In the six months ending March 31, 1922, £93,000,000 have been invested in Savings Certificates, a sum which is more remarkable when one considers the conditions in industry during this time. By a wise foresight, arrangements have been made by which local authorities can borrow from the Public Works Loans Commissioners 50 per cent. of the money raised in the area of any local authority. In brief, this means that £46,500,000 per annum of new capital is being saved, and made available for works of public improvement if required, while another £46,500,000 will be available for the repayment of ways and means advances which will thus set free bank credits for the financing of private trade. It is a steady regular funding of the floating debt by money which is actually saved. As a measure of comparative magnitude of millions it is well to point out that the total cost of Old Age Pensions for the past financial year was £21,750,000, and the total cost of Poor Law in the year ending March 31, 1920, was £28,500,000. This measure of success has concealed to some extent the other function of the Committee, viz. economic education. In the last analysis the problem of unemployment becomes one of finance. So far as it can be alleviated by measures of insurance or relief or emigration, taxation and rates will provide the means, but beyond all compulsion, the individual has a measure of responsibility. Wise spending, the avoidance of waste and extravagance, will do more to restore the foundations of industry and credit than any action by Government. Just as during the war it was possible to divert goods and services from private ends to the main national need of providing men and munitions necessary for victory, so to-day a conscious control of individual expenditure, including a measure of personal thrift and saving, will mean lower rates of interest, a larger amount of credit, and a general improvement of trade and employment.
As regards the second element, viz. the wider knowledge of social conditions, foundations are being laid by voluntary effort. In all the big industrial areas a growing measure of interest is being taken in social conditions. The pre-war voluntary associations are realizing their inevitable connection with the Government Departments and local authorities. Councils, representative of local authorities and voluntary associations, have been formed, based, not on the Victorian ideal of the Lady Bountiful, but on the juster, saner ideal of a common citizenship owing service to the community. Practical steps are being taken to reduce the chaos and overlapping in effort and money: in one place a survey of local conditions; in another a handbook of information on the local provision; in yet another a system of mutual registration of assistance and relief, and finally, an investigation into the total sums spent out of public funds in social services. Underlying it all is the personal service rendered by social workers, as welfare workers, Guilds of Help, prohibition officers, infant welfare workers, etc. Out of experience has come the understanding that two types of co-operation are needed: first, the co-operation of experts in co-ordinating questions of policy; secondly, the co-operation of individual citizens in solving the problems of the individual in trouble. From a wide experience of industrial unrest there is a firm conviction that the hard cases, the unintentional injustices, the administrative difficulties, summed up by the phrase “red tape,” are a more fruitful source of trouble than the larger grievances.
This advocacy of personal service in many fields and in differing degrees is not the vapouring of a social visionary, but is an expression of the genius of our race. Every reform, every method of social advance, has owed its existence to the enthusiasm of volunteers trying a new idea, finding it work successfully, and then convincing others that it should apply throughout the country. It is not muddling through, but the onward march of individual freedom, which includes a freedom to combine and a freedom to persuade and convince others that a new way is the right way. The Teutonic method of social improvement by compulsion, not for its own sake, but for military purposes, influenced English thought for a generation. The result is seen in a development of the State far beyond the capacity or desires of our people. The remedy is to be found, not in a further treatment of homœopathic doses of the same medicine, but by relying upon the natural, healthy development of the national spirit through and in the individual.
The uncovenanted service that is needed from each member of the community “is inspired service that is not measured in cash, about which there are no overtime disputes, and in which time and a half or double time is welcomed rather than objected to. And is not that the kind of service for which the world is pining? Unless we can do away with the nicely balanced give and take we shall not make progress in alleviating the sufferings of humanity.” And there is an even broader vision. As against the extreme Socialists who preach class-warfare, and try to sever class from class, there is only one true antidote—some strong, compelling, active principle that tends to bring together all classes, not for selfish ends, but springing from an ever-present sense of the brotherhood of men.
FOOTNOTES
[1] This is only the number directly affiliated; there are in all 2,350 divisional and Local Labour Parties and Trades Councils.
[2] Reprinted, with additions, as The Revolutionary Movement in Great Britain. Grant Richards, Ltd., 1921.
[3] A good exposition of this school of Socialism is to be found in Professor J. A. Estey’s Revolutionary Syndicalism.
[4] Rt. Hon. J. R. Clynes; Messrs. J. A. Hobson, J. J. Mallon and Misses Susan Lawrence and Mona Wilson.
[5] The shop stewards, normally, are persons elected by the men of each craft in each department of an engineering shop to act individually, or through a “convener” of all the shop stewards of the particular craft as the connecting link between the men of that craft in the works and the district delegate or district committee of the craft Trade Union.