The construction of a complete system of “collective” production would be easy, for it would find the framework ready to its hand, complete from base to summit, fully mapped out on the plan.
Perhaps the leaders themselves are not fully conscious of the lengths to which their proposed organisation may carry them. One can quite understand how from their standpoint they fail to see the end. They have pursued the path that seemed the most likely to lead to their goal of a radical change of the existing social order. The whole responsibility will rest with the parties in power, if they do more than hold out their little finger, which they have already done, to help Social Democracy along this path of organisation.
CHAPTER XII. FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF PROTECTIVE ORGANISATION.
In spite of all that can be urged against them, however, we may gather much, not merely negative, but also positive, knowledge from the proposals of Social Democracy. An organisation which shall be equipped with full authority, which shall be independent, complete in all its parts, which shall prevail uniformly and equally over the whole nation; an organisation which shall avoid the disintegration of collective aids to labour, which shall encourage industrial representation and prevent the division of authority amongst many different courts: such is the root idea of the proposal, and this idea is just, however unacceptable may appear to us the form in which it is clothed in the Auer Motion. Nothing is omitted in the Auer Motion except the assignment of their various duties to the various branches of the territorial representative bodies, and the working out of an elementary local organisation. I shall therefore try to work out the idea into a legitimate and possible form of development. In order to do this I must distinguish between the organisation required for executive and for representative bodies.
As regards the executive organs, neither in Germany nor elsewhere is the industrial inspectorate at present furnished with a sufficient number of paid head-inspectors and sub-inspectors. Scarcely any of the sub-inspectors are drawn from the labouring class except in the case of England. Industrial inspection in Germany has not yet attained uniform extension over the whole Empire. The inspectors of the different provinces, and the chief provincial inspectors of the whole Empire require to be brought into regular communication with each other and with a Central Bureau adapted for all forms of aid to labour, including Labour Protection—an organ which of course must not interfere with the imperial, constitutional, and administrative independence of the States of the Bund. If the individual inspectors were everywhere carefully chosen, the assembling of all inspectors for deliberation with the Provincial and Imperial Central Bureaux of Labour Protection would in nowise retard, but on the contrary would serve to promote the complete and equitable administration of Labour Protection and all forms of aid to labour. This is the really fruitful germ contained in the idea of an “Imperial Labour Board.”
A Provincial Labour Board might effect much in the same direction. We are not without the beginnings of a uniform constitution of this kind: England has an Inspector-General, Austria a Central Inspector; in Switzerland the inspectors hold regular conferences; in France a comprehensive scheme of inspectoral combination is projected.
The choice of persons as head and sub-inspectors, which is a matter of such great importance, might be subject to nomination by the united provincial inspectorate, coupled with instructions to direct particular attention to the selection of persons of practical experience, without social bias, well versed in knowledge of technical and hygienic matters, and suited to the special needs of the several posts.