of centralisation and State control, the increasing influence of financial and industrial interests on political action, the demand of Labour for fuller participation in the fruits of the common effort, the repudiation by some sections of Labour of all obligations to the State as at present constituted, the obligation of the State to fulfil its pledges to the Unions.

It would be interesting to examine each of the various programmes of reconstruction which have been put forward, in the light of these conditions and of the principles we have attempted to define. Unfortunately, such an examination would make impossible demands upon our space, and we must perforce confine ourselves to a consideration of the chief general tendencies revealed. This is the less to be regretted, inasmuch as most of the programmes fall into three or four groups having a strong family likeness.

The main lines of cleavage are two-one relating to purpose and the other to method. With regard to purpose, the distinction is between those whose criterion of national prosperity is based on things, and those whose criterion is based on lives. With regard to method, the divergence is between those who look for progress to the extension and perfection of compulsory organisation, and those who place their hopes in spontaneous individual activity and voluntary cooperation. The believers in compulsory organisation may be subdivided into those who favour the centralisation of control over all forms of national activity in the State, and those who desire to invest specially created functional bodies, such as Guilds or Trade Councils, with authority to regulate and control specific departments of national life.

To some extent, these lines of demarcation cut across each other. Those who measure the greatness of a nation by the extent of its political boundaries and its military power, those who judge of its prosperity by trade statistics and volume of production, are naturally to be found almost unanimously on the side of centralised authority and regulation, whether by the State or by functional groups. Among those whose object is to improve the standard and quality of life, there is greater difference of opinion. Many of them believe that their end can only be attained by a concentration of power

in the hands of centralised authorities under democratic control. Others regard the tendency to transfer initiative from men to systems as the chief obstacle to progress.

Among the advocates of centralisation and regulation are to be found those who have been converted by the war to the supremacy of the scientifically organised State. The pessimists with regard to international relations-those who deny the possibility of a league of nations, and who regard international trade as a form of conflict rather than of cooperation-are naturally led to the adoption of a military model for national institutions. Regarding all forms of human activity as phases of a ruthless struggle for existence, which finds its ultimate expression in the conflict of nations, they inevitably tend to subordinate individual freedom and social welfare to the development of the power and resources of the State.

In the same camp are to be found those who may be termed the Scientific Industrialists. Under this heading we include the authors of all those programmes of industrial reconstruction which lay a preponderant emphasis upon the systematic organisation of industry for mass production and regard quantity of output as the sole, or at any rate the chief, criterion of national vitality. Many of them pay lip-homage to the lifestandard, by claiming that the adoption of their proposals would enable higher wages to be paid; and it is probable that they will thereby purchase a certain amount of Labour support. Nevertheless, the bias of their outlook is recognisable in a general tendency to consider work simply as a commodity and the worker as an industrial unit. They accept, in general, a purely material standard of national welfare; and, even when they propose to admit the worker to some share in the control of industry, they stop short of recognising that he has any interest in his job other than the money which he earns. Hence, in their schemes of industrial reorganisation, the individual, whether employer or operative, is nothing, the system is everything. Their tendency to regard industry as an independent entity, separable from the social life of the community, leads them, in many cases, to demand for it an autonomous constitution; but the powers with which they would invest the central

industrial authorities are hardly less than those claimed for the State by the most fervent advocates of centralisation. Their ideal appears to be the conversion of the whole country into one vast factory, ruled by a board of experts on the lines of scientific management.

At the opposite pole to the supporters of State supremacy and the Scientific Industrialists are the Localists, who deny that any real communal bond can extend beyond the village or the small town, and the advocates of Industrial Reintegration, who dream of abolishing the whole industrial system, and reverting to the small workshop and universal hand-labour. Both these groups base their arguments on the sanctity of personality and the necessity for individual freedom of initiative and expression; but, as has already been said, there are other groups adopting the life-standard, who seek to attain their ends by centralised organisation. Such are the State Socialists, who desire to bring all property and all forms of activity under direct State control on the ground that economic equality is a condition precedent to all moral and intellectual progress; and the Guild Socialists, who would hand over the regulation of industry to autonomous functional units, invested with authority coequal with that of the State.

This

It is State Socialism which has been adopted as the official policy of the Labour Party. Among the rank and file of the workers there is a strong disruptive tendency, which is equally hostile to the employers, the State and the recognised Labour organisations. movement, which finds one expression in the increasing influence of Shop Stewards, aims at direct Labour control of each separate industrial concern, but its final goal is not very clearly defined. Meanwhile, the leaders of the existing Labour Party, whose outlook extends beyond the purely industrial sphere, are bent upon capturing the State machine. Their experience of State management during the war has rendered them violently hostile to the present constitution of Government; yet their latest demand is for the nationalisation of land, railways, coal mines, shipping, power stations, and the business of Life Assurance, together with State control over the import of raw materials, the machinery of production and distribution, prices, wages and profits. They are content

that the State should control all national activities, provided that Labour controls the State. It is worth noting that the advocates of State Supremacy, the Scientific Industrialists and the Labour Party, alike demand the centralised organisation of all forms of industrial activity. Their only quarrel is as to who shall control the machine and how the proceeds shall be divided.

What measure of support this programme will receive it is too early to say; but there is no doubt that its appeal will be strong. The Marxian Socialism of the Social Democratic Party, based on the 'class war,' has never made great progress in this country; but the nationalisation of the means of production and distribution, and the gradual expropriation of the individual capitalist are widely advocated, both on grounds of natural justice and as the only effective means of securing to the workers greater leisure, better education, wider opportunities, surroundings more congenial to personal development, and conditions which shall change work from a mechanical drudgery into a fitting expression of human powers. The necessity of such a policy is preached in popular terms by the Independent Labour Party and on more academic lines by the Fabian Society. These bodies now appear to have won over the Trade Union Congress-hitherto mainly concerned with concrete questions of wages and working conditions-and the extension of the New Labour Party to include brainworkers has brought in a powerful reinforcement from among those who conceive that the present constitution of society presents insuperable obstacles to the raising of the standard and quality of life amongst the mass of the people. Believing that these obstacles can be swept away by legislative reforms, many who do not belong to the working class in the ordinary acceptation of the term, hope to accomplish these reforms by means of a Labour Government.

A different tendency from any of the above is represented by such documents as the Whitley Report and the Garton Memorandum. The authors of these documents accept the existing constitution of industry and society, but desire to transform it by the introduction of a new spirit, finding expression in the voluntary cooperation of employers and employed, for the purpose of

securing both better methods of production and an improvement in the status and wellbeing of all those connected with industry. This cooperation they propose to obtain through the medium of Joint Standing Industrial Councils, District Boards and Works Committees, representative of the existing Trade Unions and Employers' Federations. The distinguishing feature of the schemes is that the work of establishing this new machinery is left to the spontaneous initiative of those concerned, with the widest liberty of experiment and variety.

There are few of these groups whose creed does not contain certain valuable elements of truth; and, if the work of reconstruction is to be truly national, the cooperation of those who differ on many points of detail will be required. There is no single specific for social or industrial ills; and it will be a deplorable misfortune if mutual suspicion, or too rigid an enforcement of party shibboleths, prevents men who agree in desiring their country's good from working together to procure it. There is, however, one question which is fundamental and which must be faced at the outset. This is the question at issue between those whose criterion of national prosperity is 'efficiency '-whether shown by trade statistics or by the power and smooth working of the State machine-and those whose criterion is the standard of individual life and service.

6

This word efficiency' is one of those popular catchwords which do much to obstruct clear thinking on any subject. Meaning much or little according to their employment, they are readily adopted as a cheap and easy substitute for thought, and lend themselves without difficulty to interested interpretations. They are too dangerous to be allowed to pass without examination.

The defect of 'efficiency' as a programme is that it has no positive existence. It is a purely relative quality and can be considered only in relation to purpose. It pertains to the instrument and not to the function of the instrument. An institution An institution may be very efficient in performing the work for which it was created, and yet be a curse and a snare, all the more deadly because of that very efficiency.