation of life that it is demanded that this social schism of capital and labour should be overcome; and there is but one way of overcoming it, namely the logical democratic way of putting the capital and the power it wields in the hands of those who labour. Towards this goal the first step has been taken in the movement toward democratic control in industry; and from this it is inevitable that the worker should proceed to demand control not only of production, but, as Mr. Cole says, also of the product, its sale and exchange; and, finally of investments. The free variegated expression and embodiment of the natural society-forming instincts of mankind are not possible in a community where one class is in a position to impose its will upon another. A state of conflict tends inevitably to a kind of flattening regimentation within the conflicting bodies; and regimentation whether deliberate or unconscious is an obstruction to the free flow of life. There is all the difference in the world between an organised society and a society that is essentially organic. An organised society makes for uniformity; an organic society will express itself in an endless number and variety of social forms.
If the state only knew it, its security lies in the encouragement of voluntary associations of all types; and even if it finds it difficult to rise to the plane of encouragement, it should at least achieve an attitude of toleration. For it is the only safeguard against the inevitable conflict of loyalties which is bound to arise when the state attempts to legislate for individuals in matters which touch the question of moral obligation. Indeed, during the war, we have seen the state in a somewhat lame and half-hearted way endeavouring to escape some of the consequences of its own legislation by having recourse to a recognition of the small group. It was bound by the sheer nature of the falls to acknowledge the existence of conscientious objection to war; and it proposed to acknowledge the genuineness of an individual conscientious objection to war if the person in question was a member of a religious society, the doctrines of which contained a testimony against war. It was assumed that if a man belonged to the Society of Friends, it constituted respectable evidence that his objection to participation in war was sincere. In this particular case, the test proved hopelessly inadequate; but it does at least indicate the condition under which the unity of the state can best be preserved. It is plainly impossible for the state to avoid conflict with the individual conscience so long as it lacks the means of determining whether a conscientious scruple is merely a personal idiosyncrasy or arises from a reasoned and socially authenticated view of life. By recognising the right of the members of a small group which has demonstrated its social worth to live their life out in their own way, it saves itself from a dangerous conflict with the individual conscience; while, on the other hand, as the individual conscience is safe-guarded from an anarchic eccentricity by the discipline of a freely chosen social environment, the state has the assurance that it is dealing with a genuine manifestation of moral life which must at all costs be respected. The small voluntary associated group is the saving middle term between the state and the individual. It is not likely, of course, that it will prove efficacious without exception in solving the problems involved in the relations of the individual and the state; but it would do much to mitigate the dangerous possibilities of the present practice.[[36]]
[36]. This chapter pretends to do no more than discuss at large those questions of fellowship which directly abut upon the public affairs of democracies. The promotion of fellowship in general opens up a large range of subjects which would not fall easily within the scope of this book.
No discussion of the practice of fellowship can, for instance, be complete which does not take account of the actual and potential social ministry of play and recreation. But this matter involves questions with which the present writer is without competency to deal. It would require an extended treatment of the social reactions of sport, amateur and professional, the revival of folk-dancing and the maypole, the multiplication of play-centres for children and of open spaces; of the drama and the public provision of music—and of other matters. The subject is large and important enough for systematic discussion in a separate volume by someone capable of handling it.
Chapter VII.
THE ORGANISATION OF GOVERNMENT.
“The people of England were then, as they are now, called upon to make Government strong. They thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest.”—Burke.
“We may need and we may be moving towards a new conception of the state, and more especially a new conception of sovereignty.... We may have to regard every state, not only the federal state proper, but also the state which professes to be unitary, as in its nature federal. We may have to recognise that sovereignty is not single and indivisible, but multiple and multicellular.”—Ernest Barker.
“We find the true man only through group organisation. The potentialities of the individual remain potentialities until they are released by group life. Man discovers his true nature, gains his true freedom only through the group. Group organisation must be the new method of politics, because the modes by which the individual can be brought forth and made effective are the modes of practical politics.”—Mary P. Follett.
THE war has given the coup de grace to the Sovereign State. It was on its last legs before the war. It is certain that Mr. Combes’ affirmation of state absolutism during the debates on the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in France, was the last serious stand of this doctrine in democratic communities. In England the doctrine was never securely rooted; certainly it has not gained an unquestioned ascendency over political thought for any considerable period of time; and the exploit of Austinian legalism which (in the Scottish Churches’ case) denied to a church the right to govern itself had virtually to be annulled by a special Act of Parliament. During the war the claim of the State upon the individual has naturally attained a point which in normal times would have been unthinkable; but this was confessedly the result of an emergency and not a rule for ordinary conditions of life. The German performance during the war has revealed the logic of state-absolutism in far too vivid a fashion for any of the somewhat turgid exaltation of the state by academic people in the days previous to the war to survive on any terms. To rebut the doctrine of state-absolutism at this time would be merely to flog a dead horse.
But long before the war the absolutist theory was being undermined. In the region of law and political theory the criticism of F. W. Maitland, Nevill Figgis, Duguit, and others had raised a very definite challenge to the doctrine of state-omnicompetency. But of much greater influence in the actual business of modifying the current conception of the state was the growing tendency to form independent foci of authority within the commonwealth. One obvious case of the kind is the institution of the Bank Clearing House which represents the last stage in the process by which the business of exchange has passed from the state into the hands of an independent body which exercises in its own sphere an authority which is hardly to be resisted; and the present movement for the amalgamation of large banking concerns makes it not impossible that should the banking interest come into collision with the State, there would be a very exciting tug-of-war. The medical profession took up an attitude of organised opposition to the State in the matter of the British Health Insurance Act; and other professional associations are to-day so highly organised that in the event of a collision with the State, it is at least doubtful how the issue would be decided. In the case of the Taff Vale decision which rendered a Trade Union liable to prosecution for illegal action by its members, so threatening a protest ensued that the legal decision had virtually to be reversed by special legislation; and the growing solidarity of organised labour again creates a problem of state authority which is not easily soluble, and which (it is not inconceivable) may at last have to be solved by a trial of strength.[[37]] It is no longer possible to assume that the philosophy of government can be stated in terms of the state and the individual; it will have to take increasing account of the relation of the state to the powerful voluntary organisations of citizens within the state—organisations which, because they are voluntary, may exercise a more powerful influence upon their members than the state can possibly do. On the economic side this tendency toward the breaking up and the distribution of centralised authority among functional and professional groups, takes the form of Guild Socialism; and, while Syndicalism has not yet succeeded in gaining a wide footing in Europe, its challenge to the state has added a good deal to the minimising influences already afoot. It is worth while observing that these independent organisations are already so powerful that the British Government found it advisable to administer its National Insurance Act through Labour Unions and Friendly Societies.
[37]. Since these words were written, they have received very clear confirmation in the recent activities of the “Triple Alliance.”
But it is not the growth of powerful organisations within the Commonwealth alone that is making for the disintegration of state-sovereignty. We are living in a period when great international bodies are coming into being, and while most of these are at present of a cultural and professional type, it is evident that one at least is of a character which involves a very profound challenge to the sovereignty of the national state. The Socialist International has not been destroyed by the war; it has only been interrupted; and if the signs are not wholly misleading, we may look for a steady and wide extension of the international proletarian movement. In 1914 it proved too immature to resist the pressure of nationalism, but it is likely that in the future it will increasingly arm itself against a like collapse. As yet it is only in the case of the Socialist International that there is a direct challenge to the national state; but it would require considerable hardihood to deny the possibility that other international professional and functional associations may find themselves at variance with the constituted authorities of national states. For instance, the problem of hygiene is becoming more and more an international affair; and it is no unthinkable thing that a medical international may find itself at odds with the state authorities just as the British Medical Association found itself in conflict with its own national Government. One has only to add in this connection that the project of a League of Nations will require an abdication of the claim to absolute sovereignty on the part of the states constituting it.[[38]]
[38]. This cession of sovereignty may be hidden by a formal camouflage; but there can be no real League of Nations without it.
So that both from within and without, the march of events is disintegrating the dogma of state-sovereignty. The traditional political acceptances are rapidly becoming obsolete. In the main this would appear to be due to the new situation created by the swift development of the means of communication during the last century. The territorial factor in the delimitation of states and in their own internal economy, has ceased to have the importance it possessed in days when distance set sharp limits to the intercourse of men. Those days are now past; and national frontiers and county boundaries are being gradually effaced by steam, and the sea has been bridged by the electric current and the aeroplane.