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.”
III
There can be little doubt that the principle of public ownership with democratic control has received a great impulse from the able advocacy of what has come to be known as Guild-Socialism. The work guild in this connection is something more than a reminiscence of the mediæval institution; the present movement has quite definite affinities with its historical precursor, notably in the principle of combining all the members of a craft in co-operation. But the “national” guild goes beyond its forbear in two respects—in the fact of being national where the older institution was local, and in the account it necessarily takes of the more complex and specialised character of modern industry. “A national guild,” says Mr. S. G. Hobson, “is a combination of all the labour of every kind, administrative, executive, productive, in any particular industry. It includes those who work with their brains and those who contribute labour power. Administration, skilled and unskilled labour—every one who can work—are all entitled to membership.” This body of people will lease from the community the right and the means to carry on the industry with which it is concerned, always providing that it shall be under conditions which safeguard the interests of all the people in respect of the products of the industry.
In the eyes of the guildsman, the “original sin” of the existing industrial system is production for profit. In his Guild Principles in Peace and War, Mr. S. G. Hobson puts side by side (inter alia) the following figures, (the particular year to which they belong is not given):
| Iron and Steel | Railway | |
| Industries. | Construction. | |
| Net output | £30,948,100 | £17,103,100 |
| Persons employed | 262,225 | 241,520 |
| Net output per person | £118 | £71 |
| Average wage per person | £67 | £67 |
Here are revealed two facts of great interest. The first is that in railway construction, which is chiefly for need and use, the disparity between the average output and the average wage per person is only four pounds, whereas the iron and steel industries, where production is for profit, the disparity is as high as fifty-one pounds. Railway construction represents output in locomotives, rolling-stock and so forth which the railway companies make for their own use; whereas the products of the iron and steel industries are destined for the market. Where product is for profit, the excess of average output over the average wage is more than twelve times as great as where the production is for use. This is connected with the fact that the iron and steel industries are chiefly concerned with the provision of dividends, whereas in railway construction there is no such direct necessity.