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 3 1924 002 358 4B: 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR 
 
 RELATIONS 
 
 AT 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002358483 
 
THE MEANING 
 
 OF 
 
 NATIONAL GUILDS 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE B. RECKITT 
 
 Editor of the Church Sodalist 
 
 AND 
 
 C. E. BECHHOFER 
 
 Author of Russia at the Cross-roads, etc. 
 Member of the Discharged Soldiers' and Sailors' Federation 
 
 CECIL PALMER & HAYWARD 
 Oakley House, Bloomsbury Street, W.C. i 
 
FIRST 
 EDITION 
 19 18 
 COPY- 
 RIGHT 
 
C.I 
 
 " Labour should take part in the affairs of the com- 
 munity as partners rather than as servants." — From 
 the Summary of the Reports of the Commission of Enquiry 
 into Industrial Unrest, 19 17. 
 
CONTENTS 
 Each Chapter is^preceded by a Synopsis 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 I. THE GUILD IDEA I 
 
 II. THE FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVISM . . 5 
 
 III. SERVILITY OR FREEDOM ? . . -27 
 
 IV. THE MIDDLE CLASS AND NATIONAL GUILDS 63 
 V. TRADE UNIONISM AND BEYOND . . 9I 
 
 1. THE MEANING OF INDUSTRIAL 
 UNIONISM ..... 103 
 
 2. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF TRADE 
 UNIONISM 122 
 
 3. THE FUTURE OF TRADE UNION 
 POLICY 161 
 
 VI. THE MIRAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION . . 203 
 
 VII. THE TRANSITION TO NATIONAL GUILDS . 263 
 
 VIII. NATIONAL GUILDS IN BEING . . . 30I 
 
 IX. PROBLEMS AND POLICY .... 339 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHIES 445 
 
 VU 
 
TO 
 
 THOSE WHO, 
 
 HAVING NO "STAKE IN THE COUNTRY," 
 
 YET FOUGHT FOR ITS HONOUR ABROAD, 
 
 IN HOPE THAT THEY 
 
 MAY ONE DAY FIGHT FOR THEIR OWN AT HOME, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The one word which has bitten into the minds of the 
 masses of the people during the War, as far as social 
 and economic relations are concerned, is Profiteering. 
 The word has become popular, but with its meaning 
 curiously twisted. It has come to mean the private 
 extortion from the community, under the present 
 terrible circumstances, of amounts exceeding what 
 is regarded as " fair." But Profiteering really sums 
 up the whole system under which such social functions 
 as production and distribution are conducted by 
 private individuals and enterprises seeking to make 
 profits without regard to the consequences. Indeed, 
 the word simply unveils the truth which was pre- 
 viously hidden under the pseudo-scientific and 
 abstract term, " Capitalism," execrated by reformers 
 and SociaUsts. Profiteering is " Capitalism " with- 
 out its mask, and with its deformities revealed. 
 
 Before 1914 men endured this structure of eco- 
 nomic ppivateering (whence the word ' ' profiteering " *) 
 with ail its horrors and absurdities, because they 
 were told — ^by the capitalists and their spokesmen — 
 that it was the only system that could be depended 
 upon to withstand the strains and shocks both of 
 peace and war. Therefore, the legend ran, if you 
 interfere with Capitahsm, you are rendering a 
 civilised society unsafe. Facts have given the he 
 
 * It was coined several years before the War by the editor of the 
 New Age. 
 
 ix 
 
X Introduction 
 
 to the capitalist claims. At the first alarm of war. 
 Capitalism trembled; and its stunted spires were 
 brought down in ruins by the first shot that was 
 fired. 
 
 Exposed to the stress of war, private Capitalism 
 has failed equally in production, distribution, and 
 finance. The State has had to reorganise production 
 as the only means of conducting it with any degree 
 of efficiency ; although, in as far as production has 
 been rebuilt on the lines of restricted Capitalism, 
 it is stiU inefficient and must still fail. The inade- 
 quacy of individual command of the me^ns of 
 distribution was exemplified when the State found it 
 necessary to systematise and " control " the whole 
 machinery of transport before even our first Httle 
 Expeditionary Force could be mobilised and des- 
 patched. In the world of finance — the capitalists' 
 chosen kingdom — the failure was no less complete. 
 The State had to guarantee the financiers many 
 millions of pounds to cover the foreign bills of 
 exchange accepted by them, before those great men 
 would consent to carry on at all. 
 „ Since, then, its unqualified failxire at the very 
 outbreak of the War, Capital has gradually been 
 brought — at a ruinous cost, admittedly — ^under the 
 " control " of our only shghtly more public-spirited 
 State officials. Had not this been done, the conduct 
 of the War would have been not only more incom- 
 petent and more unsuccessful than it has been, but 
 we should have found it impossible to face the enemy 
 at aU. 
 
 But it is in regard to Labour that the War has 
 shown most clearly the rottenness of Capitalism. 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 We have only to compare the wonderful record of 
 the workers in the trenches with the chaos and 
 confusion in the workshops at home to see that 
 something is hopelessly wrong in industry — not 
 with the men, but with the methods. Labour, 
 after being consistently treated as nothing more 
 than a " commodity," a " raw material," or " one 
 of the factors of production," was suddenly assured 
 that it was the backbone of the nation, that our 
 common fate depended" upon its efforts, and that 
 only in the workshops could victory be won. True 
 as it was, this admission was made only partially 
 and always grudgingly. Indeed, save for high-flown 
 appeals to the workers to be worthy of the trust 
 that had never been reposed in them, nothing was 
 done to give effect to so vital a discovery. As a 
 consequence. Labour, after a short period of flounder- 
 ing in the realm of national idealism, was again 
 dragged down by the brute necessity of the capit- 
 alist workshop and the brutish hypotheses of the 
 capitaUst ideology to its old level of mere opportunism. 
 Thus, in the foiurth year of the War, we have con- 
 fusion almost as bad as ever; nor is there any further 
 hope of improvement along the lines of the outworn 
 and incompetent structure of Capitalism. Every 
 device, possible and impossible, to prop up the ruins of 
 the old creed has been tried and hcis failed. Our only 
 hope, as a nation, hes in the determination to build 
 up a new and better structure of society. The War 
 has shown — even to those who ignored the fact 
 before — that it is the industrial structure of the 
 nation upon which its people must at last base their 
 common efforts. It is with this aspect of society 
 
xii Introduction 
 
 that our book deals. Our purpose is to show that ' 
 the industrial needs of modern England cannot be 
 satisfied, with either justice or efficiency, unless the 
 connection with Capitalism is cut dehberately and 
 for ever. In its place, there is put forward the 
 programme of National Guilds— not, however, as a 
 Utopian panacea, but as a practical solution of the 
 industrial problem. 
 
 The idea of National Guilds is essentially construc- 
 tive. It is so at the expense of the assumptions 
 which have, for the most part, been held ahke by 
 those who accepted the present industrial system 
 and by those who sought to reform it. It is a 
 challenge both to the capitaUst and to the Collec- 
 tivist. It denies that man's labour can justly be 
 hired at a " standard rate," however high ; it denies 
 that his industrial Ufe must be regulated by superior 
 authority, from above or from putside ; and it 
 denies that society can be saved, or the worker set 
 free, by the initiative in industrial affairs being 
 transferred to the State. The estabUshment of 
 National Guilds involves the abohtion of the wage- 
 system, the attainment of self-government in 
 industry, and the modification of State sovereignty. 
 There is nothing novel about these ideas ; already 
 the phrases by which they are expressed are freezing 
 into cUches. But there is something novel in their 
 being accepted as the essential standard by which 
 the value of all social change is tested. Doubtless 
 many social reformers of the last century would have 
 been brought to agree that these ideals were quite 
 desirable, when reforms had clecired the way for 
 them. But such a condition was really fatal, since 
 
latroductioii xiii 
 
 the reforms contemplated did not clear the way for 
 the realisation of these ideals ; indeed, they post- 
 poned them. It was only because they postponed 
 the ideals that the reforms were conceded. The 
 " practical man " in the progressive ranks, in the 
 thirty years between 1880 and 1910, no doubt looked 
 on the great truths upon which this book will 
 throughout insist as mere truisms. Yet a truism is 
 but a truth taken for granted ; in our evil society 
 we can no more afford to take, truth for granted 
 than a diseased person can afford to take health for 
 granted. There is no other way of achieving truth 
 and freedom in society than by the realisation of 
 them ; we can abolish the wage-system only by 
 weakening it ; we can establish the Guild only by 
 strengthening and releasing the Trade Union of 
 to-day. As for the State, let uS bid the worker not 
 expect it to pull aU his chestnuts out of the fire ; 
 it wUl be better employed in rescuing its own from 
 the plutocracy who have usurped so many of its 
 functions, while tmloading on Government shoulders 
 so many of their own burdens. 
 
 The Guild idea, then, is not in any sensational 
 sense a new thing. It derives from many strains 
 of pure and disinterested social thinkijig ; but we 
 beheve that its sponsors have formulated the 
 essentials of the industrial problem more clearly 
 and completely than any other group to-day. It 
 would be interesting, if space allowed, to trace the 
 respective shares of the various influences which 
 have contributed to the formulation of National 
 Guild principles and ideas, and to disentangle them. 
 We should find the craftsmen's challenge and the 
 
xiv Introduction 
 
 blazing democracy of William Morris ; the warning 
 of Mr. Belloc against the huge shadow of the Servile 
 State and, perhaps, something also of his claim for 
 the individual's control over property ; the insistence 
 of Mr. Penty on the perils of industrialism and its 
 large-scale organisation, and his recovery and be- 
 quest to us of the significant and unique word 
 " guild." We should find something of French 
 Syndicalism, with its championship of the producer ; 
 something of American Industrial Unionism, with 
 its clear vision of the need for industrial organisation ; 
 and something of Marxian Sociahsm, with its 
 unsparing analysis of the wage-system by which 
 Capitalism exalts itself and enslaves the mass of men. 
 But it is, above all, the changed direction of the 
 English Sociahst and Trade Unionist movements — 
 changed as a result of their own failures and the 
 universal failure of the War— that makes possible 
 the putting into practice of the Guild idea. " The 
 EngUsh Trade Unions are the hope of the world." 
 In the narrower and stricter sense of the term, the 
 propaganda of National Guilds proceeds from two 
 origins — Mr. A. R. Orage and his colleagues of the 
 New Age, and Mr. G. D. H. Cole and his colleagues 
 of the National Guilds League. Nor are these 
 sources necessarily distinct, since Mr. S. G. Hobson, 
 author of the well-known series of articles in the 
 New Age in which the principles and proposals of 
 National Guilds were first formulated, is a prominent 
 member of the National Guilds League, while Mr. 
 Cole and other members of the League have been 
 constant contributors to the New Age. The debt 
 of National Guildsmen (as the advocates of the 
 
Introduction xv 
 
 National Guild system are called) to the New Age is 
 incalculable, since not only did Guild principles first 
 take shape in its columns, but 4:hey have since been 
 debated and contested there with as much impar- 
 tiaUty as abiUty, and by no one more than by the 
 editor. But even so, we may doubt whether the 
 propaganda of National Guilds would ever have 
 become widely understood by the workers, whom it 
 most concOTis, had it not been for the work of Mr. 
 Cole in translating it into terms of Trade Unionism 
 and appl5ang it to the crucial problems of the 
 industrial movement. For ourselves, we acknow- 
 ledge our debt aUke to the New Age, Mr. Cole's books, 
 and the publications of the National Guilds League. 
 The extent of our debt will be obvious from a glance 
 at the footnotes and references which suggest (what 
 is, indeed, the fact) that this book is as much a work 
 of editorship as of authorship. Our object is to 
 place before the reader the outlines of what is in 
 reaUty a very vast subject ; and if, in process of 
 doing so, our own idiosyncrasies and defects seem 
 to hinder rather than to assist the argument, we hope 
 he wiU go to those originals from which we ourselves 
 have learnt so large a proportion of what we here set 
 down. 
 
 In conclusion, we would insist that the Guild idea 
 is an idea rather than a-creed, and an idea the imphca- 
 tions of which are by no means exhausted. Those 
 who have so far been most prominently associated 
 with its formulation are by no means agreed upon 
 the details of its appUcation, as the reader will see from 
 some of the controversies summarised in the ninth 
 chapter of this book (pp. 339-444) ; nor do they attach 
 
xvi Introduction 
 
 equal importance to the various strains of thought 
 which have contributed to produce it. They would 
 aU, however, agree in repudiating any intention or 
 desire to force a rigid system upon a passive people. 
 No true democracy will accept a Utopia which- it 
 does not itself create. The essentials of the Guild 
 idea are the recovery of initiative by the ordinary 
 worker, his release from bondage to the base purposes 
 of profit, and his achievement of complete and 
 responsible industrial democracy. By such a 
 transformation alone can society be saved ; to make 
 clearer the way to it is the purpose of all that follows 
 here. 
 
 We wish to acknowledge our debt to Mr. A. J. 
 Penty, Mr. E. E. Beare, and Mr. J. MacCallum for 
 help afforded in the fourth chapter, and to Mr. 
 Rowland Kenney for many valuable suggestions. 
 
 M. B. R. 
 C. E. B. 
 
 April, 1918. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE GUILD IDEA 
 
What is a '' National Guild " ? Examples : a National 
 Mining Guild ; a National Transport Guild. Self- 
 government and national responsibility. 
 
THE GUILD IDEA 
 
 A National Guild would be a democratically self- 
 governing association which, consisting of aU the 
 workers engaged in any main industry, would be 
 responsible for carr3dng it on in conjunction with 
 the State. 
 
 For example, a National Mining Guild would be 
 composed of every worker of all grades — administra- 
 tive, technical, skilled and unskilled, on the surface 
 and undergroimd — actively engaged in mining. As 
 a democratic association, its members would be 
 associated on an equal basis, and not in the un- 
 democratic industrial relationship of employers and 
 employees. As a self-governing body, the National 
 Mining Guild would have fuU powers, without out- 
 side interference, over all industrial matters affecting 
 its members, over the administration of all the mines 
 in the country, and over everjrthing that concerned 
 methods and conditions of mining. Ownership of 
 the mines and of the plant and other forms of capital 
 used in mining would be vested in the State, but they 
 would be at the disposal of the Mining Guild to be 
 worked in the public interest. 
 
 Similarly, in the case of, say, a National Transport 
 Guild, the whole national machinery of transport 
 (railways, shipping, vehicles^ canals, etc.) would be 
 the property of the community, but the monopoly 
 of its working would be exercised by the Guild, 
 
4 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 In every main industry, then, the workers, 
 organised in a self-governing National Guild, would 
 have the monopoly and control of its working in 
 partnership with the State, which would be the 
 owner of the means of production. The aim of 
 National GuUd service is the right conduct of industry 
 in the interests of the community. For this every 
 Guildsman would be responsible to his Guild, and 
 every Guild to the community through the other 
 Guilds and the State. 
 
CHAPTER II • 
 THE FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVISM 
 
The myth of " Progress." A gospel of quietism. Effect 
 of " Evolution " on the Socialist movement. The 
 Optimist Reformer and the Fatalist Msirxian. Their 
 failure after thirty years. The cant of the " com- 
 rade." The fraud of Fabianism. " A discreetly 
 regulated freedom." Emancipation by capture (i.) of 
 the State by the bureaucrat ; (ii.) of the Trade Unions 
 by the politician. The capitulation of Collectivisin 
 (i.) to State Absolutism; (ii.) to the Wage-system. 
 
II 
 
 THE FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVISM 
 
 " Men are bom for Freedom, but everjnvhere we 
 find they are in chains." With these words Rous- 
 seau opened his Social Contract a hundred and fifty 
 37ears ago. He was sending forth a message which 
 was to change the Europe of his age. To-day they 
 have sunk to be a truism ; yet the distinguishing 
 mark of a truism is that it is true, and this sentence 
 is as true to-day as when it was pejyied. But it is 
 true in a new and yfet more perilous Sense, for the 
 chains of which Rousseau was thinking were the 
 chains of the past ; the chains which fetter men to- 
 day are rather the chains of the future. The people 
 have struck off the chains of privilege to find them- 
 selves loaded with the chains of " Progress." The 
 twentieth century is coming to appreciate the 
 barrenness of that achievement of political liberty 
 on wMch its predecessor so greatly prided itself. 
 For all their " citizensi^," the masses find them- 
 selves still in the toils of industrial slavery, free only 
 to choose their masters. The substance of freedom 
 has yet to be won, and that victory will not be 
 achieved till the ordinary man demands to take his 
 economic destiny into his own hands and thence- 
 forward to determine it in his own way. In that 
 direction alone hes true progress ; ever3rthing else 
 is only Progressivism. 
 Syndicalism has introduced us to the idea gf the 
 
 7 
 
8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 " Social Myth " as a stimulus to human action, and 
 has Unked its doctrines to M. Bergson's " Creative 
 Evolution." But the nineteenth centtiry has 
 bequeathed to us a social myth and a doctrine of 
 evolution fatal to the exercise of man's free-will and 
 fraught with the greatest perils to society. This is 
 the myth of " Progress," parent of that shallow 
 social optimism of the Victorian Age which its poets 
 reflected and to which even its cHches bore witness. 
 What Browning felt when he declared, " God's in 
 His heaven ; all's r^ht with the world," and 
 Tennyson when he pictured " Freedom slowly 
 broadening down from precedent to precedent," was 
 precisely what the ordinary man meant with his 
 everyday phrases, " AU's for the best " and " Things 
 win come right in the end." A spurious scientific 
 basis was added to this complacent sentimentaUsm 
 by the muddle-headed creed of " Evolution," with 
 its protoplasm at one end and its " one far-off divine 
 event " at the other. Text-books displayed the 
 " History of England " as a study in the ascent of 
 man from King Alfred to Mr. Gladstone ; and 
 "Progress" was epitomised by the fact that while 
 Britons were painting themselves blue on the first 
 page, they were painting the map red on the last 
 one. The final paragraph generally alluded to the 
 commercial prosperity of the Empire (without 
 explaining very exactly the degree to which the 
 average citizen shared in it), and, if of sufficiently 
 recent date, would contrive to suggest that the 
 edifice of British freedom, firmly estabUshed on 
 Magna Charta, had been fittingly crowned by the 
 Insurance Ace. 
 
The Failure of Progressivism 9 
 
 We are not concerned here with the details of that 
 ridiculous superstition still largely taught in our 
 schools as " English History," which it is very 
 necessary to expose if EngUshmen are ever to learn 
 of the land that has been stolen from them and the 
 liberties that they have lost. It has only been 
 mentioned here to illustrate how everything has 
 been twisted to make it fit this paralysing dogma of 
 " Progress," which has been regarded almost 
 fatahstically as an inevitable tendency to be assisted 
 rather than as a quest to be pursued against 
 obstacles or a victory to be won. It has resulted 
 in a bland contempt for the past, coupled with a 
 fatuous optimism as to man's achievements in some 
 undated hereafter. A blind trust in what " Pro- 
 gress " wiU do for the human race involves an 
 abdication of free-will which paralyses man's whole 
 sense of capacity and responsibiUty, and drives him 
 back to sheer fatalism. Moreover, " Progress," 
 strictly interpreted, means simply " going on," but 
 the question arises as to the whithqr and the whence ; 
 we may, indeed, go on from strength to strength, 
 but only if we are strong to begin with. A football 
 makes progress, but there are in every match two 
 opinions as to what progress is, and those opinions 
 depend on the fact that there is a goal at each end. 
 Conceive -society as the football, with the Servile 
 State as the goal at one end of the ground and a 
 Free State at the other, and it is easy to see that what 
 may appear as progress to the capitaUst centre- 
 forward may strike the opposing goal-keeper in 
 qtiite another light.- " Progress " in the sense 
 of " going on " must not be confounded with 
 
10 The Meaning of National Ghiilds 
 
 " Progress " in the sense of " getting better." Nor 
 has material progress, the advance of knowledge 
 and invention, any necessary connection with the 
 spiritual progress of human society. Every fresh 
 advance offers, of course, a widening of the sphere 
 of man's opportunities ; but it provides no guarantee 
 that he will make a good use of them. An oppor- 
 tunity for good is also an opportunity for evil,, and 
 the horrors of the present War have shown the way 
 in which man may apply the discoveries of scienee 
 to the uses of destruction, and do so, moreover, in 
 the name of " Progress " ! " The world has pro- 
 gressed and is progressing," said an evening paper 
 recently, commenting on the latest developments 
 of armaments. " Now, as always, you can only kill 
 a man once, but how many different methods both 
 of killing and of defence have we not fashioned since 
 Hannibal crossed the Alps ? " Such infatuation 
 with the mere machinery of destruction is not far 
 from insanity. The latest goal of evolution, it 
 seems, must be summed up ia a new motto; 
 " Krupp's in his Essen ; aU's right with the world ! " 
 It is to be hoped, however, that the War with its 
 crash of catastrophe will have shattered the walls of 
 superstition and complacency which have hemmed 
 us in so long and formed that prison of " Progress" 
 into which the nineteenth century had ushered us 
 so successfully. For until those walls ate down the 
 workers will never waken to the perils with,4vhidi i 
 they are threatened or the task which lies before 
 them if a way of escape from these is to be found, 
 As long as the doctrine of a gradual and beneficenj; 
 evolution holds sway over the minds of the masses 
 
The Failure of Frogressivism ii 
 
 the capitalist can pose before them as the last word 
 in human progress, and the initiative which he 
 exercises can be represented as the workings of an 
 ..inscrutable providence. The wage-slave, taught 
 that he in common witlj. the rest of creation was 
 moving towards the " one far-off divine event," 
 sighed only to think how far off it was, and bowed 
 his head in that most abject of social calpitulations, 
 the " surrender to the inevitable." The gospel of 
 " Progress " is a gospel of quietism, and greatly have 
 the forces of tyranny and avarice profited therefrom. 
 It has stolen from the workers, and from that move- 
 ment which they have raised as a challenge to the 
 machine of Power and ij^ain that we know as 
 CapitaHsm, the very quality which alone could 
 supply the inspiration for their crusade — the quality 
 of f^th. It is faith alolie which can move the 
 mountain of the wage-system. To-day the apathy 
 of the worker is largely due to the fact that he does 
 not beUeve this can be done, and, in default of it, 
 he leaves a handful of his fellows with the taste or 
 the ability for agitation to struggle more or less 
 helple'ssly for reforms which may alleviate his lot. 
 
 Nowhere has this delusion of " Progress " proved 
 more disastrous than in the Sociahst movement. 
 For all their differences, the Reformist and the 
 Marxian have shared in common the view that the 
 Sociahst State was a process to be evolved rather 
 than a society to be built. Whilst the social crisis 
 of our day demanded a faith compact of vision and 
 courage, the SociaUsts, Reformist and Marxian aUke, 
 fell back upon the superstitions of " social philo- 
 sophy," and took refuge, the one in Optimism, the 
 
12 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 otiier in Fatalism — creeds which involve an abdica- 
 tion of human will. Their devotees are still amongst 
 us. Both lack the resolution to oppose themselves 
 to " the trend of things " ; but while the Fatalist 
 steels himself to " grin and bear it," the Optimist is 
 content merely to grin. He proclaims a silver lining 
 to every cloud of CapitaUsm, even while his brothers 
 are drowning in the floods. The Optimist improves 
 upon the schoolboy's definition of faith by believing 
 in what he knows ought not to be true ; and, care- 
 fully closing his eyes to the true facts of our social 
 Hfe, he declares himself to be " looking on the bright 
 side." Such is the " reformer," making a virtue 
 of creduHty, and inviting Labour to set out on the 
 road to industrial peace on the back of the tiger of 
 profiteering. But the FataHst, though he makes a 
 show of resolution, plays a role that is equally 
 spiritless. While the Optimist strikes out vigorously 
 with the stream, the FataHst floats resignedly down 
 it. He is represented in economics by the Marxian 
 determinist, for whom industrialism must always be 
 worse before it can be better, and who would extend 
 a welcome even to the National Trusts with which 
 we are threatened, because it would be " unscien- 
 tific " to oppose them. ' The revolution he preaches 
 is always just beyond the horizon of the present, and 
 the victories of the class-war past and over or in- 
 definitely postponed. " Jam yesterday and jam 
 to-morrow, but never jam to-day." 
 
 ' " The Marxian school also difiers from every previous Socialist 
 school in the comparative ease with which it has eschewed every 
 consideration of justice and fraternity, which always played such an 
 important rflle in French Socialism. It is interested not in the ideal, 
 but in the actual ; not in what ought to be, but what is likely to be."— 
 Gide and Rist's Economic Doctrines. 
 
The Failure of Frogressivism 13 
 
 The acceptance by Socialists of this social myth 
 of an inevitable progress provides a clue to the 
 failure of the Socialist movement amongst us after 
 a propaganda of unparalleled enthus'asm and 
 thoroughness lasting for a period of thirty years. 
 That the propaganda of Socialism has failed in 
 its essential objects scarcely admits of doubt. It 
 has failed to effect the only -change in our social 
 system which is of any fundamental importance — 
 an improvement in the status of the^ workers. 
 SociaUsm is no longer identified with the repudiation 
 of wage-slavery ; indeed, measures promoted in its 
 name have rather confirmed than imdermined the 
 wage-system. It has failed to inspire the mass of 
 workers with either a hatred of their chains or a love 
 of the ideals which it has preached. It has failed to 
 alarm any but the stupidest among their masters, 
 many of whom, indeed, have learnt its phrases and 
 profess its creed. Its exponents, whether they 
 advocated a doctrinaire economic Determinism or a 
 bureaucratic Collectivism, have been perplexed by 
 the apathy of the workers, and concluded that these 
 must have been too stupid to understand the 
 doctrines they expounded. Let the workers but be 
 educated to understand SociaUsm, they argued, and 
 they must needs embrace it ; if we go on saying the 
 same thing long enough, we shall convert them in 
 the end. And they have gone on^ — for thirty years. 
 But though it was a consolation flattering to them- 
 selves to attribute their failure to the density of 
 their audiences, the Socialists were wrong in thinking 
 that the workers had altogether failed to understand 
 their message. They may have failed to take in all 
 
14 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the subtleties of the " economic interpretation of 
 history," or to appreciate all the arguments by which 
 Fabian SociaUsm commended itself to the governing 
 classes and the w4ge-eamer at the same time, but 
 they were not too stupid to understand the fate to 
 which under State Sociahsm they themselves, would 
 be condemned. The proletariat were not the fools, 
 that their lecturers have taken them for. The 
 worker has seen through the propaganda of Collec- 
 tivism; he has considered its proposals, and discarded 
 them. His dislike of Socialism is founded on a 
 hatred of claptrap and a suspicion of servitude. If 
 we are to rally the worker to the cause of his own 
 emancipation, we shall do well to study the past of 
 SociaUsm, and learn from its failure. 
 
 The word " Socialism " has become by this time 
 a term of great vagueness, and it has been adopted • 
 by people of very conflicting ideals. Obviously it 
 would not he fair to include all of them in charges 
 which would only be vahd against a section. The 
 idea of National Guilds is, for instance, in a sense, 
 only a development of Socialist theory, and it made 
 its first appearance under the tilJe of " Guild 
 Socialism."' The propaganda of Socialism in 
 England, however, has been distinguished by certain 
 broad characteristics, and it is with these that the 
 term is stiU associated in the mind of the public. 
 Every movement gets the policy it deserves, and 
 the Socialist movement has not escaped the conse-. 
 <juences of this universal truth. Beginning as an 
 attempt to find a new basis for social hfe by calling 
 in an external pubHc authority to rescue mankind 
 
 » See below, chapter ix., pp. 344-346. 
 
The Failoie ol Progressivism 15 
 
 from the consequences of industrial chaos and 
 mdividual avarice, the movement emerged from the 
 Utopian stage only to fcdl a victim to a false view of 
 the State, extolling its omnipotence and preaching 
 the need for capture of its machinery. The result 
 was disastrous. Emancipation — ^it was implied, if 
 not openly proclaimed — ^was not to proceed from the 
 independence and vision of those who felt themselves 
 enslaved ; it was' to be conceded by a pubUc power 
 which had to be cajoled and conciliated by the 
 exhibition of sweet reasonableness and a " states- 
 manhke " moderation. The Socialist movement 
 was stampeded by the CoUectivists. It is they who 
 have created the traditions of EngUsh Sociahsm, and 
 it is against them chiefly that our accusations he. 
 
 It is not against them only, however, that the 
 charge must be laid of having presented Socialism 
 rather as a " movement " for cranks than as a 
 challenging appeal to aU men of common honesty 
 and a sane outlook on society; Sociahsm has 
 become in the eyes of the ordinary man simply one 
 of the " Causes " ; the man at the street comer has 
 appealed to everyone but the man in the street. 
 The fundamental propositions of the Socialist creed 
 — ^that, for the workers,"- production for profit means 
 not only a captivity, but a swindle, and that " the 
 social problem " created by Capitalism is not reaUy 
 a problem at ah, but rather a crime — ^these plain 
 challehges have become overlaid with sentimentaUsm; 
 entangled with a dozen irrelevant fads, stripped of 
 reaUty by becoming associated with mere catch- 
 words, and presented in such a way as to appear to 
 the vast majority a foohsh and mechanical abstrac- 
 
i6 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 tion, involving not the liberty and equality of all 
 men, but only the victory of a clique. To the 
 bourgeois cant of " citizenship " the Socialist has 
 repUed with the cant of the " comrade " ; but the 
 self-conscious " comrade," no less than the self- 
 righteous " citizen," is at heart a snob. The 
 British worker is not to be won by the artificialities 
 of a smug vocabulary, or the fads and poses of 
 Progressivism. The people of England " have not 
 spoken yet," nor will they speak till those who really 
 seek their emancipation appeal to them in a manner 
 which will kindle their idealism without at the same 
 time doing violence to their common sense. 
 
 The rigid Collectivists have, for the most part, 
 avoided the pitfalls of sentimentalism, but only at 
 the cost of eliminating idealism from their presenta- 
 tion of Socialism altogether and founding it ex- 
 plicitly upon a " business basis." Of such were the 
 Fabians, who, according to their secretary and 
 historian, based their Socialism " on that obvious 
 evolution of society as we see it around us," and 
 " proved that SociaUsm was but the next step in the 
 development of society, rendered inevitable by the 
 changes which followed from the industrial revo- 
 lution of the eighteenth century."' Far from 
 Fabian SociaUsm being a challenge to the prevailing 
 creed of CapitaUsm, it "is in fact an interpretation 
 of the spirit of the times." In short, the Fabians 
 sought to make Capitahsm a State monopoly ; but 
 the State interference which they demanded to cure 
 poverty came naturally to be exercised over those 
 
 ' The quotations here are from The History of the Fabian Society 
 (published 1916), by E. R. Pease. 
 
The Failure of Progressivism 17 
 
 persons whom poverty immediately concerns — that 
 is, the poor. That most typical offspring of the 
 marriage of Progressivism and Capitalism, the 
 National Committee for the Prevention of Destitu- 
 tion, assumed a revolutionary tone, preaching " red 
 ruin and the breaking up of Poor Laws," diagnosed 
 destitution as a "disease," and then . proposed to 
 treat the destitute not as victims for whom justice 
 must be secured, but as criminals fit only to be locked 
 up in compounds. No wonder that, as Mr. Pease 
 naively puts it, " people who would not dream of 
 calling themselws Socialists . . . become enthusi- 
 astically interested in separate parts of its programme 
 as soon as it has a programme." Hence also a 
 Fabian Committee, with a title that would serve 
 very well as an alias for the Society itself, set out to 
 reassure the " many who regard SpciaUsm as a 
 menace to, society " that there is really no harm in it 
 for " the conscientious rich, with a compunction 
 that no special pleading by armchair economists 
 can allay," and that the poor, though not super- 
 ficially interesting, might form the material of many 
 most absorbing ' ' social experiments. ' ' In short, that 
 
 The world is so full of a number of plebs 
 
 That I'm sure we should all be as happy as Webbs. 
 
 The spirit of Collectivism has been exactly ex- 
 pressed by one of its own writers : its ideal is " a 
 discreetly regulated freedom." Discretion has 
 always been the better part of Fabian valour ; it 
 would certainly prove to be the larger part of Fabian 
 liberty. Indeed, it is not the Uberty of the worker 
 but his " efficiency " of which these people are 
 
 c 
 
i8 The Meaning of National GoUds 
 
 thinking, and it is the poverty and not the slavery 
 to which he is condemned by Capitalism which 
 excites their indignation, tft is a " National Mini- 
 mum of Civilised Life " on which their hearts are 
 set. The State of their Utopia would be an associa- 
 tion of consumers satisfying their needs by enlisting 
 the activities of hired servants, a nation of workers 
 living on " standard rates " determined by some 
 external authority (presumably a cross between the 
 House of Commons and the London School of 
 Economics !), and in no sense masters of their own 
 industrial Ufe. Hence the CoUectivist has never 
 appealed to the independence of the worker as a 
 worker, but only as a voter ; he has sought his 
 compKance in a bureaucratic experiment, not his 
 victory in an industrial crusade. The first condition 
 of any movement towards emancipation is that the 
 initiative of the dispossessed shall have been stirred ; 
 but the Fabian sought to " raise " the poor rather 
 than to rouse them. The worker was to reach 
 SociaUsm — ^if ever — after he had been brought, 
 blindfold and bound, through the dreary vista of the 
 Servile State. The only message of Fabianism to 
 the masses was, " Open your mouth and shut yoxir 
 eyes, and see what the fairies^wiU bring you." But, 
 if the achievement of freedom is to be the burden of 
 our appeal to the workers, we must speak not of what 
 we expect for them, but of what we expect from 
 them. It is of the essence of the Guild idea that it 
 is emancipatory in method as well as in aim. In 
 setting themselves the task of estabUshing their 
 Trade Unions as permanent and responsible associa-' 
 tions in the social order, the workers will gain 
 
The Failure o! Progressivism 19 
 
 freedom as they go forward ; they will not merely 
 find it waiting for them, as it were, " round the 
 comer." The ideal of National Guilds not only 
 opens up a prospect to which the worker can 
 reasonably look forward, but it insists that by his own 
 efforts he should hasten its advent. It gives him 
 something to work for, whereas the Collectivist only 
 offered him someone to vote for. The worker who 
 is a Guildsman will seek to inspire his Trade Union 
 to play an active part in industry ; but the Collec- 
 tivist sought to " capture " the Trade Unions only in 
 order that their members might be induced to play a 
 passive rSle in poUtics. 
 
 Emancipation by capture, indeed, was the con- 
 tribution of Fabianism to the problem of SociaUst 
 policy — capture of the machinery of the State by 
 the enlightened bureaucrat, capture of the Trade 
 Unions by the progressive politician. The Labour 
 Party was formed to rivet the gaze of the workers 
 upon Westminster, whUe the Fabians themselves 
 concentrated the attention of the middle-class 
 reformer upon Whitehall. While the poHtician 
 parleyed at the gate of the capitalist citadel, the 
 bmreaucrat set himself to undermine its foundations. 
 The rank and file were left alone to look on," helpless 
 to criticise and free only to applaud. All vitality 
 and independence were drained out of the Trade 
 Unions, which were diverted from their true function 
 in the industrial field to become the passive agents 
 of a futile poUtical experiment — " mere electioneer- 
 ing devices for making the working classes seem 
 more Collectivist than they are."* Indeed, the 
 
 « Tht World of Labour, by G. D. H. Cole, p. 8. 
 
20 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 State Socialist has been so infatuated with the idea 
 of evolving SociaUsm out of the Trust that it has 
 never struck him that it might — or rather that it 
 must— be built upon the Trade Union. Mr. Pease 
 himself admits that " in 1888 the authors of Fabian 
 Essays appeared to be unconscious of Trade 
 Unionism." When they became conscious of it, 
 they assigned to the spontaneous organisations of 
 the workers themselves, the necessary constituents 
 of any free SociaUst State, only a strictly subservient 
 role. In the process of transition to SociaUsm they 
 might form useful watch-dogs of Mr. Webb's pet 
 formula of a " National Minimum." But, when 
 State SociaUsm is estabUshed, its supporters can 
 find no particular function for them. Mr. Ramsay 
 MacDonald, for instance, in his book The Socialist 
 Movement, concedes the existence of Trade Unions 
 in the SociaUst State as advisory bodies, but on the 
 vital point of democratic control he is content to 
 hedge. 
 
 Whether these organisations will appoint or have 
 any voice in appointing workshop managers and business 
 directors is a matter on which no definite opinion can 
 yet be formed. » 
 
 That "these organisations" may form a " definite 
 opinion " on the matter for themselves does not 
 seem to have struck Mr. MacDonald as a possibility! 
 
 Betrayed by the CoUectivists, SociaUsm has for- 
 gotten the enemy and mistaken the goal. Intent 
 on " the aboUtion of destitution " and on a change 
 that should be gradual, peaceful, " practical," and 
 
 1 The Socialist Movement, by J. Ramsay MacDonald (Home Univer- 
 sity Library), p. 192. 
 
The Failure of Frogressivisiu 21 
 
 acceptable even to those whom it displaced, it soon 
 surrendered to the wage-system, and aimed only at 
 the " security " of its victims. Meanwhile, and 
 perhaps as a consequence, its democratic aspirations 
 were shipwrecked on the rocks of State Sovereignty. 
 To every problem the State Socialists apphed their 
 flyblown formula — " the nationahsation of the means 
 0^ production, distribution, and exchange " — as if 
 putting industry into the hands of the poUticians 
 were synonjnnous with putting it into the hands of 
 the people. But as long as the State remains, as at 
 present, subject to capitalist influences, and its 
 activities are controlled by men suspicious and 
 generally contemptuous of the aspirations and 
 abilities of the workers. State control will mean 
 nothing more than State regulation of labour, 
 usually in the interests of a private profiteer. Even 
 when the process of nationahsation is complete and 
 the State is in direct conmiEind, the workers are not 
 likely to gain much if they have to labour harder 
 than ever to raise the money for the " compensa- 
 tion " of the departing capitahst at the current rate 
 of interest, and have to take their orders from 
 masters armed with the added sanction of " national 
 authority." " The Duke of Sussex," as Mr. G. K. 
 Chesterton has put it, " will be quite ready to be 
 Administrator of Sussex at the same screw." But the 
 error of the Collectivist went even deeper than this. 
 He identified the State with Society, of which it is 
 but a single, even if a pre-eminent, aspect. To the 
 State and the MunicipaUty, organisations of men on 
 a geographical basis, representing of necessity — 
 as far as industry was concerned — the outlook 
 
22 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 of " consumers," all power was to be entrusted. 
 Other associations might be tolerated, but all 
 — the Trade Union, the Church, even the family- 
 would exist, in effect, at the will of the Sovereign 
 State. A suspicion of this is at the root of that 
 standing accusation brought so commonly against 
 State SociaHsm, that it would " break up the home." 
 The accusation was seldom strictly justified, but it 
 displayed an instinctive distrust of a political doc- 
 trine that concentrated all democratic authority at 
 Westminster and the local town hall. The Socialist 
 spoke of brotherhood, while he threatened the very 
 fraternities in which it could alone be foimd. He 
 used the word but to cast a sentimental halo round 
 the mere common submission to regimentation by 
 a single authority — the Bureaucratic State. 
 
 The existence of social groupings within the State 
 is as essential to human freedom as it is natiual to 
 human fellowship. The function of the State is not 
 to destroy the vital associations of which society is, 
 or should be, composed, but to harmonise them. A 
 divided, or, rather, a distributed, sovereignty is 
 necessary to the social health of a society, and 
 corresponds, as the Omnipotent State can never do, 
 to the reahties of man's nature. Recent political 
 writers have much concerned themselves with the 
 " corporate life and personality " of associations 
 within the State ; few have thrown more light upon 
 this subject than Dr. J. N. Figgis.' He says : 
 
 The State did not create the family, nor did it create 
 
 ' e.g., in his Churches in the Modern State and From Gerson to Grotita. 
 See also chapter iii., " The Nature of the State," in Self-government in 
 Industry, by G. D. H. Cole. * 
 
The Failuie of Progiessivism 23 
 
 the churches, nor even to any real sense can it be said to 
 have created the club or the trades union, nor, in the 
 Middle Ages, the guild or the reUgioys order, hardly even 
 the universities ; they have all risen out of the natural 
 associative instincts of mankind, and should all be treated 
 by the supreme authority as having a Ufe original and 
 guaranteed. » 
 
 In combating the supporters of State interference 
 with religious education, he has well pointed out that. 
 
 What Dr. ChfEord dislikes is the fact that denomina- 
 tionaUsm means the recognition of the religious society 
 as such in the matter of education ; what he demands 
 is that there shaJl be no intermediary between the State 
 and the child. . . . The child (if he be come of poor 
 parents) is to be treated in this matter as belonging to 
 the State alone.* 
 
 The demand of the Collectivist in industry is exactly 
 analogous, as we may see by slightly altering the 
 passage just quoted to read thus : " What Mr. 
 Sidney Webb dislikes is the fact that National Guilds 
 mean the recognition of the industrial society as 
 such in the matter of wealth production ; what he 
 demands is that there shall be no intermediary 
 between the State and the worker. . . . The worker 
 (if he.be come of poor parents) is to be treated in this 
 matter as belonging to the State alone." Collec- 
 tivist theory, indeed, seems likely to lead not to a 
 nationalisation of capital, but to a nationalisation of 
 labour. 
 
 The capital error, however, of Fabianism, and of 
 the State Spcialism which it inspired, was its sur- 
 render to the wage-system. Its economics the 
 
 ' Churches in the Modern State, p. 47. • Op. tit., p. 46. 
 
24 The Meamng of National Guilds 
 
 Fabians accepted, (when they understood them) ; 
 to its tyrannies they were blind. It was poverty and 
 not wage-slavery that they set themselves to abolish. 
 They perceived the sufferings of those whom 
 CapitaUsm has reduced to owning and controlling 
 nothing at all of the instruments of production; 
 they could not see the spiritual subjection in which 
 they were bound. They " pitied the plumage, but 
 forgot the djdng bird." The SociaHsm they preached 
 tended always to pass into a mere State Capitalism 
 with a pubUc security for the payment of rent and 
 interest, while the worker remained where the 
 Fabian found him — in wage-slavery. If this be 
 doubted, let the reader turn to Fabian Essays and 
 listen to Mrs. Besant explaining the remuneration 
 of the worker in " Industry under Socialism " : 
 
 Out of the value of the Communal product must come 
 rent of land payable to the local authority, rent of plant 
 needed for working the industries, taxes, reserve fund, 
 accumulation fund, and all the charges necessary for 
 the carrying on of the business, including wages advanced 
 and fixed in the usual way ! * 
 
 Time served only to confirm this faith in an 
 economic system which treats the "cost of labour" 
 as a " factor in production." In a famous Repovi 
 on Fabian Policy, issued in 1896 and never since 
 withdrawn, may be found the following : 
 
 The Fabian Society discards such phrases as "the 
 abolition of the wage-system," which can only mislead 
 the public as to the aims of Socialism. Socialism does 
 not involve the abolition of wages, but the estabhshment 
 of standard allowances for the maintenance of all 
 
 ' Faiiian Essays, p. 163. 
 
The Failuie of Frogressivism 25 
 
 workers by the community in its own service. ... In 
 short, the Fabian Society, far from desiring to aboUsh 
 ^ wages, wishes to secure them for everybody. 
 
 Nothing could be more definite. The debased status 
 of the worker, as a passive instrument of production 
 bought with a wage, is to continue for all time. 
 Injustitia fiat, ruat caelum ! But since the abolition 
 of the wage-system is the sole condition on which the 
 worker's emancipation can be won, it is essential that 
 we should be clear about it before we can make our 
 choice between the goals of Servility or Freedom. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 SERVILITY OR FREEDOM? 
 
The Wage-system : its assumptions and its implications. 
 Labour a tool. " Our most precious raw material." 
 " Orthodox " Economists and the commodity theory 
 of Labour. Reformist fallacies : (i.) the illusion of 
 " higher wages " ; (ii.) the standard rate and a " higher 
 status." Wages, the price of servitude; Pay, the 
 reward of service. 
 
 The breakdown of CapitaHsm : causes of its instability. 
 Capitahst efficiency and civil hberty ultimately 
 incompatible. The capitalist's creed : its " wage- 
 slave-morahty." His demand for stabihty a demand 
 for slavery. The Servile State. Its advent (i.) 
 promoted by the employer — ^the Garden City and the 
 Garden — scientific management ; (ii.) sanctioned by 
 the State through legislation ; (iii.) accelerated by the 
 War and its eflEect upon industry. 
 
 Servility or Freedom ? A vital choice. " After the War " : 
 the illusions of " goodwill." The brotherhood of the 
 trenches and the bondage of the workshop. The 
 impossibihties of industrial pacifism. National Trusts 
 or National Guilds. 
 
Ill 
 
 SERVILITY OR FREEDOM? 
 
 The fundamental basis of the revolutionary case 
 ■ against Capitalism is not that it makes the few rich 
 and the many poor— though this is true ; not that it 
 creates social conditions which are a disgrace and 
 an amazement in a civilised community — ^though this 
 also is true ; not that it brutaMses the rich by luxury, 
 stifles beauty, and fnistrates the hope of craftsman- 
 ship for the worker — ^though, indeed, it does all these 
 things ; but that it denies and degrades the character 
 of man by the operation of a wage-system which 
 makes the worker of no more account than a machine 
 to be exploited or a tool to be bought and sold. The 
 seed of all our glaring social failure and distress 
 to-day 'Hes not in any imagined "problem" of 
 poverty, nor in any inevitable " stage " of economic 
 development, but in a vile conception of human 
 relationship that has entered into and now dominates 
 all our social life and has invested it with its character 
 of injustice and insecurity. This spiritual failure to 
 which we have come finds its concrete expression in 
 the wage-system. Its assumptions and even its 
 ideals (if we can caU them so) have won so great a 
 victory over the minds and wills of every section of 
 our countrymen that its creed is the creed of England 
 to-day. Few challenge it ; few have the spirit even 
 to desire an alternative, far less to struggle for one. 
 
 89 
 
30 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 That men should be forced by the menace of starva- 
 tion to accept a price for the labour which is aU they 
 have to sell, to subdue all their purposes and all their 
 gifts to the purpose of others -(and that purpose 
 profit), to lay claim to no right of control over the 
 conditions of their working Uves, -nor any power of 
 government over those who direct them in the work- 
 shop, to be divorced from responsibihty and aU the 
 attributes of free status, to have upheld before them 
 no standard but that of gain, no incentive but the 
 bribe (often fallacious) of higher wages^-this 
 pathetic distortion of human fellowship, this vile 
 and perilous imprisonment of the human spirit, is 
 actually accepted as natural, and even providential, 
 by nearly all those who triumph by means of it, and 
 by the vast majority, indeed, of its victims. The 
 existence of the wage-system conditions all our 
 " reforms " ; it is (as has been weU said) our " per- 
 manent hypothesis." It has even infected our very 
 language, so that we can speak without compunction 
 of the workers as " hands," the process of their hirr 
 as the " labour-market," and the return for their 
 services as the " cost of labour." Catch-phrases 
 reflect it : as when we tell the worker (with equal 
 insolence and truth) that he is " not paid to think," 
 or inquire (with the standards of gain transcending 
 all others) " what a man is worth." 
 
 The Proletarian State, combining economic 
 tyranny and insecurity with pohtical " democracy" 
 and civil hberty, is something quite new in history. 
 Its industrial princes and their ParUamentary hire- 
 lings, while preservmg and even extending the 
 machmery of human rights and the show of political 
 
Servility or Freedom? 31 
 
 power, have reduced this parade of freedom to a 
 hopeless mockery by affording to the vast majority 
 no resource in the economic sphere by which that 
 freedom might be translated from theory into fact. 
 For CapitaUsm demands as the condition of its 
 successful working that the bulk of mankind shall 
 own nothing at all of the means of production, nor 
 even assume any real degree of responsibihty for the 
 control of the circumstances upon which their HveU- 
 hood depends. The worker is thought of not as a 
 man, not even as a labourer, but as " labour " — a 
 mechanical aid to the purposes of another, something 
 to be purchased, a tool. And, indeed, the familiar 
 phrase of the economists, " Land, Capital, and 
 Labour," exposes the whole error on which the wage- 
 system rests. Human labour has come to be re- 
 garded, both in theory and practice, not as the 
 employer of the instrument of production, but as one 
 of the instruments of production. A separate class of 
 persons has arisen, almost fortuitously in the first 
 instance, but now ever more rapidly becoming 
 circumscribed and defined, whose function it is to 
 buy labour-power in the " market " as a commodity 
 and pay for the cost of its subsistence with a wage. 
 Labour-power under the wage-system is but 
 machinery under another name ; and as soon as 
 human hands can be replaced more cheaply and 
 efficiently by mechanical devices, the labourer is 
 thrown on to the scrap-heap without compunction, 
 while labour-saving inventions are extolled as the 
 sign of economic progress. And so they would be 
 if — ^the worker being in command of his own 
 economic Ufe — ^their effect were to save labour and 
 
32 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 not dividends. But so long as lie is content to 
 barter away his personality and ail his priceless 
 potentialities of creation and control for a mere 
 money payment, the basis of which he is almost 
 powerless to determine, the worker must of necessity 
 remain only a factor in production, or, as a recent 
 writer on industrial affairs complacently puts it, 
 " our most precious raw material." 
 
 We may resent the phrase, but it is an exact one 
 none the less. The " orthodox " economists will 
 generally shirk so bold an admissiohof the commodity 
 theory of labour. Professor Marshall, for instance, 
 seeking to distinguish wage-labpur from slave-labour, 
 says' : 
 
 The first point to which we have to direct our attention 
 is the fact that human agents of production are not 
 bought and sold as machinery and other material agents 
 of production are. The worker sells his work, but he 
 himself remains his own property. 
 
 How much value lies in this distinction the professor 
 then proceeds to expose : ' 
 
 The next of those characteristics of the action of 
 demand and supply peculiar to labour which we have 
 to study lies in the fact that when a person sells his 
 services, he has to present himself where they are de- 
 livered. It matters nothing to the seller of bricks 
 whether they are to be used in building a palace or a 
 sewer : but it matters a great deal to the seller of labour, 
 who undertakes to perform a task of given difficulty, 
 whether or not the place in which it is to be done is a 
 wholesome and a pleasant one, and whether or not his 
 associates wUl be such as he cares to have. 
 
 ' The Principles of Economics, pp. 588-595. 
 
Servility or Freedom? 33 
 
 From this it is clear that what the worker sells is 
 not merely his labour but his body, and this not as 
 a result of any free contract in which the seller 
 bargains for his own terms, but under duress at a 
 price determined by the condition of the " labour- 
 market." Nor is the area of that market a matter 
 of free choice for the worker ; he may be constrained 
 to fly from one end of the country to another at the 
 bidding of the capitalist in order to dispose of his 
 labour-power. Indeed, Labour Exchanges exist to 
 facilitate this very object. Again to quote Professor 
 Marshall : 
 
 Since, however, no one can deliver his labour in a market 
 in which he is not himself present, it foUows that the 
 mobility of labour and the mobility of the labourer are 
 convertible terms : and the unwillingness to quit home, 
 and to leave old associations . . . wiU often turn the 
 scale against a proposal to seek better wages in a new 
 place. 
 
 If the conditions of sale to which the labourer is 
 subject under the wage-system, as revealed in the 
 passages quoted, do not reduce the labour of man to 
 the status of a commodity, it is diificult to see what 
 meaning can be implied by the term. » 
 
 It is upon the wage-system, then, that our indus- 
 trial Hfe is founded, and upon the wiUingness of the 
 
 ' For a full analysis of the economics of the wage-system it is neces- 
 sary, of course, to go to Marx's Capital. The literature, both of exposi- 
 tion and criticism, dealing with the Marxian analysis is enormous ; 
 a good short book is Marxian Socialism, by W. Paschall Larkin {Purcell 
 & Co., Corky. See also the pamphlets of the Socialist Labour Party 
 (50 Renfrew Street, Glasgow) and many valuable articles in the Plebs 
 Magazine. The case against the wage-system, from the moral stand- 
 point in particular, has been restated in National Guilds : An Enquiry 
 into the Wage-system and the Way Out (Bell), and again, with special 
 reference to the war situation, in Guild Principles in War and Peace, 
 by S. G. Hobson (Bell). See also chapter vi. in Self-government in 
 Industry, by G. D. H. Cole. 
 
 D 
 
34 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 worker to sell his body for wages that the ability of 
 his masters to exact rent, interest, and profits 
 depends. It is the foundation-stone of aU Socialist 
 criticism that the existence of private property iti 
 the means of production involves private property 
 in the destinies of society and in the Kves of its 
 members ; and it foUows that the proletarian not 
 only cannot enforce his right to a share in controlling 
 the socie*ty in which he lives — ^he caimot even enforce 
 his right to Uve in it ! But though every school of 
 Socialism that is more than merely sentimental 
 impUcitly involves a repudiation\of the wage-system, 
 in practice, as we have seen, Sopiahsts have allowed 
 themselves to be tempted from the highway of 
 emancipation to lose themselves in tangled bypaths 
 of " reform." On the one hand, some have sought 
 to mitigate the captivity of the wage-system by 
 urging schemes of " workshop control " which, 
 though they may be harmless and even valuable in 
 themselves, do not necessarily involve any attack 
 on the wage-system itself.' For the most part, 
 however. Socialist reformers have been blind alto- 
 gether to the wage-slavery of Capitahsm, and have 
 talked only of its exploitatiop' of the worker. But 
 though they have talked of it, they have been ready 
 to perpetuate the very system by which it operates — 
 as if the worker's labour ceased to be a commodity 
 because it was purchased by a pubHc and not a 
 private employer. Meanwhile they have sought 
 salvation for the proletariat in a programme of 
 " higher wages," though, (apart from the spiritual 
 
 ' But see below, chapter vii., pp. 284-288, and chapter ix., pp. 430- 
 441, where the whole problem is discussed from a constructive 
 standpoint 
 
Servi£|sr orl^eedom? 35 
 
 surrender which a concentration on this demand 
 involves) it must be obvious that in the. majority of 
 case,s wages, cannot be indefinitely increased if 
 profiteering is to be maintained. For the profiteer 
 lives by pocketing the profit (or " surplus value ") 
 remaining after he has paid the landlord his toll in 
 rent, provided for the cost of keeping up the necessary 
 plant and other standing charges, and handed over 
 to the worker the price of his labour-power or wage. 
 There will come a point * when the profiteer will no 
 longer, feel sufficiently assured of his " surplus value " 
 to carry on his business ; and unless the workers are 
 prepared to advance out of the wage-system and shoulder 
 the responsibility for the maintenance of the industry 
 themselves, they will find themselves on the streets 
 with no wages at aU. Wages may be raised here and 
 there by skilful organisation, though even in these 
 cases the capitalist wiU generally contrive to recoup 
 himself by raising prices, by introducing labour- 
 saving devices, or by " speeding-up " his work- 
 people. Increased production, indeed, is likely to 
 be the only means by which Labour will be able to 
 maintain its standard of Hfe after the War. But 
 higher wages, on anything Uke a large scale and over 
 the whole field of industry, are probably impossible 
 within the wage-system — ^that is to say, a permanent 
 increase in the return for labour is not to be expected 
 as long as the worker looks for it in the form of a wage. 
 Sir Hugh Bell, a prominent employer in the iron 
 trade, states the matter quite bluntly. After an 
 
 ' It is alleged that this point has already been reached in the case of 
 a number of small mines in South Wales, which, in view of the com- 
 paratively high rate of wages prevailing in that coalfield, it does not 
 pay to work, and which have been in consequence shut down, 
 
36 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 examination of the balance-sheet of his industry and 
 its various items of expenditure, he concludes that 
 " the moral is that, under existing circumstances, 
 the present division of the products of industry 
 cannot be divided in any very, much different way 
 from the present." ' It is hardly necessary to point 
 out that the " existing circumstances " are the facts 
 of the wage-system, by which, so long as he accepts 
 it, the worker is imprisoned and impoverished at the 
 same time. 
 
 We see, then, that not only must the wage-system 
 be repudiated if the worker is ever to be spiritually 
 free, but that until it is abolished he can never be 
 assured of a due reward for his labour, unless the 
 miserable " standard rate " of to-day (that is, the 
 rate of wages estabhshed by Trade Union action in 
 any district for any given class of labour) is to be 
 accepted as such. We do not deny the value of the 
 " standard rate " as a temporary safeguard ; biit. 
 there is grave danger in regarding it, with some 
 modem progressive economists, as conferring a more 
 or less satisfactory status on the worker. Mr. Henry 
 Clay, for instance, goes to perilous lengths ia this 
 direction. He says ' : 
 
 This standard of life is a conception which, though 
 difficult to formulate, is not indefinite. . . . Any 
 worker in an established industry has a pretty clear idea 
 of what the standard of his grade in that industry and 
 district is ; and to that standard he conceives he has a 
 right. . . . It gives an ideal colour to a material struggle, 
 because it converts a demand for twenty -five shillings a week 
 into a demand for a right and the assertion of a status in 
 
 ' Industrial Reconstruction, edited by Huntly Carter, p. 66. 
 • The Industrial Outlook, edited by H. Sanderson Fumiss, chapter 
 iii,, pp. 66, 67, 
 
Servility or Freedom? 37 
 
 society. ^ . . . The demand for it is the instinctive re- 
 action of the average man against a system of free 
 contract, which leaves him free to get rich in his own 
 way, but guarantees him no secure status if his interests 
 and ambitions do not happen to he in the direction of 
 amassing wealth, or if inequality of opportunity prevents 
 him from using his " freedom." 
 
 And a few pages further on' he declares that 
 
 Whether ou;jiltimate aim is the conservation or the 
 abolition of the wage-system, we must recognise that 
 the insecurity of status of so many wage-earners is an 
 evil. It prevents them from giving much attention to 
 schemes either of reform or of revolution, and its removal 
 is a necessary first step to any considerable social 
 advance. 
 
 All this is plausible enough ; but what we have got 
 to be sure of is that if we so magnify the importance 
 of the " first step," we do not postpone indefinitely 
 those further steps which have got to be taken if 
 " any considerable social advance " is to be achieved. 
 The only crusade which really promises an increase 
 in status for the workers is the crusade against the 
 wage-system ; and there is only too much danger 
 that, if they are persuaded to adopt a policy of 
 reader pour mieux sauter, they may act upon the 
 first part of- the advice, but not the second. In 
 giving " an ideal colour to a material struggle " we 
 push into the background that spiritual struggle 
 which is alone of any permanent consequence. 
 This was the result of that Fabian programme of a 
 " National Minimum of Civilised Life " which 
 
 ' Our italics. 
 
 • Op, cit., p. 92. The whole chapter is of great interest in indicating 
 what must be done " if society wishes to give the employee a secure 
 (tatus without an economic revolution." 
 
38 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 commended itself so readily to the " best men of all 
 parties," who were deUghted to find the worker's 
 " assertion of a status in' society " (to reverse Mr. 
 Clay's phrase) converted so easily into " a demand 
 for twenty-five shillings a week." The analogy 
 with Fabianism becomes closer still "when we ^d 
 Mr. Clay declaring that " the most direct way of 
 improving the position of the wage-earners will be 
 by imposing conditions on the contract that will 
 give it stability," and adding that " the intervention 
 of the State is necessary, in order to enjorce those 
 conditions when discovered." " Stability " passes 
 swiftly into servility, and the status which Mr. Clay 
 is so anxious to see crystaUised in law and guaranteed 
 by the State is hkely to be the status of a slave. 
 There is no possibility of a change in status for 
 the worker while the wage-system is maintained, 
 unless it be a change for the worse. If the worker 
 once admits that there is a certain price at which 
 his body can " reasonably " be hired to serve the 
 ends of others, and allows the State to guarantee it 
 for him, his surrender to Capitalism is complete. 
 Yet a short while ago a " revolutionary " pro- 
 gramme was put forward as a " Charter for Labour " 
 by a group of people regarding themselves, no doubt, 
 as extremists, which had as its main plank the allur- 
 ing cry, " A pound a day is the worker's pay." 
 However this formula might be explained, it could 
 only give rise to the impression that a wage-slave 
 ceases to be a wage-slave on receiving £300 a year ! 
 In view of the many confusions which surround 
 this simple but essential fact of the exploitation of 
 the many by the few, we cannot too often insist on 
 
Servility or Freedom? 39 
 
 the elementary definition of wages as the price paid 
 in the competitive market for labour as a commodity. 
 It is sometimes objected that between " wages " 
 and any other term for the money which the worker 
 receives tl^re is no difference, and that it matters 
 nothing what word is used. The objection is 
 specious, but it is in reality very fooHsh ; for between 
 " wages " and " pay " there is all the difference that 
 there is between slavery and freedom. " Wages " 
 represent the cost of hire, a price paid for the upkeep 
 of the worker as for that of any other machine. 
 "Pay" represents the reward for service, something 
 due to one who is contributing to the common interest ; 
 and it carries with it the recognition of an honourable 
 status. " Wages " are a toll which the profiteer 
 finds it necessary to pay before he can coUect his 
 profit. " Pay " leaves nothing over to be appro- 
 priated by persons who are not serving the com- 
 munity. " Wages " are what the capitalist is 
 constrained to give. " Pay " is what he who renders 
 a service is entitled to receive. The worker, while 
 he is producing dividends for his master, receives 
 " wages," which cease, however, when his job ceases. 
 The soldier in the service of his country receives 
 "pay" whether he be fighting or not; he serves 
 as a man ; he is not " taken on " as a " hand." 
 The wage-slave knows nothing of service ; without 
 responsibility and without honour, his life is servi- 
 tude interrupted occasionally by starvation. ' 
 
 '■ " The commodity valuation whidh Capital places upon labovir, and 
 enforces upon labour, is governed by the knowledge that starvation is 
 the only alternative. Capital ascertains the cost of housing and feeding 
 labour, and adds to this an allowance for the maintenance and training 
 of children, in order to ensure its supply of future labour. Free 
 education was the signal for an immediate all-round rise in rents, or, 
 
40 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 A false and very ignorant defence of Capitalism 
 (and its corollary, the wage-system), that it is 
 " inevitable," that we cannot get on without it, 
 and that on the whole it works as well as we can 
 reasonably hope to expect of any social system, is 
 often made, and can best be met by a direct nega- 
 tive.' The wage-system is not inevitable, but an 
 evil choice permitted by our forefathers, the making 
 of which might have been avoided and the escape 
 from which we may achieve if we will. Far from 
 its being indispensable, it is manifestly breaking 
 down, and has to be patched up and supplemented 
 in a hundred ways by statutory " reforms " and 
 private charity. And, finally, it works so badly 
 that, with aU the increase of prosperity at the top of 
 the social scale, it has reduced the masses to such a 
 pitch of wretchedness and want that innumerable 
 agencies, pubUc and private, have been forced to step 
 in to prevent their perishing altogether. For it is 
 not even the case that the wage-system brings with 
 
 in other words, a reduction in the purchasing power of wages. The 
 cost of educating his children being no longer borne by the worker, 
 the capitalist ceased to allow for it. It is exactly the same calculatioa 
 as the slave-owners formerly made. But, apart from the political 
 enfranchisement of Labour, there is this difierence : Slavery tended to 
 one dead level of sustenance, whereas modem Capitalism requires far 
 more various grades of labour skill. It, therefore, first finds the bare 
 cost of living and, as occasion determines, adds to it the extra cost of 
 trsiining labour to some special purpose. It is this difierence in wage- 
 rates that confuses many people. They cannot understand why there 
 are so nfiany variations in wage-rates if wages are really based upon the 
 cost of sustenance. The real formula is that wages are primarily 
 determined by the cost of sustenance necessary to the trade concerned 
 In this way we discover that wagery is equally degrading to the highly- 
 paid artisan and the lowest-paid labourer. It is the wage-system as a 
 system that is repugnant to the nature of free men, and must therefore 
 be abolished." — From A Short Statement 0/ the Principles and Objeds 
 of the National Guilds League. 
 
 ' For a most interesting examination of the moral defences attempted 
 on behalf of the wage-system, see the chapter entitled " The Moral 
 Foundations of Existing Society " in National Guilds, pp. 109-121. 
 
Servility or Freedom? 41 
 
 it any socisil or economic benefits which might appear 
 as compensations for the loss of liberty and the 
 crushing of personaUty it involves for those whom 
 it enslaves. CapitaUsm fails in the most^ obvious 
 essential of any economic system — it does not 
 supply to many thousands of our countr5nnen the 
 most imperative of human needs. It limits useful 
 production by limiting the purchasing power of the 
 proletariat, and thus produces a state of things 
 known as " over-production," which does not mean 
 that more commodities are produced than are 
 required, but only more than can be bought owing 
 to the impoverishment of the workers. " Over- 
 production " is thus paradoxically caused by " under 
 demand," and this apphes still more to quahty even 
 than quantity ; for the proletarian cannot affect 
 demand by the exercise of choice, since he has no 
 " power to wait." Scarcely less pitiable than the 
 poor whom the wage-system debases are the rich 
 whom it corrupts by luxury, and brutaUses by stimu- 
 lating the very spirit of avarice which makes its 
 existence possible. For the wealthy no more than 
 for the worker is industry a service ; it is " business," 
 and " business is business " — that is what is the 
 matter with it ! Riches are seldom gained and with 
 difficulty preserved without restless anxieties, base 
 rivalries and false friendships, suspicion, ruthless- 
 ness, and a thousand subterfuges. The prosperous 
 are hardly more free than the poor to find joy in the 
 exercise of a happy activity, or in the pursuit of a 
 culture more valid than the fads of a clique or the 
 barren traditions of a class. 
 "But beyond aU other objections to the wage- 
 
42 The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 system, there remains this practical one— that it 
 cannot last. Capitalism is subject to a double 
 strain. It is not only failing to provide the workers, 
 while treated as free men, with the means sufficient 
 to maintain them in reasonable efficiency ; it is, 
 further, involving such a monstrous divergence 
 between the moral theories on which our society is 
 based and the social features which it exhibits that 
 in the conflict between the principles of freedom and 
 equal status and the practice of exploitation and 
 caste barriers one or the other will have to disappear. 
 The two ideas of a servile but secure proletariat 
 and a free and responsible nation of workers are 
 beginning to reveal themselves in sharp contrast. 
 For no stable society can be founded on a contradic- 
 tion as absolute as that between our English legal 
 theory and the contemporary practice of our 
 industrial life. The assumption on which our law 
 is founded is that free citizenship reinforced by 
 property is normal to the average man ; theft and 
 fraud are punished as abnormal outrages, and 
 contracts are enforced on the presupposition of the 
 freedom of the contracting parties, whereas the 
 truth is, of course, that the majority of so-called 
 " free " contracts are really " leonine " and morally 
 invahd. Moreover, it is not of any pubhc authority, 
 but of the action of a private individual who happens 
 to be his employer, that the worker is most conscious 
 and most afraid. As Mr. Hilaire BeUoc has said' ; 
 
 The real sanction in our society^ for the arrangements 
 by which it is conducted is not punishment enforceable 
 by the Courts, but the withholding of Uvelihood from the 
 ' The Servile State, p. 85. 
 
Servility or Freedom ? 43 
 
 dispossessed by the possessors. Most men now fear the 
 loss of employment more than they fear legal punishment, 
 and the discipline under which men are coerced in their 
 modern forms of activity in England is the fear of dis- 
 missal. The true master of the Englishman to-day is 
 not the Sovereign, nor the officers of State, nor, save 
 indirectly, the laws ; his true master is the capitalist. 
 
 It is this conflict between the political freedom of 
 the worker and his industrial servitude which mani- 
 fests itself in the various forms of " labour unrest " 
 and renders Capitalism unstable ; and this is 
 increasingly being realised by the capitaMst himself. 
 He longs for a legally secured control over " his " 
 workpeople, and he is beginning to claim the position 
 of an industrial tenant-in-chief of the State. There 
 is much to be said for this claim. If industry is to 
 be efficiently organised, it must be controlled. If it 
 is to be controlled by the capitalists, that control 
 must include the control of the most important 
 factor in the production of his profit — the worker." 
 Hence, the efficiency of Capitalism and the freedom of 
 the worker cannot exist side by side. The capitalist, 
 in nine cases out of ten, believes in secret what a 
 famous champion of American slavery ' once asserted 
 openly, that, 
 
 The true solution of the contest of all time between 
 Labour and Capital is that Capital should own the 
 labourer, whether white or black. 
 
 This conviction, which, whether it is held con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, is rapidly becoming 
 general among the capitalist classes, does not 
 necessarily arise from a love of tyranny for its own 
 sake (though such an instinct may be strong enough 
 
 * Henry Clay (of Virginia). 
 
44 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 in some cases), but from sheer inability on the part 
 of the profiteer to envisage any society which is not 
 based upon the wage-system. To him the only 
 alternative to Ga|)italism is chaos. " If this sort of 
 thing goes on, I don't know what's going to be the 
 end of it " — with such a remark will the golf club- 
 hotises and first-class carriages of England greet any 
 sign on the part of the Trade Unions that theyare 
 awakening to the part they have got to play in the 
 building of a free society. These people do not know 
 how a world can go on from which the profiteer has 
 been eliminated. The capitaUst argues in this 
 fashion : "I am socially and economically indispens- 
 able to all progress, and even to all order. Without 
 my enterprise the world would come to a standstill 
 in five minutes. Being thus indispensable, the fact 
 that I employ my powers (including my capital) and 
 my activities (including my brains) to keep things 
 going entitles me to be regarded as a public bene- 
 factor. I admit my responsibility to the State whose 
 citizens are entrusted to my care to serve as material 
 for the business which I am pubhc-spirited enough to 
 carry on. I accept that responsibihty, and under- 
 take that the State shall have no cause to call me to 
 account for their health or well-being. But in return 
 for this I expect the State to assist me and not those 
 who oppose me ; for in aiding them it wiU only be 
 strengthening forces which render difficult or im- 
 possible the smooth working of my business, and it 
 will therefore hinder me in discharging my task of 
 increasing the national butput and in fulfilling my 
 mission of keeping a proportion of the working class 
 usefully employed." 
 
Servility or Freedom? 45 
 
 This is the capitalist's creed. It is recited daUy 
 by hundreds of employers and dutifully subscribed 
 to by thousands of " their "_ workpeople, 'the 
 profiteer partly creates and partly subjugates public 
 opinion. He has imposed on the masses a " wage- 
 slave-moraKty " akin in the economic sphere to the 
 slave-morality to which Nietzsche condemned the 
 bulk of mankind. Like Circe, the wage-system 
 degrades its victims tiU they no longer realise the 
 toils in which they are caught, and the apologists of 
 the " great employer " are able to represent him as 
 indeed " beyond good and evil," as a necessary stage 
 in economic evolution, a condition of economic 
 progress, indispensable and inevitable. Capitalism 
 is even defended as vital by its champions on the 
 ground that it alone provides the necessary^conomic 
 pressure without which the working man would 
 never work at all. The idea that the wage-system, 
 by depriving industry of its opportunities for the 
 exercise of human free-will and self-expression, has 
 destroyed the finest stimulus to the worker's activity, 
 and thus degraded work into toil, is one which it is 
 ' outside their power to grasp. For it is a spiritual 
 conception, and the philosophy of Capitalism is 
 materialist from beginning to end. It bases itself 
 on the maxim that " the greatest benefactor of 
 humankind is the man who makes two blades of 
 grass grow where one grew before," caring nothing 
 for the soil from which it springs, nor the texture of 
 the grass when it appears. It takes its stand upon 
 " enterprise " ; but it is enterprise that can only 
 be called into existence by the prospect of a sohd 
 dividend, " To think profits and to make them : 
 
46 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 that is the business mind." This sentence is not 
 the sweeping accusation of a dreamy idealist ; it is 
 a genuine quotation from the syllabus of a " Memory 
 School " which sets itself the task (as it declares) of 
 " mobihsing I the mental resources of the people." 
 And it is right ; this is the business mind, only too 
 faithfully reflected in the outlook of the very prok; 
 tariat out of whose labour those profits can alone be 
 made. To dream wages and to seek them has been 
 all too often the Umit of. the aspirations of the 
 working class. It is the " business mind " which the 
 Guildsman comes to combat, to eliminate, and to 
 supersede ; for while its " wage-slave-morality t^ 
 holds sway over us all we can never move towards 
 any free and noble end. 
 
 It is clear, moreover, that this creed of the capital' 
 ist is driving him on to-day to make substantially 
 the same demand as that which must be made by the 
 Trade Unions of to-morrow — the claim for partner- 
 ship with the State. He is seeking to gain a national 
 recognition of his right to responsibility and control 
 in the sphere of industry, and in proportion as he 
 gains it will the task of the Guildsman be rendered 
 more difficult. For the State wiU have thereby 
 sanctioned the servile status of the wage-slave, and 
 in doing so wiU have gone far to render it permanent. 
 It will be no longer possible to regard the distinction 
 between the owner of the means of life and those 
 dependent on him as a temporary accident affecting 
 equals ; it will have become a decisive reality 
 corresponding to an essential difference in their 
 relation to the community. The assistance which 
 the employer demands, or is on the way to demand- 
 
Servility or Freedom> 47 
 
 ing, from the State to which he believes himself 
 indispensable, is not confined to its passive abdica- 
 tion of the right to control the lives of his employees. 
 He seeks its active co-operation in compelling them 
 to work for him " on fair terms." What those terms 
 shall be remains to be settled between the State, 
 the employer himself, and even (he may admit) the 
 Trade Union. But once they have been agreed 
 upon, it is the duty of the State to maintain them, 
 or " things can't go on " — ^that is, the stability' of 
 Capitalism is impaired. 
 
 We have already encountered this idea of " sta- 
 biUty " in considering the problem of the " standard 
 rate," and we saw that it could only mean the 
 surrender to slavery. Indeed, when the claims of 
 modem Capitalism become sanctioned by the spirit 
 and the letter of our law, and accepted without 
 challenge in our social life, then we have said farewell 
 to the attempt to realise a free society, and we have 
 admitted the establishment of a new form of human 
 association. We must find a new name for this 
 new society ; and Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who has with 
 so much insight pointed out its advent, has character- 
 ised it as the Servile State. The description is in 
 no sense rhetoric'al ; it is exactly accurate, for it is 
 his free status that the workman of to-day is prepar- 
 iag to abandon. When a man's power to bargain 
 afresh for the terms on which he shall supply his 
 labour is surrendered or destroyed, when his freedom 
 of action over long periods (whatever benefits be 
 offered in return) is bartered away, when special 
 conditions are appUed to him as a manual worker 
 or a " wage-earner " from which other members of 
 
48 The laeaiiing of National Guilds 
 
 society are explicitly exempt — ^when such things 
 become the normal practice of legal enactment and 
 social usage, -then the Servile State is at hand. 
 Clearly it is upon us to-day. 
 
 It is not only that all modem legislation tends to 
 interpose, between the workmen and the 5l^ate of 
 which he is nominally a citizen, the employer for 
 whom he works. The idea of tutelage is the very 
 core of the philosophy of the " good employeri" 
 The great enterprise of to-day makes claims upon its 
 employees which bind them closer to its interests 
 than any natural ties of kinship with their fellows 
 in their Trade Union, or with the fellow citizens of 
 their town, or even with the national interests of 
 
 their country. It is a new feudalism. " Put ^'s 
 
 first ; remember how much you owe to it, and that 
 it is your duty to give it yoiir best in retum"^ 
 such a sentence as this will be found again and again 
 in the magazines and circulars issued by modem 
 business firms for the benefit of their employees.' 
 The employee of a great business to-day may spend 
 
 ^ To appreciate the lengths to which interference in the private lives 
 of English v?orkers can be carried, the reader may study a document 
 issued by the Ford Motor Company on the occasion of its opening a 
 branch in this country. An article in the Daily Herald of May I4tli| 
 igi4, gives particulars of the " Record of Investigation " or schedule 
 of questions issued to the firm's investigators, who set on foot inquiries 
 among the neighbours of those applying for- employment in the firm. 
 A few of the questions are here appended : " Numbers of persons 
 dependent? Name of dependents ? To what extent and the reason? 
 Relationship? Age? Addi-ess? Debts (total), £ . . .? Hire- 
 ptirchase owing, £ . . . ? Instalments ? Arrears ? What for ? "Rea- 
 son for debts? Name of bank? Pass-book number? Balance? 
 Name of Insurance Company, Club, or Union ? What kind ? Amount? 
 Arrears ? Premiums ? Recreations ? Habits ? Home conditions? 
 Neighbourhood ? Remarks ? Approved for share of division of 
 profits by . . . ? Date? Rate? Skill? Remarks? WM art 
 you saving for ? Previous employment with this company : Date 
 hired? Number? Department? Rate? Reason of discharge? 
 Date ? Previous employment with other firms : Name ? Address ? 
 How long ? Date of leaving ? Reason ? Pay ? " 
 
Servility or Freedom P 49 
 
 his days in a model factory and his nights in a 
 "garden-city," but, though his body be well cared 
 for, he finds only too often that — ^in the full meaning 
 of a tragic phrase — ^he " cannot call his soul his 
 own." 
 
 This truth might be illustrated in a hundred 
 ways ; a single true story must suffice. A lady 
 told one of the writers of this book that she was once 
 conducted round the industrial estate of one of our 
 most distinguished taptains of industry. She was 
 admiring its order and design, and in particular 
 she inquired of her guide, " How is it that you get 
 your workers to do their gardens so beautifully and 
 all according to a plan ? " *° 
 
 " My dear lady," he replied, " you don't suppose 
 we let them touch their oAvn gardens ? The gardens 
 are done for them by the firm j if they want to make 
 a mess, they can go and get a patch — outside." 
 
 The spirit of benevolent Capitalism could not 
 be better exemplified. It will offer to its hirelings 
 the garden-city, but it will shut them out of the 
 garden. 
 
 Among the most sinister developments of the new 
 Capitalism are the ideas and devices associated with 
 the phrase " Scientific Management."* It is clear 
 
 ' There is now a considerable literature on Scientific Management, 
 ran^g from the more seriously " scientific " volumes of Taylor and 
 Hoxie down to such crude examples as The Job : The Man : The Boss, 
 ty Katheiiue Blackford and Arthur Newcombe (Doubleday Page & 
 Co., New York), which is worth a glance in order to see to what ludicrojLS 
 lengths this sort of " science " can be carried. A very interesting 
 discussion on Scientific Management, especially in relation to systems 
 of payment by results and the problem of the control of industry, 
 between Mr. G. D. H. Cole and Mr. Charles Renold (an engineering 
 employer who has experimented with Scientific Management in his 
 works) will be found in Some Problems of Urban and Rural Industry 
 (Ruskiu College Series oil "The Reorganisation of Industry," vol. ii.). 
 
 E 
 
50 The Meaning of National Gidlds 
 
 that an expression so vague can have many applica- 
 tioiiis, and it wUl scarcely be denied by any one that 
 there is much room for the organisation of scientific 
 methods by employers in the management of 
 inanimate objects. But it is characteristic of our 
 modern captains of industry that they should prefer 
 the regimentation of men to the regulation of things ; 
 to them Scientific Management means above all 
 the apphcation of " time-study " and " motion- 
 study " to the worker with a view to fixing a time 
 and price for every job, " speeding up " the slower 
 worker to the level thus fixed, and bribing all who 
 can be tempted by the notions of " maximum 
 efficiency " and the lure of attenda^it material gains 
 to forget aU sense of sohdarity with their fellow 
 workers and strive openly for themselves alone. 
 A system of cut-throat competition, such as has 
 been largely abandoned by capitahsts, who have 
 learnt the greater profitableness of the Trust and the 
 " Ring," is thus forced by them upon the workers, 
 whom, if they can but divide, they will be enabled 
 to conquer. Just as one " can prove anything by 
 statistics," so some people are prepared to determine 
 anything in the name of science. Mr. F. W. Taylor, 
 who has had perhaps the largest share in popularising 
 the doctrines of Scientific Management, has claimed 
 that it " does away with the need for bargaining 
 about wages, and substitutes law for force in the 
 determination of wage-rates." The answer, of 
 course, is that it does not do this — but it would hke 
 to ! "All the time-study in the world cannot show 
 how much ought to be paid for a job," as Mr. Cole 
 very sensibly remarks ; there wUl never be " nothing 
 
Servility or Freedom? 51 
 
 to bargain about between employer and workmen " 
 until there is no longer an employer left with whom 
 to bargain. It is only if we admit Capitalism as 
 eternal and the " proper division of the product 
 between Capital and Labour " as arbitrarily ascer- 
 tainable that we can permit the " rate-fixer " of 
 Scientific Management to replace the activities of 
 the workers' associations themselves. 
 
 Scientific Management, indeed, even when not 
 explicitly hostile to Trade Unionism, is fatal to the 
 principles on which the latter is 'founded and the 
 ideals at which it must aim. The sops which it 
 throws to the workers are mere incentives to indivi- 
 dual gain, and we may be sure that, where each is for 
 himself, the devil will not be content with the 
 hindermost. The experience of an inquirer sent 
 over by a woman's Trade Union organisation to 
 study the methods of American Scientific Manage- 
 ment at first hand is of the greatest interest and 
 significance in this connection. She discovered, in 
 the first place, that " the extreme individuaUsm 
 of the system produced an equally strong indi- 
 vidualism in the worker." One woman to whom she 
 spoke seemed to have no other idea in life than to 
 maintain her standing as a " 100 per cent, efficiency " 
 binder of bundles of handkerchiefs, but confessed, 
 on being questioned, that the monotony of the 
 process to which she had adapted herself so success- 
 fully had reduced her to " a bundle of nerves." 
 Other worl^ers admitted that " the system is making 
 us nervous and selfish," and asked their questioner 
 to " tell the English people not to have anything to 
 do with Scientific Management." The investigator 
 
53 The Meanii^ of National Gtiilds 
 
 discovered, further, that nothing was managed more 
 " scientifically " in many of the firms of this type 
 than the selection of the " right " workers." One 
 business boasted that their system was " so scientific 
 that not a single agitator had got through their net 
 in three years " ! Interference in the life of the 
 worker was not confined to the factory, but carried 
 into his leisure time and even into his home. One 
 firm issued a reading-guide to the girls in its employ- 
 ment (the books in the Hbrary having been selected 
 in advance by the management), and their friends 
 were scrutinised in order to decide whether or no 
 they were " hkely to be beneficial." An extreme 
 case related to a girl whose efficiency fell regularly 
 every Monday morning ; the lapse was traced to 
 anxiety over a brother who was invariably drunk 
 during the week-end. The firm set plans into 
 operation as the result of which the young man was 
 removed from the town. The " sacredness of th'fe 
 home " is not a consideration Ukely to weigh with- 
 the " scientific manager " ; his ideal is the industrial 
 compound. The worker is to hand himself over 
 body and soul to his employers, who will undertake 
 to surround him with every social device to keep him 
 bright and efficient, from the " rest-room " to the 
 " carefully selected library," so that he — or more 
 commonly, she — approximates as nearly as possible 
 to the perfect machine. 
 
 This is the apotheosis of wage-slavery, the goal 
 of "garden-citizenship." But this extension of 
 control on the part of the capitahst over those who 
 produce his profits, perilous as it is, would not in 
 
 • See the " Record of Investigation " quoted above, p. 48 n. 
 
Servility or Freedom ? 53 
 
 itself warrant us in declaring that our society was 
 becoming servile in the strict sense of the term. 
 The disease goes far deeper, and it is when we find 
 the definite inequaUty, or, at the least, differentiation 
 in status between those who work for wages and 
 those who pay them, finding its way into the statute 
 book and operating decisively in the Uves of the 
 people, that the truth becomes plain. The maxim, 
 " One law for the rich and another for the poor," 
 is no longer appUcable merely as a cjmical comment 
 on certain inequitable results of the working of our 
 Common Law ; it is a perfectly plain and accurate 
 statement of the nature and intention of our modem 
 " reforming " legislation. » This legislation accepts 
 the wage-system as something permanent and 
 inevitable, and to obtain its smooth working lays 
 down that those who own shall act in a certain 
 specified way towards those whom they employ, 
 and that those who do not own shall for that reason 
 be subject to certain regulations, tolls, and restric- 
 tions which arise out of-and define their status as 
 wage-earners. This conception of status, with all 
 its evil consequences in the black-listing and black- 
 mailing of the poor, has been definitely recognised 
 in English law by the notorious measure known as 
 the Insurance Act. The war emergency, while it 
 has thrown into relief the dependence of the nation 
 upon the workers, has done nothing to raise their 
 status, but has rather depressed it. CapitaHsm 
 during the War has surrendered nothing but a light 
 toll of " excess profits " and a submission to a seldom 
 
 ' For a close and most valuable study of modem legislative tenden- 
 cies, see chapter ix. in Mr. Belloc's The Servile State. 
 
54 The Meaning of National Chiilds 
 
 more than nominal form of " State control," in 
 return for which it has gained vastly in power and 
 prestige. It has almost succeeded to the national 
 .partnership of which the workers — ^in spite of many 
 fine ^eeches — ^have been afforded only a distant 
 ghmpse. 
 
 The Mimitions Act extended a State sanction for 
 forced labour in the interests of profiteering. It 
 definitely created the industrial serf who might not 
 leave his lord, but must labour for him in whatever 
 manner he dictates. No more decisive advance to 
 industrial autocracy has been made previously in 
 this country. Henceforth we have to reckon with 
 a Chartered Capitalism crowned with the halo of 
 State partnership, and claiming, of course, to 
 represent the fruits of " Progress." 
 
 Capitalism wUl thus emerge from the War stronger 
 than it has ever been in the past. It has broken 
 down every Trade Union " standard rate " ; it has 
 destroyed by the universal adoption of " overtime " 
 and its accompan57ing bribes the necessary safeguard 
 of the " normal day " ; it has discovered in the 
 labour of women a limitless field for exploitation ; 
 it will possess in the demand for increased production 
 and in the agitation for a trade war against Germany 
 the means by which it may hope to wring from the 
 nation assent to the extension of its present enormous 
 powers, and from the workers acquiescence in the 
 confirmation of industrial slavery. 
 
 Servility or Freedom ?— this is the choice which 
 confronts our society to-day. There are elements 
 in our midst which make for freedom, but unless they 
 
Servility or Freedom? 55 
 
 are fortified and nourished the supreme opportunity 
 which will follow upon the War will be lost, perhaps 
 for ever. There are people, amongst the most 
 sincere of our revolutionaries, who are impatient of 
 emphasis being laid upon this menace of the Servile 
 State. " While the wage-system is the basis of our 
 civilisation," they say, " what is the use of speaking 
 of freedom ? Men are already slaves for all practical 
 purposes ; the passing of a few laws which admit 
 the fact makes no difference." They are wrong ; 
 the disappearance of the free and equal legal status 
 of the mass'of our population will be a terrible and 
 decisive thing. It is vital to reahse that, in spite of 
 many sinister encroachments upon it of late years, 
 this freedom does for the most part exist in legal 
 theory ; its practical consequences may be small, 
 but its spiritual value is inestimable, if only as a 
 rallying cry for the future. Where the servile 
 condition of the masses is provided for by law and 
 made obvious to the people themselves, the difficulty 
 of rousing them for any advance to freedom is 
 almost overwhelming. "'You are being treated as 
 slaves," cries the revolutionary orator, and the 
 proletarian may still experience a thrill of indignation 
 at the word. But if the servile basis of society be 
 once admitted, the appeal loses all its force. " Well, 
 and why not, since we are slaves ? " is the natural 
 reply of the servile worker, conscious of his status. 
 When the implications and the consequences of the 
 wage-system come to be crystallised into law, the 
 hope of an escape from them becomes incalculably 
 more- remote. Society ceases to be a fluid tljing, 
 capable of being guided into the desired channels ; 
 
56 The Meamng of National Guilds 
 
 it becomes rigid, only to be altered wltein)y violence 
 and destruction it be overthrown. 
 
 We may take comfort, then, from the fact that 
 equality still lingers in the laws, and Uberty upon 
 the lips of our countrymen, though both have 
 almost vanished from their hearts. It would be 
 difficult to affirm that fraternity still Ungered 
 anywhere. Mr. Chesterton, in one of his cleverest 
 stories, 1 has well pictured the gulf that yawns to-day 
 between those who serve and those who are served. 
 A sudden hitch occurs at a dinner-table of the 
 prosperous, and the result is described thus : 
 
 The waiter stood staring for a few seconds, while there 
 deepened on every face at table a strange shame which 
 is wholly the product of our time. It is the combination 
 of modem humanitarianism, with its horrible modem 
 abyss between the souls of the rich and poor. A genuine 
 historic aristocrat would have thrown things at the 
 waiter, beginning with empty bottles, and very probably 
 ending with money. A genuine democrat would have 
 asked him, with a comradelike clearness of speech, what 
 the devil he was doing. But these modem plutocrats 
 could not bear a poor man near to them, neither as a 
 slave nor as a friend. That something had gone wrong 
 with the servants was merely a dull, hot embarrassment. 
 They did not want to be brutal, and they dreaded the 
 need to be benevolent. They wanted the thing, what- 
 ever it was, to be over. 
 
 Nothing could better express the utter absence 
 of all that is essential to true brotherhood than this 
 passage. Our social system must work like clock- 
 work, or it cannot work at aU. Brothers can afford 
 to quarrel ; they need not be for ever talking of law 
 
 » " The Queer Feet " in The Innocence of Father Broom. 
 
Servility or Freedom? 57 
 
 and order. But to-day every social difference and 
 every mutual misunderstanding between men of a 
 different order in society thieatens a cold feud, in 
 which each side will soon be talking of its rights 
 rather than of what is right. It is noteworthy that 
 the primary significance of the very word " strike " 
 has come at last to include no thought of a blow, 
 but rather of something frigidly passive. 
 
 In the face of a cleavage so fundamental as this, 
 what are we to say of that facile optimism which 
 looks for an automatic solution of all our social 
 problems " after the War " in a general,atmosphere 
 of good-fellowship ? It is only natural, of course, 
 that we should find in many quarters a demand for 
 an end to " class differences," co-operation*between 
 Capital and Labour " for a common end," and high 
 hopes buUt upon " the brotherhood of the trenches." 
 The imion of men of all classes for a common purpose, 
 with all the devotion and mutual understanding to 
 which it has given rise, has been a refreshing and an 
 inspiring contrast to the ugly spectacle of our 
 industrial life. Even the old feudal bond was a 
 bond in the good as well as in the bad sense of the 
 word, for it bound men to one cmother even more 
 than it sundered them, and both lord and dependant 
 shared a comradeship in arms in the king's service. 
 How natural that men shoidd be looking to this new 
 comradeship in arms to serve as the basis of a 
 reconstruction of society, with the old quarrels 
 forgotten and the co-operation of " master and 
 man " assured by " a spirit of give and take on both 
 sides " ! 
 
 How natural — and how fatally wrong ! - Goodwill, 
 
58 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 however genuine, can never be a substitute for 
 justice, and freedom cannot be founded upon a lie. 
 The " brotherhood of the trenches " is real enough 
 among men sharing equal risks in a common service ; 
 it is more than an ideal, it is an instinct. In the 
 Army all thought of gain is excluded ; the officer 
 shares all his men's perils, and carries out his duties 
 side by side with them. He is first over the parapet ; 
 owe industri'Eil system does not show us the mining 
 director first down the mine-shaft. How can 
 " brotherhood " be reproduced inr the workshop 
 while men are at the mercy of bullying foremen 
 (over whose appointment they have not a shadow of 
 control), serving distant " captams of industry," 
 who seldom, if ever, set foot in the industrial 
 " trenches " where their fortunes are made for them 
 by the workers' hands } The wage-system is 
 industrial Prussianism, and, the wage-slave is 
 " machine fodder " in the workshops of plutocracy. 
 While the wage-system remains the basis of our 
 society, brotherhood can mean nothing but bond- 
 age ; unity, the unity of tyrant and slave ; social 
 peace, -,the peace of death. The class-struggle, 
 whUe some are seeking to buy labour cheap and 
 others striving to sell it dear, is not a quarrel, but a 
 duel ; not a misunderstanding, but an impasse. 
 
 Social peace can onl}'^ mean for the workers one 
 of two things — emancipation or surrender. Unless 
 we are prepared to establish the Servile State 
 forthwith, we must be awake to the impossibilities 
 of industrial pacifism. We do not deny that the 
 end of the War will offer great opportunities for an 
 advance towards social freedom, and we shall 
 
Servility or Freedom? 59 
 
 examine -those opportunities in a later chapter ; 
 but, be it repeated, an opportunit)' for good is also 
 an opportunity for evil. It is too lightly assumed 
 that every EngUshtaan has an instinctive love of 
 liberty ; on the contrary, many of those in place and 
 power amongst us have an instinctive dread of it. 
 " You do not know," wrote WOham Morris in a 
 manifesto to working men in 1877, " the bitterness of 
 hatred against freedom and progress that lies at the 
 hearts of a certain part of the richer classes in this 
 country. . . . These men, if they had the power 
 (may England perish rather !), would tfiwart your 
 just aspirations, would silence you, would dehver 
 you bound hand and foot for ever to irresponsible 
 Capital." The warning is as true to-day as when 
 Morris penned it forty years ago. The very notion 
 of " Reconstruction," noble as are many of the ideas 
 which are associated with it, is not without its 
 dangers, since to many people it means only an 
 attempt to " settle " the social problem without 
 solving it. Great questions, however, are not to be 
 settled until they are solved, and it is certain that 
 any reconstruction which may take place after the 
 War, far from being a final step, wiU only be 
 valuable to the extent that it leads to a demand for 
 more. The time is far from being ripe for a recon- 
 struction which could justly be regarded as final ; 
 the workers will need to be careful that they do 
 not assent to any such system being imposed upon 
 them. For if once their consent to such a system as 
 finally satisfactory were even to seem to be obtained, 
 every effort to improve their status, and thus to 
 interfere with such a "settlement," would be 
 
6o The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 made to appear as a breach of faith and a social 
 crime. 
 
 Let us beware, then, of the Broad Way that leads 
 to Reconstruction ! The path to social freedom is 
 a steep ascent, and there are no short cuts on the 
 way. .Despite the thousand terrors, hmitations, 
 and wearinesses that are the lot of the poor, despite 
 the miseries of our cities and the horrors of our 
 slums, it is not upon the struggle against poverty 
 that the most crucial of all social issues depends. 
 It is on the resistance to slavery that the battle 
 turns which will determine the future of us 
 all. The hope for society Ues in the realisation of a 
 possibihty instinctively excluded by the philosophy 
 of the governing classes and against the grain of our 
 civilisation to-day. It depends upon how far we are 
 able to strengthen, and even to stimulate, the 
 initiative, the responsibHity, and the appetite for 
 freedom of the ordinary man at his everyday work. 
 For a time such a quickening of the worker's most 
 healthy instincts (now almost entirely atrophied) 
 might not involve any obvious weakening of Capital- 
 ism, however much it might transform the machinery 
 through which the latter achieves its ends. But 
 before long it would certainly appear that a principle 
 had been introduced into our industrial system which 
 must needs ultimately transform it altogether. 
 Self-government in industry is bound to lead event- 
 ually to the elimination both of the profiteer and of 
 the bureaucrat ; men taking their economic destiny 
 into their own hands wUl not continue to suffer the, 
 control of any external authority over their working 
 lives. But so long as the ends and purposes of 
 
Servility or Freedom? 6i 
 
 industry are conditioned by the ideal of profit aiid 
 determined by the profiteers themselves, the worker 
 is a helot and the community an exploited province. 
 The choice to-day is between the " reconstruction of 
 the industrial machine " and the resurrection of the 
 workers themselves. It is ServiKty or Freedom ; 
 National Trusts or National Guilds. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MIDDLE CLASS AND NATIONAL 
 GUILDS 
 
The " class war " grounded on industrial antagonisms, not 
 social rivalries. Its meaning for the " middle class," 
 whose true af&nity is with the wage-earner. A basis 
 for this in the Guild idea. " Upper-middle " and 
 "lower-middle" classes. The Professions: implications 
 of the term. The doctors and the Insurance Act. 
 Professional morality and Guild morality : the influence 
 of industrial profiteering. Architects and their future 
 in a Building Guild. The Teaching Profession ; 
 strength and weakness of its organisation. Towards 
 a Teachers' Guild. The Civil Service : its future as 
 a Civil Guild. The lower-middle class in industry. 
 From shopkeeper to shop-assistant : the disappearance 
 of the "small man." The " salariat " : its Ulusion 
 of status based on method of remuneration. Its 
 members, like the wage-earners (i.) insecure in their 
 employment ; (ii.) divorced from control of their 
 work ; (iii.) exploited' in the interests of profiteering. 
 National Guilds the true goal of all workers, irrespective 
 of class. 
 
IV 
 
 - THE MIDDLE CLASS AND NATIONAL 
 GUILDS 
 
 The charge has often been brought against the 
 opponents of CapitaUsm that the remedies they 
 propose are designed to benefit one class of th© 
 community, the wage-earners, at the expense of all 
 the other sections of society. This was particularly 
 urged against early and sentimental Socialism, which 
 painted the virtues of the very poor in as gaudy 
 colours as the vices of the very rich. The common- 
 sense reaction followed, and Gilbert reminded a 
 smiling world that 
 
 Hearts just as pure and fair 
 May beat in Belgrave Square 
 As in the lowly air 
 Of Seven Dials. 
 
 To this day the reproach is made that the class- 
 war is an attempt to grouse the poor against the 
 rich and to overthrow society in an orgy of envy, 
 greed, and riot. Nor would this attempt, if it ever 
 succeeded, be a permanent change, for, as is so often 
 said, " If the wealth of the nation were divided up 
 equaUj' among aU its members to-day, to-morrow 
 there would be rich and poor again." Which is to 
 saj' that so long as private Capitahsm is allowed to 
 continue, greed and exploitation are the only things 
 certain, even under the most Utopian circumstances ! 
 
 65 F 
 
66 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 The truth, however, about the class-war is that 
 it is a war of industrial parties, not of social rivalries. 
 The class-war is not a contest of aristocrats and 
 sansculottes, of dukes and dustmen ; but it is the 
 conflict, sometimes active, more often hidden, 
 between the classes that produce and the class that 
 controls production. This is -not identical with the 
 struggle between producers and consumers, so 
 exasperated and embittered by profiteering in 
 industry. It is the war within production, where 
 the classes who produce seek to change for a better 
 the present irresponsible autocracy of the owners 
 of the means of production. As we have seen, the 
 mere progressivist plan of raising wages and salaries 
 and improving the conditions of the producers' work 
 and leisure does not finally mean more than a 
 compromise with the autocracy. Under Gapitahsm, 
 so long as the capitaHsts remain the captains of 
 industry, the producers may win better conditions 
 for themselves, but they will not thus be threatening 
 the industrial supremacy of the capitahsts. To 
 replace this artificial autocracy by a producers' 
 control of production is not a form of sentimental 
 or envious anarchy, but a return to the natural and 
 decent ©rder of things. In the industrial struggle, 
 there are only two classes — ^the proprietors and the 
 producers. It is the attempt to entrast authority 
 and responsibiHty to the hands of the producers, 
 and to destroy the gulf between the two by merging 
 the proprietors into the producers, that is the basis 
 of the propaganda for National Guilds. It is aiming 
 at the rise to industrial freedom of the producers as 
 a whole, not of the wage-earners alone. Manual 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 67 
 
 workers, oflSce workers, brain workers — these are 
 all equally producers. 
 
 Simultaneously, therefore, with the call to the 
 wage-earners an appeal must tie made also to that 
 large and enormously important class of producers 
 known as the " middle class." Their interests 
 are as much concerned in the Guild propaganda as 
 the wage-earners', and it is largely their support 
 which will win or lose the ^truggle. We shall in this 
 chapter en_^avour to suggest that the middle class has 
 as little real dignity under Capitalism as the wage- 
 earners, and that National Guilds are essential to 
 every productive member of society both as a 
 worker and as a free citizen. The. midddle class 
 cannot afford to be neutral ; still less ought it to side 
 with the capitalists. Its real place is in active and 
 organised alliance with the wage-earners ; the two 
 together can make themselves the Guildsmen of the 
 future. 
 
 The old error is now happily passing that the 
 wage-earners are Ishmaels with their hands against 
 all the world, and that therefore all the world must 
 rEinge itself against them. It is the capitalists' 
 control of industry for the sake of profit which is 
 the danger to the commimity ; it is against this that 
 all classes should be ranged. Middle class and wage- 
 earning class alike are living and working under the 
 shadow of a profiteering plutocracy. It is for them 
 to join their forces in an industrial alhance which 
 will oust the capitalists from control and itself take 
 over the conduct of industry. 
 
 The term " middle class " is a survival from 
 times when the strata of society were based on 
 
6^ The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 birth or, at least, on easily recognisable functional 
 differences. Nowadays the class distinction is 
 founded almost entirely upon income, although there 
 are certain interesting exceptions to this. First of 
 all, we must notice that the middle class is definitely 
 divided into two parts — ^the " upper-middle " and 
 " lower-middle " classes. The composition of these 
 two strata is generally understood. The upper- 
 middle class comprises chiefly the leading professions 
 — e.g., medicine, law — the higher ranks of the 
 Services, and, in industry, private manufacturers, 
 wholesale merchants, and the higher administrative 
 grades in wholesale combines. The lower-middle 
 class is considered to consist mainly of the worse 
 organised and remunerated occupations, as well as 
 of shopkeepers and the lower grades of salaried 
 employees both in private and nationaUsed concerns, 
 especially office workers. 
 
 The professions are in a unique position, which 
 is, indeed, half-way on the road to the Guilds. A 
 profession has been excellently defined as a " volun- 
 tary association of men who profess or undertake 
 to administer a social function efficiently and 
 responsibly without consideration of reward."' 
 Three conclusions are drawn from this definition: 
 first, that the choice of a profession is voluntary on 
 the part of the members ; secondly, that the work 
 they do is pubhcly acknowledged to be necessary^ 
 and beneficial ; thirdly, that, while they count on 
 being remunerated for their work, this is not their 
 chief aim in undertalcing it. The fact is to be noted 
 that these three characteristics .of a profession are 
 
 • An Alphabet of Economics, by A. R. Orage, 1917, p. no. 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 69 
 
 all implicit in the spirit of National Guilds, whether 
 professional or industrial. We must also consider 
 to what extent the rest of the Guild idea- is realised 
 in the professional standpoint. Medicine may be 
 taken as a good example of a modern profession 
 whose members rank among the " upper-middle 
 class." We fimd that the medical profession in 
 England has an effective monopoly of doctoring 
 throughout the country. In consequence, it has 
 effective control of the methods and conditions in 
 which the service is supplied to the country, and 
 can ensure its own members a secure measure of 
 prosperity and a high social status. Its internaF 
 organisation, though not free from rivalries, is 
 sufficiently democratic to assure the equal status of 
 all its members as doctors, and to give each a certain 
 part in the determination of his working conditions. 
 And yet the medical profession seldom realises how 
 near it is to being a National Guild ! 
 
 Doctors, however, are quite aware of the facts 
 mentioned above. They know that they have the 
 monopoly and control of their work, that they are all 
 associated on an equal professional basis, and that 
 they are manifestly performing a. public service. 
 But after this comes chaos. The doctors realise 
 the power of their profession, and, as good citizens 
 should, they do usually strive to use it for the public 
 good. At the same time the medical profession has 
 not succeeded in purging itself of a certain instinct 
 of profiteering. In large part this is due to the fact 
 that the dpctors are recruited wholly from, the 
 propertied classes. The standard and the nature of 
 the preliminary education required, the long and 
 
70 The Meank^ of National Guilds 
 
 expensive apprenticeship, and the heavy initial 
 costs, all make it an impossibiUty for anyone to enter 
 the medical profession who has not a long purse to 
 draw from. Thus, in seeking to enhance his position 
 at the expense of other classes of society, the doctor 
 is only true to type.' It must not, however, be 
 supposed that doctors are willing to sacrifice their 
 professional duty to their profiteering instincts ; it 
 is well known that the opposite is more often the 
 case. But wherever doctors have found that their 
 private as well as their professional interests may be 
 served simultaneously, they have never been slow 
 to take advantage of their strength, no matter at 
 whose ultimate expense — even to the extent of 
 threatening a general strike.' In this they have 
 shown themselves almost Syndicalist in tendency. 
 They certainly may be proud of their professional 
 moraUty ; but they have yet to attain GuUd morality. 
 As a Guild, the doctors' collective responsibility 
 would be such that no trace of profiteering, however 
 well concealed, could co-exist with it. 
 
 ' The curious blend of Guild and capitalist ideas is well shown in the 
 case of the ordinary general practitioner. It is usual for a newcomer, 
 instead of setting" up as a new and unsponsored man, to purchase a 
 practice from a retiring doctor. The new doctor expects an annual 
 return in fees, amounting to a certain percentage, upon his purchase 
 money, and hi§ predecessor produces his accounts when he offers the 
 practice for sale. We thus have doctors definitely investing in a 
 practice with the intention of getting from it the largest possible return 
 consistent with professional morality. Yet the practitioner is pop- 
 ularly supposed to be assuming a certain benevolent responsibility 
 towards the inhabitants of his new district, without a suspicion or 
 thought of private profit — or of interest upon invested principal. It is 
 a tribute to the leaven of the Guild spirit among the doctors that this 
 popular notion of benevolent responsibility is, on the whole, maintained. 
 
 ' The doctors for a long while, and on various public and professional 
 grounds, were opposed to the Insurance Act, which without their aid 
 could not be brought into operation at all. Finally, they were offered 
 a capitation fee of 7s. a head of the insured population, on which 
 extremely profitable terms they compromised, and by a majority 
 agreed to withdraw their opposition. 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 71 
 
 This medley of Guild and profiteering impulses, 
 so well exemplified among the doctors, is present in 
 varying proportions in the other professions whose 
 members rank both in point of public status and of 
 income among the upper-middle class. When the 
 question arises of transforming these associations 
 into National Guilds, their members profess to 
 assume that the whole matter rests on the continua- 
 tion of Capitalism in industry. For, they say, " It 
 is this which at present prevents us doctors and other 
 professional men from taking up a Guild stand- 
 point : we see no reason why we should, in the 
 national interest, sacrifice our hope of private profit 
 as long as profiteering is sanctioned for men of our 
 own xlass and families who happen to be engaged in 
 ' business.' " But this point of view degrades a 
 profession to the level of an ordinary commercial 
 concern. It has always been the pride of pro- 
 fessional men that their profession means much more 
 to them than a business means to its promoters. 
 'Die value, the maintenance, and the dignity of 
 their service are the aims of men engaged in a 
 profession, as of GuUdsmen ; they expect remunera- 
 tion, but this is by no means the impulse that leads 
 them to practise their profession and to desire 
 success in it. For doctors, therefore, to look to 
 commerce for a lead and an example is an amazing 
 surrender. It is incredible that the medical pro- 
 fession would permit its members to stoop from 
 service to profiteering ; far more properly and 
 probably they might decide to lead the way towards 
 National Guilds. The determination to form a 
 National Health GuUd would solve half the internal 
 
72 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 difficulties with which the various branches of the 
 medical profession are now faced, and would 
 immeasurably assist its progress in the future. 
 At the same time this step would recover for the 
 profession all the dignity "that has been lost or com- 
 promised by its recent errors ; it would win the 
 doctors the honours due to pioneers. The determina- 
 tion of the medical profession dehberately to elimi- 
 nate among its members not only profiteering, but 
 the possibiUty of profiteering, by forming itself into 
 a National Guild, would strike a tremendous blow 
 at the capitalist system, and would lay securely the 
 foundation of a better system both in professional 
 work and in industry. The medical profession is an 
 active and energetic body with enormous powers for 
 good or for evil. If it decides to throw in its lot with 
 profiteering, or even to countenance it by a careless 
 neutraUty, it will help in great part to ruin the 
 nation it might have saved ; it will lose its old high 
 pubhc position beyond recovery. But if it leads 
 the way to National Guilds, as it may well do 
 with barely a shade of difficulty, compared with the 
 obstacles which confront the industrial worker, it 
 will make its members pubhc benefactors to a degree 
 that not even they have yet attained. 
 
 The value of the Guild idea for the upper-middle 
 class professional is not confined to the doctor. 
 Other examples could easily be brought forward; 
 but tono profession has it as much to offer as to that 
 of the architect, for it holds out to him an alternative 
 to the extinction with which his profession is 
 threatened. The normal trend of affairs to-day is 
 all in this direction. The architect belongs to the 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 73 
 
 age of individualism which has almost gone. He 
 has lost his old-time independence. Since the War 
 the private practitioner has almost disappeared ; 
 most architects to-day have either left the profession 
 and pursue some other vocation, or are in the employ 
 of the Office of Works or some other Government 
 Department which employs architects. But they 
 are only found in the lower grades of these Depart- 
 ments ; the higher positions are always filled "by 
 engineers and siurveyors, even though at times these 
 should call themselves architects. This means that 
 the architect has been compelled by the force of 
 circumstances to accept an inferior status, and in all 
 probability it is there he will have to remain. For 
 the invasion of every (iepartment of industry and 
 Ufe by Government contrpl may well be permanent 
 until the Guild society arises to displace it. This 
 Govenunent control means that private building 
 will be unknown in the future on the scale to which 
 we have been accustomed in the past. 
 
 If the architect would escape from this fate, he 
 can do so by joining hands with the building trade 
 to defeat the growth of this tyranny by organising 
 a Guild. The old-time isolation which, before the 
 War, often led the architect to place his faith in 
 architects' registration is now seen to be an utterly 
 futile proposal that does not touch the real issue, 
 since it could not give back to him his independence. 
 Indeed, that independence is gone for ever, and the 
 choice is whether the architect will allow his art to 
 be entirely extinguished by bureaucratic officialism, 
 or will choose to save it by democratising it through 
 the medium of a Building Guild. In that event the 
 
74 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 architect would find his place iii co-operating with 
 the workers to re-create traditions of design and 
 handicraft — to bring back, in fact, the mediaeval 
 conditions of building, when every eraftsman_ knew 
 something about the art of design, and when the 
 position of master-builder^ who then exercised the 
 functions monopolised by the architect to-day, was 
 within the reach of every member of the building 
 trades. 
 
 From the architects whose main interest is in the 
 future welfare of architecture the opportunity which 
 co-operation in the Guilds affords would receive 
 every consideration, for among such men there has 
 been for a generation or more a hope that the Guilds 
 would some day and in some form be restored. It 
 will not be due to lack of sjmipathy with the 
 Guild idea if there should be any hesitation among 
 these men to join in an effort to establish the Guilds. 
 It will be because, with the consciousness that, 
 owing to the uncertainties of practice, success and 
 failure in architecture depend to such a large extent 
 upon circumstances outside their control, and, inas- 
 much as they are all to some extent disillusionised 
 men, they have for the most part become sceptics, 
 and are somewhat wary of ideas. The habit forced 
 upon them by the conditions of architectural practice 
 is to wait upon events, and it may happen that they 
 wiU fail to seize boldly the great opportimity, when 
 it comes, to rid themselves of the yoke of commer- 
 ciaUsm. The majority of the profession, however, 
 have no high ideals. They are the products of com- 
 merciaUsm, for it must be understood that the 
 profession in its present proportions did not arise in 
 
The Middle Glass and National Guilds 75 
 
 response to a demand for architecture, but in 
 response to a demand for men to enforce the contract- 
 system. Under the Guilds architects of this type 
 would find a place on the business side, though not 
 perhaps in their present numbers. Those not 
 required would have to find other work to do. 
 
 We come now to the upper-middle class in 
 industry. It is represented by the wholesale 
 merchants (such as are not, indeed, members of the 
 plutocracy, the. difference being largely one of 
 financial power) and by the higher administrative 
 grades in large enterprises. The heads of wholesale 
 businesses are usually men who combine in them- 
 selves the distinct functions of capitalist, technical 
 expert, and administrator in the indiistry. Such a 
 man is half a profiteer, half a worker. But the 
 former is his main interest— the " main chance " — 
 and his expert knowledge and administrative ability 
 are wholly subordinated to his search for profits. 
 In this way much ability and enterprise, which might 
 well lead a man to the highest positions in a GuUd, 
 are lost to the commimity and devoted only to the 
 maintenance of private profit. 
 
 The private industrialist on a large scale, 
 whether he is working for himself alone or for 
 himself and several other capitalists as director or 
 manager, is always a capitahst in industry first 
 and foremost, and a productive worker only so far 
 as he may serve his main profiteering purpose in this 
 capacity. The outlook of^the upper-middle class 
 upon industry is indistinguishable from that of the 
 capitalist pur sang, and their interests are at one. 
 
 The lower-middle class, Mke the upper, has its 
 
76 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 members both inside and outside industry. There 
 are vitally important professions — teaching, for 
 example — the members of which are ranked in the 
 lower-middle class, simply because, for lack of 
 complete and vigorous organisation, they have not 
 been able to raise their professional standards and 
 their remuneration sufficiently high to place them- 
 selves in a superior social status. 
 
 The history of the professional organisation of 
 teachers in England is particularly interesting beside 
 that of the doctors. The latter, as we know, by 
 establishing the practical monopoly of their service, 
 have teen able to assume both the benefits and the 
 responsibiUties of this position. On the pther hand, 
 the teachers, highly organised though they are, have 
 not yet achieved sohdarity, and for this reason they 
 are, as a profession, as weak as the doctors are 
 strong ; indeed, the amazing difference between 
 the positions of the two professions is only too 
 obvious. If the material conditions of doctors and 
 teachers are compared, we find that, with a few out- 
 standing exceptions, the best paid school teacher is 
 hardly as well off as the worst paid doctor. But 
 this is not the point on which we would insist here. 
 It is much more significant to contrast the social 
 status, of the doctor and the teacher. Education 
 and healing, as parallel functions, require in theory 
 similar standards of abihty and quaUfications. In 
 practice, however, there is a very different state of 
 affairs. The doctors have insisted on a high standard 
 of proficiency among their members ; the teachers 
 have not been in a position to demand this, and the 
 standard has not been attained. In the same way, 
 
The Middle Glass and National Gxiilds 77 
 
 the doctors have been able to demand for their 
 members great social distinction, both publicly and 
 privately. The teachers, on the other hand, occupy 
 even to-day a low social status, comparable only 
 with that of the doctor in the old days whojwas also 
 the local barber. Putting aside all qiiestion of 
 remittieration, it cannot be denied that the teaching 
 profession occupies the lowest status of any pro- 
 fessional body to-day. 
 
 The reason for this is not that the teacher's work 
 is unimportant or unskilled, but simply that the 
 organisation of the teaching profession, vigorous as 
 it is, is incomplete. Inside the profession there are 
 bodies representing, and often almost completely 
 representing, certificated teachers, London teachers, 
 class teachers, head teachers, uncertificated teachers, 
 head masters, women teachers in girls' secondary 
 schools, men teachers in boys' secondary schools, 
 ncm-coUegiate certificated teachers, head masters 
 of pubUc schools, assistant masters of pubhc schools, 
 etc., etc. But there has not yet been a successful 
 attempt to organise the teachers in a single ^body 
 representing the profession as a whole. Neverthe- 
 less, just as much as in the case of the doctors, the 
 idea of the unity and dignity of their profession is 
 widespread among all classes of teachers. There is 
 here an exact analogy with the question of craft 
 representation and industrial representation in 
 industrial Trade Unions. ^ The teachers are strongly 
 combined in the craft associations we have just 
 mentioned, but they are weak in not yet possessing 
 any inclusive body"which can represent the profession 
 
 1 See below, pp. 112-115. 
 
78 !rhe Meaning ot National dkiilds 
 
 as a whole. Excellent as their craft organisations 
 are, these are almost ineffective — ^because they are 
 sectional. The National Union of Teachers, how- 
 ever, is the nucleus of an industrial organisation, 
 and includes numerous craft associations within its 
 membership ; it offers a clear example of the vast 
 increase in strength and influence that is gained by 
 organising on a broad professional basis. Attempts 
 have already been made and have failed, and are 
 still being made (and will perhaps soon succeed), 
 to amalgamate the two preponderant school 
 teachers' associations, the National Union of 
 Teachers and the London Teachers' Association. 
 When this amalganaation takes j)lace — and a register 
 is instituted — the teaching profession vsdU at last 
 find itself well started on the way towards raising its 
 public position and its standard of living to that of 
 the other great professions of medicine and law. 
 
 This amalgamation, however, important as it will 
 be, still leaves a vast amount to be done. It would 
 mean the solidarity of practically all the teachers 
 in the elementary schools, but it would not imme- 
 diately affect the higher grades ot the teaching 
 profession. The teachers in secondary schools and 
 in the private and " public " schools for the sons and 
 daughters of wealthy people would stiU be left 
 outside, as also would the vast numbers of technical 
 teachers and the professional tutors of the Universi- 
 ties. But in the interests both of education and of 
 the teachers it is essential that the whole teaching 
 profession should come into line. If there is to be 
 a gulf between the elementary schools and the other 
 schools and authorities, the inevitable result is, first. 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 79 
 
 that the present abominable caste divisions in 
 education — against which all ^educational reformers 
 are fighting — ^wUl be retained and will crystallise ; 
 secondly, that the teachers, by being divided, will be 
 ruled by the same circumstances that even to-day 
 make theirs the least respected and worst treated of 
 all the professions. The same process of amalgama- 
 tion must be carried higher and higher, until the 
 whole educational personnel is included. 
 
 What is, then, to be the aim of the organised 
 profession of teaching? The statement has been 
 made, with great truth, that an improvement in the 
 conditions of the teachers' environment will imme- 
 diately benefit their pupils ; for example, a reduction 
 in the number of pupOs in an elementary school class, 
 while it lessens the strain upon the teacher, also gives 
 the individual pupil a better opportunity for instruc- 
 tion. However, an obvious gap yawns sooner or 
 later between the mere private welfare of the teacher 
 and his professional responsibility. If indeed the 
 teachers desire to raise their status to that of the 
 doctors and the lawyers, they must be prepared also 
 to save it from the dechne in public esteem which in 
 these days is rapidly overtaking those professions 
 in consequence of their supposed reluctance to fulfil 
 their functions in the public interest. In a word, 
 the teachers, in order to assure and maintain the 
 status to which theoretically they are entitled, must 
 put forward definitely'as their aim an Educational 
 Guild. The main significance of the Guild idea for 
 teachers is the amalgamation of all educationalists 
 and the unification of the teaching forces without 
 caste distinctions. 
 
8o The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 We believe, then, that the Guild idea will commend 
 itself to teachers as a definite aim for their profession. 
 Their position, however, is compUcated by the fact 
 that the overwhelming majority of teachers are in 
 the direct service of the State, by virtue of their 
 employment in elementary schools, and that there is 
 a tendency to look to the State to exercise surveil- 
 lance over the other educational areas also. Is the 
 future of the ■ teachers' profession to be a State 
 service under bureaucratic control ? The defects 
 of this arrangement are those that apply to all 
 schemes of complete State control. The subjects 
 of education are rightly assumed to be matters of 
 pubhc determination. * But the conditions of teach- 
 ing and the staffing of the profession are plainly the 
 province and the responsibiUty of the Teachers' 
 Guild alone. Unless this is reaUsed by the teachers, 
 their now awakened energy and their latent soli- 
 darity wiU tend to decay into a mere hunt for 
 professional advantage. Their societies will go on 
 wrangHng for members and benefits, as they are 
 doing now ; the status of the profession will not 
 improve, even if its remuneration is increased. 
 But with the Guild idea before them, teachers may 
 rapidly make up the leeway between them and the 
 kindred professions of medicine Euidlaw ; should these 
 latter be blind to the public appeal of the Guild idea, 
 the teachers may even surpass them in the claim to 
 pubhc recognition. 
 
 We may turn to the Civil Service, in the hght of the 
 
 1 There is not space here to enter upon a discussion of the respective 
 limits of parental, teachers', and State control, nor does it closely aflect 
 our point, which is, that no scheme of education can be successful which 
 is not ratified by an Educational Guild and entrusted to this Guild of 
 teachers to carry out. 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 8i 
 
 Guild proposals. The Civil Service is not a homo- 
 geneous body, nor an exclusive and clearly defined 
 professional caste ; its members do not belong as a 
 whole either to the upper-middle or to the lower- 
 middle class, but to both. They range, for example, 
 from the manipulative staff of the Post Office — the 
 SOTters and postmen — to the permanent chiefs of the 
 Treasury and the Foreign Office who frame budgets 
 and treaties. Between these classes is set a variety 
 of supervisors (or foremen), clerks, technical officials, 
 executive officers, and departmental secretaries. 
 Hence the unity, the speciaUsed skill, and the 
 traditions of a profession are lacking in the Civil" 
 Service. 
 
 This diversity of education, outlook, and function 
 is reflected in the history of Civil Service agitation 
 and the growth of Civil Service organisations. Each 
 clciss in the Civil Service has combined, or failed to 
 combine, within the hmits of its common duties 
 and common grievances. Indeed, in the attempt 
 to organise a Civil Service Federation comprising 
 associations both of salary-earners and of wage- 
 earners the difficulty was to find a common standard 
 of grievance; the hardships of a higher group are 
 sometimes the practical ideal of a lower grade. 
 While there is no essential ill-will on either side, 
 the two groupings of salariat and wage-earners in 
 the Civil Service represent a real division of imme- 
 diate aims and economic position. In the end the 
 Civil Service Federation has become representative 
 almost wholly of the postmen, sorters, and other 
 manipulative workers — i.e., the wage-earners — 
 while the bodies representing the clerical workers — 
 
 G 
 
82 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 i.e., the salariat — ^have combined to form the Civil 
 Service Clerical Alliance. There is not as yet much 
 evidence of the spirit of an aU-grades movement 
 in the Civil Service, and such a spirit is not likely to 
 spring up while the postmen and the sorters take no 
 interest in the demand of the Second Division 
 Clerks for improved status and a title to promotion, 
 on merit, to the highest posts, and while the Second 
 Division Clerks show only an academic concern for 
 the postmen's claims to higher rates of remuneration 
 and better conditions. This sectionaUsm is the 
 penalty of building upon " grievances " and not 
 upon positive ideas. 
 
 Above both these organised sections is the Staff 
 Clerks' Association, which includes in its member- 
 ship various grades of supervising and executive 
 officers in receipt of annual salaries ranging from 
 £250 to £600, and upwards. This association brings 
 together men who have nothing in common but 
 their salary scale ; its members may be chemists in 
 a Government laboratory, accountants. Labour 
 Exchange officials, or staff clerks in the Admiralty. 
 In this association, as well as in the CivU Service 
 Clerical AUiance, however, there is a certain pro- 
 fessional spirit, and it is tending to develop into a 
 federation embracing various societies, each formed 
 on a speciahst basis, and to confine its massed activi- 
 ties to such general questions as the control of the 
 Treasury over the Civil Service and the lack of 
 control on the part of Civil Servants over the exam- 
 inations by which the different grades are recruited. 
 
 The question of Treasury control in the Civil 
 Service is perhaps the only subject in which all Civil 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 83 
 
 Servants seem to be equally interested. It may be 
 that the fight against what is regarded as a harsh 
 and inefficient autocracy will bring about unity 
 among bodies that are as yet conscious of no 
 other mutual aim. The Treasury is the overlord of 
 the whole Civil Service ; it authorises the staffing of 
 the departments — apart from the privileged irre- 
 sponsibihty of the new War Ministries ; it has the 
 right of veto over all promotions ; and it lays down 
 the general rates of pay and conditions of service. 
 The Treasury, in fact, is the Civil Servant's employer, 
 and it acts like an ordinary duU employer in paying 
 its servants the lowest possible wages on a competi- 
 tive basis. The new demand of the Service is that 
 the control of the Treasury should be replaced by 
 the management of a Board on which the different 
 classes and grades should be represented, together 
 with the Government of the day as the representative 
 of the taxpayer. It is proposed that this Board 
 should become responsible for such things as Civil 
 Service organisation, the regulation of hours and 
 hoUdays, the settlement of questions of pay and the 
 control of entrance examinations. The activities 
 of the Board would be subject to the usual forms of 
 ParHamentary scrutiny. This constitutes a definite 
 claim by the Civil Service towards self-government, 
 subject to the general will and interest of the com- 
 mtmity, and as such it is of immediate interest to 
 National Guildsmen. 
 
 We may now come back to industry and consider 
 the position of the lower-middle class in it. This 
 class is commonly i#upposed to be leagued with the 
 capitaUsts in the economic struggle, and opposed to 
 
84 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 the wage-earners in their struggle for freedom. It 
 is necessary to consider why this is the usual opinion 
 and why, in the Guildsman's view, it is erroneous. 
 
 First of all we may consider the position of the 
 private enterprise whose head is a member of this 
 class. The private head of a wholesale firm is con- 
 sidered to belong to the upper-middle class ; the 
 shopkeeper is a member of the lower-middle class. 
 But the private retailer is tending to disappear. 
 Combinations of wholesalers are formed which, with 
 the actual purpose of cutting down costs and monopo- 
 Using sales, but with the public plea of eliminating 
 the " profiteeiing middleman," contrive to get 
 control of both the buying and selling markets of 
 their trade. The retailer in this branch of industry 
 finds himself practically cut off from his materials, 
 and in addition he is deliberately undersold by the 
 combines in the market where he brings his products. 
 At the end of this process, as famiUar here as it ever 
 was in America, the private retailer finds himself 
 forced to surrender to the combine and to administer 
 as its salaried employee what used to be his own 
 private business. Despite appearances, the class- 
 struggle is nowhere becoming more swiftly defined 
 than in the distributive trades. The shop-assistant, 
 once spurred to exertions by the hope of becoming 
 a small shopkeeper and " putting up his ovm 
 shutters," is now beginning to realise that, if he ever 
 does start on his own account, there is only too much 
 chance that the great multiple " house of business " 
 wiU put up his shutters for him and drive him back 
 into wage-slavery. The private retailer of to-day 
 is the salaried employee of to-morrow ; in treating 
 
The Middle Clas&^and National Guilds 85 
 
 now of the salaried employee class we are, therefore, 
 in effect dealing also with the disappearing class of 
 private retailers. 
 
 Why is it thaVthe " salariat " — as, for convenience, 
 we may call the salaried lower-middle class employees 
 — consider that they are the natural allies of 
 the capitaHsts against the wage-earners? Several 
 reasons have been suggested to account for this. 
 Not least is the power of pure snobbishness, which 
 makes a clerk, earning perhaps thirty shilUngs a 
 week, think himself socially the superior of a 
 mechanic earning double this amount. It is the 
 notion that " brain work " is essentially superior to 
 " manual labour " ; but, surely, this distinction 
 disappears when we consider that the brain work in 
 question is never much more than totting up figures 
 and addressing envelopes, while the mechanic may 
 be engaged on the most deHcate and difficult manual 
 work. However, the clerk does feel superiority, 
 and we must take notice of this rather shoddy 
 snobbishness — ^now happily disappearing — as one 
 ground for his inclination to side with the capitalists 
 against Labour. A far more powerful argument for 
 the salariat's siding with the capitaHsts is the manner 
 of his pa37ment. A salaried employee is properly one 
 who receives remuneration, not by the hour or day, 
 but by the year, month, or week. Hypnotised by 
 the round " O " in the figure of their pay, the 
 salariat feel that they really are important members 
 of the industry. They are not in danger of summary 
 dismissal, since they are assured of a week's or a 
 month's or a year's notice before they can be thrown 
 out of employment. They therefore feel a certain 
 
$6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 intimate sense of partnership with their employers. 
 Secure in the conviction that they " belong to the 
 firm," they fall unconsciously into the delusion that 
 the firm belongs to them, and even enjoy all the 
 sensations of proprietorship though they attain to 
 none of its rights. It is a form of megalomania, 
 encouraged, if not caused, by the unnaturally 
 centraHsed conditions of capitalist industry. 
 
 Now that we have seen some of the grounds on 
 which the salariat claim under Capitalism to occupy 
 a higher status than the wage-earners and to resent 
 any attempts of the latter to abandon the system, 
 let us see how far this superiority is real and how far 
 imaginary. We know that, from the point of view 
 of the wage-earner, CapitaHsm has certain enormous 
 defects, which the estabhshment of National Guilds 
 would remedy. These are, briefly, that CapitaUsm 
 denies the worker security in his occupation ; that 
 it divorces him from control over the industry, or 
 even his own work therein ; and that it forces him 
 to engage in work not for the advantage of the 
 community, nor even for his own, but for the profits 
 of the capitahsts. 
 
 How do these considerations affect the salariat? 
 We are not speaking here of those fortunate 
 salaried employees who have large personal interests 
 in the profits of industry — they, as we know, 
 belong to the upper-middle class, which is an annexe 
 of the capitalist class.. But, apart from these, 
 in what respect are the salariat really better situated 
 under CapitaHsm than the wage-earners ? 
 
 Is the salaried employee secure in his position? 
 For a week, or a month, or a year — ^yes ; but for no 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 87 
 
 longer. A year's contract is a year's security — ^no 
 more. It is not security for life. The salariat are 
 indeed comparatively more secure than the prole- 
 tariat — ^but neither of them is truly and ultimately 
 secure ! They stand on the same treacherous ground, 
 Uable to dismissal at the wiU and the discretion of the 
 capitalists. 
 
 To take the second point, has the salaried employee 
 any more share in the control of the industry and of 
 his own work in it than the wage-earner? The 
 answer is that neither salaried employee nor wage- 
 earner has the least real control in these respects ; 
 both are wholly subject to the decisions of the 
 capitalist and his direct representatives. 
 
 Thirdly, has the salaried employee the advantage 
 over the wage-earner in being able to refuse to 
 engage in production for profits and to insist that his 
 services shall be utilised in the public interest ? No, 
 the profiteers do not care a snap of the fingers for the 
 conscience and qualms of their salaried employees. 
 If any member of the salariat is dissatisfied with the 
 conditions of his work, he has the full permission of 
 the capitalists to throw up his job — ^if he dares — and 
 to fare as best he can. When an under-manager or 
 a clerk loses his work, he has the opportunity first of 
 aU to run through his own small savings ; after this 
 he. must starve in destitution Uke any of the wage- 
 earners whom he despises. 
 
 The truth about the salariat is that they have not ' 
 and never had a fundamentally better position in 
 industry than the wage-earners. AU their snobbish- 
 ness.aU their pride in being a superiorf orce in industry, 
 all theirfancies about security andprivileges — aU these 
 
S8 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 notions are based on the most inexact social vision. 
 The profiteers have always exploited the salariat, 
 and, by setting them against the wage-earners, have 
 divided their exploited employees and ruled them 
 more easily. The wage-earners have retorted on the 
 salariat by calling them the " black-coated prole- 
 tariat," but this has led to no greater harmony 
 between the parties! When the wage-earners' 
 associations attempt to force up wages, the profiteers 
 promptly raise prices, and explain to the exas- 
 perated salariat (who are usually too timid and too 
 gentlemanly to agitate for higher salaries') that the 
 increased cost of Uving is due to the selfishness of the 
 wage-earners. 
 
 With the crystallisation of CapitaUsm into the 
 Servile State, the salariat are seeing their last 
 dignities taken from them. The capitaHsts despise 
 them for their pretence of partnership in industry ; 
 the wage-earners hate them for their*truckling to the 
 capitaUsts. MeanwhUe, prices are rising, and so to 
 some extent are wages, but the purchasing value of 
 salaries is decreasing steadily. The time has come 
 for the salariat to break with their old notions. They 
 have nothing to expect from the Servile State except 
 isolation and servility. The only alternative is for 
 them to throw in their lot with th6 other exploited 
 class, the wage-earners. But if this combination is 
 to be passive, the salariat have nothing to gain 
 except friends in adversity. The National Guild 
 
 » An interesting exception to this general rule was the action of the 
 China mercantile marine officers in 1915. Working entirely on the 
 militant lines of a Trade Union or a profession, these officers struck 
 work for better pay and conditions, much to the amazement and 
 indignation of their employers. Their strike was entirely successful. 
 
The Middle Class and National Guilds 89 
 
 idea, however, at last gives a basis for active co- 
 operation between the " brain " workers and the 
 manual workers. » 
 
 The wage-earners could not successfully conduct 
 industry without the collaboration of the grades who 
 compose the present salariat. But the two together 
 form so compact and so Strong a force that they can 
 easily bring Capitalism to bay. The highest grades 
 in industry — by which we mean the highest pro- 
 ductive grades (administrative, expert, etc.) and not 
 .the profit-seeking capitaHsts — could not long stand 
 aloof from this vast" industrial army. The abilities 
 and inteUigence of the " captains of industry " are 
 much exaggerated, especially by themselves ; it is 
 their subordinates, the managers and the foremen— 
 the subalterns and non-commissioned officers of 
 industry — to whom much more is due than usually 
 appears. Once the cleavage in industry is closed 
 below, between the wage-earners and the salariat, 
 and opens above, between the salariat and the 
 directorate, the doom of Capitahsm will be sealed. 
 Subaltern and non-commissioned officers can easily 
 undertake the duties of captains immediately, even 
 if privates cannot. The possibility and the promise 
 of such promotions would rapidly transform an 
 industrial aUiance of salariat and wage-earners into 
 a Guild. Then the " captains " would be able to 
 show if they were worthy of their rank or not ; they 
 would not retain it if they were not. Nor would it 
 ever be the same as it was before, an irresponsible 
 autocracy ; for the new " captains " — that is, the 
 
 * For a consideration of this point from the Trade Union side, see 
 below, chapter v., pp. 194-199. 
 
90 The Meaning ol National GKiilds 
 
 master craftsmen — ^would be Guildsmen like the 
 rest. They would be masters of their craft, not 
 masters of their men. 
 
 The first condition, then, of the success of the 
 propaganda for National Guilds is that the breach 
 between the wage-earners and the salariat should be 
 closed. The war for the abolition of Capitalism 
 and the creation of National GuUds offers the 
 workers, " middle class " and " lower class " alike, 
 their last remaining hope of attaining freedom and 
 dignity in their work. Instead of being, as they are 
 now, two unfriendly classes, divided by an artificial 
 barrier of snobbishness and suspicion, they would all 
 equally be free and self-respecting National Guilds- 
 men. 
 
 National Gmlds are the hope of all the workers — 
 not of the manual workers alone. Only by the 
 co-operation of all grades in industry at^present 
 subordinate to the capitalists can the Guilds be made. 
 Once this agreement is a fact, the workers will be 
 combined in a single class of producers, which 
 may rapidly supersede all the false and foolish 
 antagonisms of to-day. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 TRADE UNIONISM AND BEYOND 
 
The destiny of Trade Unionism. A crusade or a con- 
 spiracy ? Attitude of employers : the new " Syn- 
 dicaUsm." Attitude of the State: the Munitions Act. 
 Is the Wage-system a national institution ? 
 
 I. The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 
 
 The Labour " movement " : its haphazard growth ; its 
 confused aims'. The " Army of Labour " : a misleading 
 analogy. Some significant details. The past of 
 Trade Unionism : Robert Owen ; the " kindred- 
 craft " Union ; the rise of the unskilled labourer. 
 The challenge pf Industrial Unionism : its value (i.) as 
 a weapon in the class-struggle ; (ii.) as the framework 
 of the Guilds. Varieties of structure among (i.) Craft 
 Unions; (ii.) "general" Unions. Industrial Unionism 
 and " Employment " Unionism : nationally, claims 
 of the N.U.R. ; locally, the Plant Committee. Craft 
 and departmental representation not incompatible 
 with Industrial Unionism. 
 
 2. The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 
 
 I. The creation of a central co-ordinating authority. 
 
 The Trades Union Congress : its weakness ; causes and 
 remedies. The General Federation of Trade Unions : 
 its objects and its decline. The Triple Industrial 
 Alliance : its origin and histbry ; its basis in Industrial 
 Unionism ; its possibilities in the future. 
 
 II. The co-ordination of Trade Union activities locally. 
 
 The Trades Council : its functions and potentialities ; 
 need for its reorganisation. 
 
 III. The ''founding of Trade Union organisation on the 
 workshop. Vital need for stimulating the Trade 
 Unionists' initiative. Failure of branch organisations 
 by locality. The Shop Stewards movement : its 
 significance ; the need for its reconciliation with 
 of&cial Trade Unionism. 
 
 98 
 
Trade Unionism and Beyond 93 
 
 IV. Amalgamation. Its achievement from below in the 
 workshop. Obstacles to its attainment from above : 
 (i.) official ; (ii.) craft ; (iii.) financial ; (iv.) legal. The 
 method of "Confederation." ' 
 
 V. The general labour Union. Recent tendency to amalga- 
 
 mation and closer unity ; dangers of this. Industrial 
 Unionism and the general labourer. Increase of the 
 " semi-skilled " worker. Possible conflict between 
 skilled and unskilled over restoration of Trade Union 
 conditions. The true function of the general labour 
 Union : a " cleaxing house." The demands of soli- 
 '' dcirity. / 
 
 3. The Future of Trade Union Policy 
 
 The " right to strike." The menace of Compulsory Arbitra- 
 tion. State intervention and the " impartial person." 
 The machinery of negotiation : its use and abuse. 
 N.U.R. conciliation schemes. Negotiation as a means 
 to control. Compulsory Trade Unionism ; dangers 
 of its imposition by State and employers. The black- 
 leg : the expediency erf his coercion. " Encroaching 
 Control": "invasion, not admission." Workshop rules. 
 The Collective Contract : its possibilities as an instal- 
 ment of control. " Direct DeaUng " : a Liverpool 
 Dock proposal and its opportunities. The Theoso- 
 phical Society's contract in 19 14 with the London 
 Building Industries Federation. The control of offi- 
 cials : Shop Stewards and Foremen. Possibihties in 
 the mining industry. Relations with the salariat : 
 their shortcomings and an apology for them. The 
 appeal of the Guild idea. 
 
 Discipline and democracy. The function of leadership. 
 
TRADE UNIONISM AND BEYOND 
 
 The nineteenth century dreamed many dreams of 
 democracy from which its heirs are now awakening, 
 but one soHd achievement remains to console their 
 disappointed pillows. That achievement was the 
 creation of Trade Unionism. Its preservation as an 
 independent force, free alike from the control of 
 State and capitalist, is the principal hope for society 
 to-day. Its future is in debate ; but the true path 
 for Trade Unionism is the path of responsibility and 
 freedom, or, in other words, the path to the Guilds. 
 The " continuous association of wage-earners for 
 the purpose of maintaining and improving the 
 conditions of their emplo37ment " ^ must transform 
 itself into an association of workers for the purpose 
 of abolishing the wage-system and assuming the 
 control of industry in conjunction with the State. • 
 This is the only future for Trade Unionism which is 
 consistent with the liberty and self-respect of the 
 workers and the health and safety of society. The 
 alternatives are tyranny or servihty, or even a 
 
 • The classic definition of a Trade Union by S. and B. Webb in their 
 History of Trade Unionism. 
 
 ' " Trade Unionism was the egg which Liberty laid in Capitalism 
 to destroy the wage-system. It is of no importance that the early 
 Trade Unionists were unaware of the function Trade Unionism was 
 actually created to perform. We do not expect an egg to crow." — 
 A. R. Orage, in An Alphabet of Economics, p. I53- 
 
 9S 
 
96 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 shameful compound of both. But a Trade Union 
 can only become a tJational Guild when it has wiped 
 out the dishonour of wage-slavery. To that end, 
 and to nothing less, it must consecrate all its endea- 
 vours ; to that end it must seek the industrial frame- 
 work by which the victory over the capitalist can 
 alone be won and the Guild at th& same time be 
 prepared for the mission of conducting the industry 
 with which it is concealed ; to that end the Trade 
 Union must seek to win both the unskilled of which 
 it has been too often contemptuous and those 
 "brain workers" who have been, with equal 
 foolishness, contemptuous of it. However much the 
 statesman could do to foster the Guild, the public 
 to welcome it, even the truly far-sighted employer 
 to prepare it — all these efforts, even if we could 
 count upon them, would be fruitless unless the Guild 
 is built up by the workers on the foundations they 
 have themselvei prepared. , The Trade Union move- 
 ment, therefore, i^ not a matter which concerns the 
 workers alone, as some even of its most zealous 
 champions contend ; it is in the fullest sense a 
 matter of national interest. Apart from it no free 
 society can be constructed — ^far less " recon- 
 structed " ; and it is therefore of the greatest 
 importance that we should try to understand its 
 problems and appreciate its tasks. 
 
 And yet to many readers the attempt to do this 
 wiU doubtless seem a strange one. To them Trade 
 Unions appear as silent, aloof, and rather mysterious 
 bodies with " anti-social " tendencies which they 
 exhibit by sudden strikes and " impossible " 
 demands. To the ordinary member of the public 
 
Trade Uniomsm and Beyond 97 
 
 I 
 the strife between Capital and Labour seems merely 
 
 a himt for the spoils of industry in which he does not 
 ' feel called upon to be particularly interested — save 
 as an exploited consumer ! Let the wolves rend 
 one another ; he feels scant sympathy for either, 
 since each, he beheves, is hkely to turn on him for 
 compensation for its wounds. And while the struggle 
 rages within the wage-s3^tem, the utmost sympathy 
 the worker is hkely to get from the pubhc is support 
 for the abohtion of sweating or perhaps for the 
 establishment of a minimum wage. But let the 
 struggle be declared against the wage-system itself, 
 and the Labour movement will be able to make its 
 appeal to the outside world with a far greater pros- 
 pect of success. It is much to be hoped that Trade 
 Unionists, in proportion as they become clear about 
 the status which their associations must justly 
 claim in the society of the future, will throw off 
 the pohcy of " splendid isolation " and seek to take 
 the pubhc into their confidence against the capital- 
 ists. For by their doing so his flank is turned, and 
 the passive support which many give, ever more 
 grudgingly, to the claims and superstitions of 
 Capitahsm will be withdrawn for nobler uses. The 
 Guild idea gives a purpose to Trade Unionism which 
 all can understand and which will appeal to many 
 irresistibly. It will provide a unique opportunity 
 to the workers' leaders, if they will but embrace it, 
 to proclaim their movement to the world not as a 
 conspiracy, but as a crusade ! 
 
 This is the more important since the situation 
 admits of no third alternative. Unless Trade 
 Unionism recognises itself as a crusade for the 
 
 H 
 
98 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 redemption of society, it will sink into being a 
 conspiracy for its exploitation. In saying this, 
 we are not thinking of those plots and machina- 
 tions of proletarian desperadoes which haunt the 
 dreams of a terrified plutocracy fearful of its trea- 
 sures, or even of that " ferment of revolution " 
 unveiled with calculated solemnity by the Times 
 as a pretext for the suppression of " labour unrest " 
 by a " show of firmness "on the part of the Govem- 
 .ment. The conspiracy of which the Trade Unions 
 may become accomplices will be .the result not of 
 revolutionary ideals, but of their suppression and 
 defeat. It wUl arise from the refusal of the govern- 
 ing class to add responsibility to power. The power 
 of the great Trade Unions to-day is enormous. It 
 can never be forfeited tmless it is surrendered ; its 
 expUcit surrender would mean the acceptance of 
 industrial slavery, against which (and we have 
 every reason to be thankful for it) the spirit and the 
 resolution of the bulk of organised Labour is om 
 surest guarantee. Yet it is not the surrender of that 
 power, but its seduction for unworthy ends, that 
 offers the best opportunities to those who are seeking 
 the aggrandisement of plutocracy and a servile 
 solution to the problem of the class-struggle. The 
 Trade Unions are being counselled by many of our 
 most " responsible " writers on industrial affairs, 
 and notably by the " great " employers — ^whose 
 appearance in the pubhc Press is an increasingly 
 monotonous feature of modern journalism — ^to give 
 up any idea of saving themselves from wage-slavery 
 and society from exploitation, and to take a hand 
 with the " captain of industry " at his congenial 
 
Trade Umonism and Beyond 99 
 
 job of fleecing the public. The suggestion is, of 
 course, decently veiled, and may even be absent 
 from the minds of those who are responsible for it ; 
 but the danger is not absent by any means, and there 
 is only too much evidence that the profiteer of to-day 
 win be ready to " sink his differences " with the 
 Trade Unions if he can but induce them to com- 
 pound the felony of CapitaHsm by taking a hand in 
 it on terms mutually to be agreed upon. This is a 
 far more perilous form of " SjmdicaUsm " than any of 
 which the Press has so far thought fit to warn the 
 pubHc — more perilous, not only because it would be 
 more easily achieved, but because it would be far 
 more degrading to the nation that accepted it than 
 any experiments in " producers' control " by the 
 workers themselves. If the Trade Unions can be 
 betrayed into abandoning their struggle with 
 Capitalism in return for an explicit rmderstanding 
 to share in its gains, not only will plutocracy have 
 vanquished freedom, but it wiU have defeated 
 society as well. T'he pubhc will suffer, in their 
 capacity as consumers, for the servility which they 
 have shown as citizens to the princes of industriahsm 
 and the lords of greed and gain. 
 
 We are aware, of course, that an argument 
 commonly put forward in support of a partnership 
 between Labour and CapitaHsm is that by this means 
 the irresponsible power of Trade Unionism would be 
 modified by an extension of responsibility tcf the 
 workers, who, if they were given a " share in control " 
 at the employer's discretion and a few workshop 
 committees to play about A\ith, would be thereby 
 diverted from endangering the nation's security by 
 
100 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 ambitious ideas of improving their status at their 
 master's expense. We shall have to deal with this 
 point when we come to the consideration of those 
 reconstruction proposals which are based on it. 
 Meanwhile we will only reply that the essence of 
 Labour's growing demand for responsibihty is that 
 it should be recognised as responsible to the com- 
 munity, not to the capitahst. The employers may 
 hope to find in the Shop Steward a prefect after the 
 public school model, to which they are accustomed, 
 but to the workers who choose him he stands as a 
 tribune, responsible to-day to no one but themselves. 
 He represents the beginning of the worker's claim, 
 not to a " share in the control " of a profit-making 
 concern, but to instalments of a complete control by 
 the workers of their working Hfe. It is the business 
 of the community to welcome that demand wherever 
 it shows itself, by encouraging the workers' associa- 
 tions in the realisation of the industrial democracy 
 which is their raison d'etre, and simultaneously to 
 prepare the extinction of those profiteering corpora- 
 tions who exist to frustrate it. By blocking every 
 door to responsibihty save that which leads into the 
 counting-house of plutocracy,' the community will 
 drive the workers either into a dishonouring and 
 dangerous conspiracy with Capital, or into a blind 
 quest for the spoils of industry. In either case the 
 power of Trade Unionism will have been lost to the 
 ser\'iee of society and goaded into defiance of the 
 pubHc interest. For the Trade Unions will either 
 abandon their ideals of a free society for a share in 
 the ways and means of profiteering, or they will 
 plimge on their own account into mere campaigns 
 
Trade Unionism and Beyond loi 
 
 of self-interest, aiming at nothing more exalted than 
 higher wages. 
 
 It is clear that true statesmanship would do all in 
 its power to foster those ideals of national service in 
 industry of which, though fitfullj' and half-heartedly, 
 the Trade Unions- are almost the sole champions 
 to-day. Instead of this, however, our governors 
 seem far more concerned to preserve the capitalist 
 system sacred and inviolate than ' to encourage 
 responsibiUty and self-government in the ordinary 
 worker. This is the more remarkable since the 
 War has emphasised that not only is the nation 
 dependent upon the workers as individuals, but that 
 it iieeds, further, the wUling co-operation of their 
 associations, the Trade Unions. It was to the 
 Trades Union Congress that Mr. Lloyd George 
 declared, "._We can win this War with you ; we 
 cannot win it without you." Yet he would offer to 
 Labour no nobler status than the miserable role to 
 which under the Munitions Act it was condemned. 
 Not merely the terms of that Act but its administra- 
 tion has been a perpetiial threat to the independence 
 of Trade Unionism. To its struggles for a higher 
 status and the beginnings of industrial self-govern- 
 ment the State, both at Whitehall and through its 
 spokesmen in the provinces, has offered a rigid 
 resistance. The local Munitions Committees were 
 strangled, not because they hindered efficiency, but 
 because they infringed on the autocracy of Capital- 
 ism. The attitude to the workers' movements for 
 shop control was one of unbending hostility. At the. 
 Glasgow Munitions Tribunal, for instance. Sheriff 
 Fyfe delivered himself thus to a group of strikers 
 
102 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 brought before him : " You have taken lip the 
 attitude that a certain Shop Steward is going to 
 manage the works. That is your attitude. You 
 are going to manage the shop ; and that is the sort 
 of thing to which the law will give no countenance. 
 I venture to think that not only the law of the land, 
 but also the common-sense of the nation, is against 
 any such preposterous doctrine." The " common- 
 sense of the nation " may agree with the sheriff's 
 indignation, though we are incHned to doubt it ; 
 but what is significant in the above outburst is the 
 assumption that the " law of the land " forbids any 
 challenge to the prerogative of CapitaHsm."* Never 
 was there a more blatant departure from the much- 
 vaunted " neutrality " of the State in industrial 
 questions. Is wage-slavery to be reckoned hence- 
 forth a national institution ? 
 
 On the answer to this question very much depends. 
 If the State identifies the future of industry with the 
 future of Capitalism and assumes the wage-system 
 as a " permanent hypothesis," ■ then it wiU challenge 
 decisively the hostility of Trade Unionism and force 
 the class-war upon the workers from above. Nor 
 can there be any doubt that such a challenge would 
 be accepted by all the most courageous and independ- 
 ent spirits in the ranks of Labour. We are too apt 
 to accept as the voice of the workers the servile 
 accents of a few leading figures — or rather, figure- 
 heads — of the Labour movement. The Labour 
 pensionaries of the Government, and Trade Union 
 secretaries, long superannuated in ever5rthing but 
 
 1 This excellent phrase we owe to Mr. S. G. Hobson. See his Guild 
 Prinpiples in War and, Peace. 
 
Trade Unionism and Beyond 103 
 
 fact, may rush into print to repudiate the suggestion 
 that the workers have profaned themselves with 
 revolutionary ideals. But we should do well to 
 look a Httle further before we accept their assurances 
 that the workers " know their place " and mean to 
 keep it. There are other leaders of Labour who, if 
 they are less notorious, are not less representative. 
 One such has pronounced his verdict on the principal 
 issue of modem industry in two blunt and uncom- 
 promising sentences' : 
 
 Acceptance of the inferior status of wage-labour is 
 impossible. In that direction Trade Unionism has no 
 future. 
 
 We may accept his verdict if we add the qualification, 
 " Compatible with the dignity, hberty, and self- 
 respect of the worker." The very phrase, the 
 " Labour movement," is a denial of the idea that the 
 industrial situation can be crystallised in the form — 
 or in anything similar to the form — ^which it takes 
 to-day. The " movement " to which the workers 
 are conunitted by aU their moral aspirations and all 
 their economic instincts is a movement away from 
 the wage-system ; and if the State attempts to 
 arrest that movement by an alMance with their 
 enemies, it may provoke a social conflict fatal not 
 only to the true interests of socifety, but to its own 
 existence. 
 
 § I. The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 
 
 We have stated the essential aim of the Labour 
 movement and the consequences to society which are 
 
 » Mr. J. F. Armour (Organising Secretary, United Operative M.isons 
 of Scotland). See Industrial Reconstruction, p. 107. 
 
104 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 involved in its attainment and in its defeat. But 
 when we turn to consider the Labour movement 
 itself, we must not expect to find either that this aim 
 
 Hs clearly understood by it, or that an appropriate 
 structure exists to achieve its reahsation. Indeed, 
 it would be difficult to say which was the more 
 lacking — the clear consciousness of Labour's true 
 
 - destiny, or the machinery by whicji that destiny 
 might be attained. This twin failure is essentially 
 a single problem. It is just because the British 
 Labour movement has grown up at haphazard, 
 confused as to its aims, vague as to its immediate 
 tasks and possibilities in industry and in politics, 
 content to regard " sohdarity " as merely a senti- 
 ment, and never able to determine whether it had 
 a " world to win " or merely a wage to earn, that it 
 presents to us the sorry spectacle of jealousy, muddle, 
 and incompetence which is the despair of its friends 
 and the secret deUght of its opponents. The Labour 
 movement has yet to be made. The term is used 
 to-day to cover a dozen conflicting strains of thought 
 and hundreds of quite imco-ordinated activities. 
 We sometimes hear talk of the " movement," as if 
 the workers had made up their mind upon the 
 industrial and social future they sought and were 
 consciously moving in a united fellowship towards a 
 certain goal. But the idea is a fooHsh figment of 
 the sentimental progressive and an absolute carica- 
 ture of the facts. The structure of Labour's organisa- 
 tion has been unpremeditated ; its functions as an 
 industrial force, as a poUtical party, in the field of 
 Co-operation and in the spheres of insurance and 
 benefit, are but dimly understood and clumsily 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 105 
 
 worked out. Suspicious of theorising, the workers 
 have fallen victims to sentimentaHsm, and their 
 " movement " is still groping after the Alpha and 
 Omega of conscious will — a principle from which to 
 start and a goal at which to aim. We may tinker as 
 we will with the crazy framework of " industrial 
 democracy," but unless we are resolved upon these 
 our patchwork will be vain. We shall never see a 
 Labour movement worthy of the name until the 
 workers — or a substantial proportion of them — ^re- 
 pudiate the wage-system and strive towards the Guild. 
 We are concerned in this chapter only with the 
 industrial aspect of the Labour movement, or, to be 
 more accurate, with the present and future of Trade 
 Unionism. And here we must be on our guard 
 against falling into the delusion that we shall be 
 dealing with defiant organisations of class-conscious 
 proletarians. The inversion of that academic abstrac- 
 tion, the "economic man," has led astray the 
 revolutionary SociaUst in his writings on Trade 
 Unionism, just as the original abstraction betrayed 
 the " classical " economists and the myth of the 
 " noble savage " deceived the philosophers of 
 eighteenth-century France. The workers' associa- 
 tions may testify to the existence of the class- 
 struggle, but they were not built up in order to 
 prosecute it. We are all famiUar with the chche 
 which descril^ Trade Uni6nism as the "Army of 
 Labour '' ; but it is an army which has never deter- 
 mined whether to fight for its own territory or 
 merely to mutter (to its enemies !) for its keep, an 
 army which experiences its hottest combats in the 
 struggles which it wages within itself, an army whose 
 
zo6 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 commanders lead their forces from behind, and find 
 it less exciting — if more profitable — ^to themselves. 
 The outsider who begins to study Trade Unionism 
 is astonished by the feuds and rivalries, the muddle 
 and overlapping, the apathy and carelessness, which 
 he finds. He is puzzled that the innumerable 
 suggestions and improvements which suggest them- 
 selves immediately to his common sense, and appear 
 so glaringly obvious, have not been adopted ages 
 ago. His experience perhaps of the practical intelli- 
 gence and sound instinct of the British artisan has 
 led him to expect something very different from the 
 confusion, amounting at times to chaos, which he 
 meets. The explanation is twofold. It hes partly 
 in the fact that, deceived by the framework of Trade 
 Union Congresses and General Federations, he is 
 regarding as a homogeneous whole something which 
 is an agglomeration of very diverse units — diverse 
 in strength, diverse in organisation, diverse even in 
 aim — and partly, too, in the circumstances of the 
 history of British Trade Unionism, which has passed 
 through successive and quite inconsistent phases 
 (all of which have left traces behind them), and 
 which to-day, perhaps more than ever, is in process 
 of transition. We may accept^Mr. Orage's excellent 
 definition of Trade Unionism as the " egg which 
 Liberty laid in Capitalism to destroy the wage- 
 system," but we must not count our chickens before 
 they are hatched. It is impossible to expect the 
 application of general principles in a world of labour 
 that is devoted to the vested interests of general 
 secretaries. 
 
 A few commonly quoted facts wUl suffice to show 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 107 
 
 the disorganisation in which Trade Unionism is 
 plunged. There are in these islands more than 
 1,100 Trade Unions ; in engineering alone there are 
 155 ; in building, no fewer than 65. There are 45 
 Unions catering for postal workers alone. Moreover, 
 there were, even before the war emergency flooded 
 industry with the labour of women and " juvenile 
 persons " to a degree hitherto unparalleled, as many 
 as six miUion workers remaining to be organised, 
 even if we exclude agriculture and domestic service 
 from our calciilations. A moment's reflection wiU 
 show the enormous waste of energy, as well as the 
 need for it, which these facts reveal. The picture is 
 black enough, but in order to arrive at a true grasp of 
 the sij;uation there are compensating factors to be 
 taken into account. Of the four and a quarter 
 miUions of Trade Unionists, 2,208,000, or almost 
 exactly half, are orgsuxised in the thirteen largest 
 Trade Unions catering for artisans — each having 
 a membership of over 50,000 — while the three 
 largest general labour Unions account for another 
 600,000 more ; thus almost exactly two-thirds are 
 organised in the sixteen principal Unions. Again, 
 about 700 of the 1,100 or so Trade Unions 
 are local or single-branch organisations. Through- 
 out the railway industry there are only five Unions 
 altogether, * whereof three alone are of any import- 
 ance ; the Vcist proportion of miners are organised 
 in a national federation of a sufficiently close 
 character to provide a most valuable nucleus for a 
 
 ' This is, of course, omitting the railway shops, where the conflict 
 of Craft Unions not only with each other, but even more with the 
 Industrial Union, the National Union of Railwaymen (the N.U.R.), 
 raises one of the most characteristic problems of modem Trade 
 Unionism. 
 
io8 The iVIeamng of National Guilds 
 
 Mining Industrial Union. The iron and steel 
 trades have recently provided a most interesting 
 example of a confederation paving the way for the 
 abolition of sectionalism and competition for mem- 
 bers ; the boot and shoe trade, whether or not it is 
 correctly defined as an " industry," is well organised, 
 with Uttle remaining to be done in the way of 
 amalgamation ; while agriculture — ^though here, of 
 course, the \vork of organising still to be done is 
 enormous — ^has so far escaped the evils of competing 
 Unionism and sectional rivalry. "■ The task of Trade 
 Union reorganisation is a huge one certainly ; the 
 situation, however, is not so bad as despondent 
 spirits have sometimes pictured it. 
 
 But the problem of Trade Union structure does not 
 consist merely — ^nor even, perhaps, principally — 
 in organising the worker in his " appropriate " 
 Union. It consists more often in discovering what 
 that appropriate Union is, in determining the 
 principles on which it should be founded, in ehminat- 
 ing its rivals if it be already in existence, and in 
 setting about to create it — ^in the teeth, be it remem- 
 bered, of a rooted conservatism and powerful vested 
 interests — if it is not. Before we can appreciate 
 these cardinal problems of structure, it is necessary 
 to glance at the past of Trade Unionism to see how its 
 preseht structure has come about. We cannot 
 attempt more than the most hasty outUne of a 
 subject deserving of the closest" study, but it is 
 necessary to know something of the ideas which 
 
 1 There are signs, however, that it may not continue to do so. An 
 important general labour organisation — the Workers' Union — has 
 entered on the task of organising workers on the land, and disputes with 
 the Agricultural Labourers' Union are already foreshadowed. 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 109 
 
 determined the framework of yesterday before we 
 can appreciate the problems of to-day. ^ 
 
 The essentieil, though ofteh the unconscious, 
 aim of Trade Unionism runs right through its 
 history from Robert Owen to Robert Smillie — the 
 claim to become responsible partners with the 
 community in the control of the nation's industry. 
 That aim, so long stifled and driven underground, 
 was definitely proclaimed by the revolutionary 
 Unionism of the later thirties ; indeed, what was 
 valuable and true in the teaching of Owen is too 
 often discounted and forgotten, buried beneath the 
 ruins of the clumsy structure of his " Grand National 
 Consolidated Trades Union." Before the ideal of 
 the Trades Union could be attained, the Trade 
 Union had first to be built, and in the bitterness of 
 disillusion the workers turned away from ideals 
 altogether.' In their efforts to prove themselves 
 " respectable citizens " they forgot that citizenship 
 
 1 It must be understood that in our sketch of Trade Unionism in 
 this chapter, and in the criticisms we may pass upon its shortcomings 
 in the past and at the present day, we are treating of it only in relation 
 to the Guild idea which the purpose of this book is to explain. If we 
 say nothing of its struggles to gain recognition by the law and at the 
 hands of the employers, or of its efforts to raise the workers' standard 
 of life, it is not because we do not realise the magnitude and the value 
 of what has been achieved in this respect, but because we are only 
 concerned to deal with those aspects and activities of Trade Unionism 
 which are capable of raising the status of the worker and preparing the 
 foundation of the Guild. 
 
 ' " It is not too much to say that, crossed in early youth in its love 
 of revolution, Labour had taken the vow of celibacy, and refused to 
 mate with any idealistic movement. The revolutionary Unionism 
 of the time of Robert Owen moved prematurely out to battle, and 
 suffered ignominious defeat : to those who survived its downfall the 
 only possible coiurse seemed to be that of saving the relics of the Trade 
 Union army by turning it into a sort of civil guard — by abandoning 
 every form of militancy and confining its activities wherever possible 
 to peaceful negotiation with the employers. All thought of ending 
 CapitaUsm was banished from the Trade Union world." — G. D. H. 
 Cole, Self-government in Industry, p. loi. 
 
no The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 is the privilege of the free man and is impossible 
 for the wage-slave. With the advent of the mid- 
 Victorian era we find the growth of Trade Unionism 
 attended by typically mid- Victorian characteristics 
 — sohdity, caution, complacency, and an ideal of 
 comfortable respectability. It is to this period that 
 most of the principal Unions in the engineering 
 and building industries date their origin, and 
 they still obstinately reproduce the structure and 
 ideas of that day. The greatest achievement of 
 that time was the foundation in 1851 of the Amalga- 
 mated Society of Engineers (the A.S.E.), the first 
 example of a great " kindred-craft " Union, including 
 in a single body artisans engaged on a number of 
 diverse skilled processes in the engineering industry. 
 This was reproduced to some extent in the building 
 industry by the formation in i860 of the Amalga- 
 mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. But, 
 though the next quarter of a century was in many 
 ways an eventful one for Trade Unionism, no funda- 
 mental change in its outlook or in its history is to 
 be recorded until with the end of the eighties came 
 the great London dock strike and the attainment of 
 what had been hitherto held to be impossible, if 
 not positively undesirable — ^the permanent organisa- 
 tion of the general labourer. Trade Unionism 
 passed at a bound from being the close preserve of 
 the " aristocracy of labour " to being a class move- 
 ment of compelling claims and vast possibilities for 
 even the humblest of wage-slaves. 
 
 The despised " unskilled worker " thus established 
 his claim to a share in the Trade Union movement ; 
 but a more important victory remained to be won 
 
the Meaning of Industrial Unionism iii 
 
 before that movement could arm itself for its true 
 task of emancipation. The general labourer had 
 gained his place in the Trade Union movement ; he 
 had next to gain a footing in the Trade Unions 
 themselves. Organised apart, his position might 
 still justify the view that the working class as a 
 whole had no fundamental soUdarity of interests 
 and no common destiny to strive for side by side. 
 While the motto of Trade Unionists was still 
 " Defence, not Defiance," the skilled man might 
 keep his jealously guarded Craft Union for defence 
 against the employer, and reserve his defiance for 
 the less fortunate among his fellow proletarians. 
 Biit with the reaHsation and acceptance of the fact 
 of the class-struggle, and, stiU more, with the 
 growing consciousness that Trade Unionism had for 
 its true end not merely to destroy Capitalism, but 
 to replace it, a new phenomenon was bound to 
 emerge. This was the Industrial Union. It was 
 already foreshadowed by the appearance in 1893 
 of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and it 
 arrived definitely -twenty years later by that amalga- 
 mation of railway Unions in 1913 which estabHshed 
 the National Union of RaHwaymen (the N.U.R.).' 
 Just as the A.S.E. was the " new model " of Trade 
 Unionism in the nineteenth century, so the N.U.R., 
 with its uniquely representative character, its 
 admirably balanced constitution, and its share in the 
 
 * The substantial truth of this statement is not affected by the 
 independent existence of Unions for drivers and firemen and for railway 
 clerks, or even by the question of whether the railways constitute an 
 " industry " apart from other transport. See on the whole subject, 
 Trade Unionism on the Railways, by G. D. H. Cole and R. Page 
 Arnot. 
 
112 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 great Triple Industrial Alliance/ is unquestionably 
 the new model of the twentieth. 
 
 Industrial Unionism stands before the world of 
 Labour as at once a challenge and a clue — a challenge 
 to the wage-system, and a clue to the econonuc 
 structure which must replace it. It proclaims that, 
 whatever the interests which divide the workers in 
 one section of an industry from those in another, 
 there is one compelling interest which must transcend 
 all others — a recognition of the common fraud and 
 shame of exploitation by the profiteer. It provides, 
 moreover, the sole framework on which a true 
 democracy in industry can be buUt up. For all 
 those who accept the fact of the class-struggle not 
 only does it furnish the means of victory, but it fore- 
 shadows the goal. The Industrial Union unites the 
 workers in every industry to free themselves and to 
 free society at the same time from the tyrarmy of 
 Profit ; it unites them to govern themselves and to 
 serve society in the Guild. 
 
 Let us not be misunderstood. The mere accept- 
 ance by Trade Unionists of a change in the structure 
 of their associations will not in itself necessarily 
 achieve anything fundamental. No change will do 
 that which is less than a change of wiU. But the 
 adoption of the industrial structure, though its true 
 aims may be obvious at first only to the few, wiU 
 enable the many to catch a gHmpse of those aims 
 which would have remained impossible to them while 
 they were tied to the narrow tether of Craft Unionism. 
 The change of structure will in itself provoke a 
 change of will. For consider the implications of the 
 
 1 See below, pp. 1 31-139. 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 113 
 
 distinction ! The Craft Union took for its basis the 
 process on which a man was engaged. It did not 
 ask him to think of the industry or service to which 
 he was contributing ; it did not suggest to him that 
 he had interests outside the preservation of the rates 
 and conditions under which he worked at that 
 process, or obhgations to those without whose labour, 
 however unskilled, there could never result the 
 finished product. The Craft Union organised the 
 workers roughly on the basis of a common wage, 
 not of a common wage-slavery. Moreover, it 
 provided no organ through which the workers could 
 exercise a positive and responsible control over 
 industry, even if they aspired to such a thing. It is 
 true that Craft Unions may federatewith one another, 
 and that in many cases they have done so ; but such 
 federations, while they may provide for common 
 action, cannot undertake it in advance without 
 grave 'Tisk of their undertaking being upset. No 
 federation of Craft Unions, still less a federation 
 which contained conflicting and overlapping Unions, 
 could offer to the community such a satisfactory 
 guarantee of efficient service as would allow that 
 federation to be recognised as the natural and 
 responsible authority for the industry which it 
 covered. No one in his senses, we imagine, however 
 enthusiastic a beUever in the doctrines of self- 
 government in industry and producers' control, 
 would dream of handing over the responsibihty for 
 even the manual side of the British engineering 
 mdustry to the Engineering and Shipbuilding 
 Trades' Federation.' But when the N.U.R. has 
 
 ' The suggestion is particularly ludicrous now that the Amalgamated 
 
 I 
 
ZI4 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 carried through its far from improbable amalgama- 
 tion with the Railway Clerks' Association, and has 
 settled' its differences with the locomotive men who 
 remain at present outside, the responsibihty for the 
 running of the nation's railway service could be 
 thrown upon it at a few months' notice. 
 
 The Industrial Unionist asks what a man is 
 making, not how much a week he is making ; he asks 
 not merely what a man is working at, but for what 
 industry, of service that work is intended. His ideal 
 is not a network of self-sufficient associations of 
 process-workers federating for occasional common 
 action, but a united brotherhood of interdependent 
 workers contributing to a common social function* 
 While the capitalist is the master of industry, he will 
 deUght to see those who perform the various tasks 
 which contribute to produce his wealth divided into 
 exclusive Httle corporations, sundered by caste 
 barriers, and busy only with those interests which 
 divide them one from another. Such a congeries of 
 cliques, with their demarcation problems and their 
 conflicting claims, will be too busy quarreUing among 
 themselves to quarrel much with him ; and their 
 clumsy multiphcity could not infringe his efficient 
 autocracy, even if it desired to do so. But the 
 employer, faced by an Industrial Union, with the 
 workers xmited in the workshop and ready not 
 only to claim his functions from him and his 
 officials, but to assume them themselves, would be in 
 a very different case. He would find his territory 
 
 Society of Engineers, by far the most important Union in the industry, 
 has withdrawn from the Federation. But the argument would, of 
 course, have held good had the withdrawal of the A.S.E. never taken 
 place. 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 115 
 
 threatened not merely by grumbling rebels who, 
 when they could not be induced to faU out among 
 themselves, could at least be counted upon to exhaust 
 themselves in wasteful forays, but by a discipHned 
 army of workers who, as they drove him from one 
 point or another, promptly settled in it and organised 
 it for themselves. 
 
 We have drawn the distinction between Craft and 
 Industrial Unionism as sharply as possible, because 
 -we beUeve the decision whether the workers shall 
 be organised according to the process on which they 
 are engaged or according to the product towards 
 which their laboin: is contributing to be an all- 
 important one. It represents not merely a cleavage 
 of opinion and iudgment,^ut a real cleavage of 
 principle and outlook. But we reaUse that the 
 distinction is not so simple as we may seem to have 
 impUed hitherto. A somewhat artificial simpUfica- 
 tion is necessary for an understanding of the subject 
 in theory. But, in practice, the structure of modem 
 Trade Unionism is complicated by half a dozen 
 varieties of the simple and conflicting types with 
 which we have so far been deahng. The Craft Union, 
 for instance, may be confined to a single industry 
 {e.g., the Operative Stone Masons, in building), or it 
 may extend over several industries {e.g., the Amalga- 
 mated Society of Carpenters and Joiners), or, again, 
 it may be a " kindred-craft " Union {e.g., the 
 Amalgamated Society of Engineers, and the Postal 
 and Telegraph Clerks' Association). All of such 
 Unions may enjoy a monopoly of the organisation 
 of their craft, or they may compete for members — 
 as they only too frequently do — ^with other Unions 
 
ii6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 catering for their craft or crafts. Then again, there 
 are the various " general " Unions, which may cater 
 generally for unskilled labourers {e.g., the National 
 .Union of General Workers), or for special kinds of 
 unskilled labourers {e.g., the United Builders' 
 Labourers Union), or for women workers {e.g., the 
 National Federation of Women Workers), or for 
 everybody not otherwise organised {e.g., the Woi:kers' 
 Union'). And of the Industrial Union there are 
 two types — or rather there are two principles on 
 which an Industrial Union might be founded — ^the 
 Union which sets out to organise aU the workers 
 engaged in an industry, and the Union which aims 
 at organising aU the workers employed by a particular 
 employer or group of employers, public or private. 
 
 This last mentioned tendency of Industrial 
 Unionism to pass over into "Employment" Unionism 
 is an interesting phase of the class-struggle, but it 
 may be doubted whether it is a desirable one. 
 Where the workers concerned are the employees of 
 a municipality, the circumstances of their ernploy- 
 ment may be of a sufficiently distinct and unusual 
 character to justify their temporary grouping in a 
 special association. But when, as in the case of the 
 railwa;^s, it is claimed that aU men employed by a 
 particular class of private (or at any rate only semi- 
 publicj employer must be organised in the same 
 Union, regardless of the operations to which the 
 
 ' The Workers' Union (the W.U.) has a general and undefined 
 understanding to hand over its members to their " appropriate " 
 Union as occasion arises : but this does not always materialise. There 
 is, moreover, a section of opinion within the W.U. which desires to see 
 in it the nucleus of the' " One Big Union " of the American Class 
 Unionist ideal. See below, p. i6o, where the problem of the general 
 labour Union is discussed, 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism 1x7 
 
 activities of such employers may extend, a very 
 dubious principle has been introduced. The N.U.R., 
 for instance, taking as its basis of organisation the 
 enrolment of " aU workers engaged on or about 
 railways," claims for itself the various classes of 
 engineers and labourers engaged in the railway shops 
 of the companies. This brings it into conflictjivith 
 the Trade Unions concerned with engineering and 
 banded together in the Railway Shops Organisation 
 Committee of Craft Unions, whose negotiations with 
 the N.U.R. have been stormy and protracted. The 
 N.U.R. claims that these workers are contributing 
 to produce the service of railway travelling, and so 
 belong of right to them.' Their opponents retort 
 that the workers are engineers who may at any 
 moment pass into some other branch of engineering ; 
 that, though they might possibly be claimed by an 
 Engineering Industried Union, if such existed, the 
 nature of their employers does not alter the nature 
 ''of their labour ; and that, if such a principle is to be 
 introduced. Trade Unionism will be continually 
 broken up and regraded at the whim of a few enter- 
 prising and versatile -profiteers. The problem, 
 though intricate, is not insoluble," but its conse- 
 quences for the cause of Industrial Unionism are apt 
 
 ' A ludicrous, but quite relevant example of the length to which the 
 N.U.R. doctrine might be carried is afforded by the painters engaged 
 on painting the Forth Bridge, which is said to take so long to paint from 
 one end to another that by the time the workers engaged on the job 
 have got to the end of the bridge, it is time for them to start again at 
 the other end ! Assuming this to be true (and we do not pretend to 
 vouch for the accuracy of the statement) and the painters to be per- 
 manently engaged at their task, ought they not to resign their member- 
 ship of the Scottish Painters' Association — to which we will assume 
 them to belong — and transfer their allegiance to the N.U.R. ? 
 
 •See, for instance, the solution proposed in Towards a National 
 Railway Guild, National Guilds League pamphlet, pp. lo, ii. 
 
ii8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to be unfortunate. Those who do not separate the 
 claims of Employment Unionism from those of true 
 Industrial Unionism, and who foresee the confusion 
 to which they seem likely to lead, are tempted to 
 accept the Craft Unionist's case as thereby proved. 
 A far clearer case between pure Industrial Unionism 
 and Craft Unionism is afforded by the dispute 
 between the various areas of the Miners' Federation 
 of Great Britain and the Craft Unions catering for 
 deputies, enginemen, mechanics, and other surface 
 workers. Here the issue is clear, and the battle can 
 be fought out on pure grounds of principle, without 
 the intrusion of the dubious factor of " employment." 
 It is not only nationally that some more advanced 
 Trade Unionists would apply the principle of 
 " Employment " Unionism. Mr. J. T. Murphy, for 
 instance, who has been closely identified with the 
 important Shop Stewards movement among the 
 engineers, in a valuable and challenging pamphlet,' 
 strongly urges the need for Plant Conmiittees " to 
 centralise the efforts or link up the shop committees 
 in the firm," since 
 
 Without" a central committee on each plant the 
 workshop committee tends to looseness in action which 
 is not an advantage to the workers' movement. ^ 
 
 This seems sound enough when Mr. Murphy 
 applies it, as he first of all does, to " the smelters, 
 the moulders, the labourers, forgemen, black- 
 smiths, etc.," who wiU through the Plant Com- 
 mittee " emphasise their social relationship, their 
 interdependence in production, and the power they 
 
 • The Workers' Committee : An Outline of its Principles and Structure, 
 by J. T. Murphy (Jas. Neville, 134 Carver Street, Moorhead, 2d.). 
 
The Meaning of Industrial Unionism XI9 
 
 can be when linked together on a common basis." 
 There is nothing in this which necessarily runs 
 counter to the ideal of an Engineering Industrial 
 Union. But Mr. Murphy goes on to call our atten- 
 tion to the fact that every group of enterprising 
 employers to-day, " seeking more and more to 
 minimise the cost of production, endeavours to 
 obtain first-hand control over all which is essential 
 for that business, whatever it may be." He invites 
 us to " consider the growth of a modern armament 
 firm," and describes how it goes on from its original 
 purpose of speciahsing in armour-plate to employ 
 navvies and aU kinds of building workers to build 
 its new departments, and mechanics to repair its 
 machinery ; how that, " as new departments come 
 into being, a railway system and carting systems 
 follow," until " what men used to repair they now 
 produce " ; how again from this the firm goes on to 
 produce its own electricity and gas, until finally 
 perhaps 
 
 A hold is achieved on some coal-mine, a grip is obtained 
 on the railway system, and so at every step more and 
 more workers of every description come under the_ 
 control of a single employer or group of employers. ' ' 
 
 Thus the workers " have become social groups, 
 dependent upon a common employer or group of 
 employers." 
 
 The only way to meet the situation is to organise to 
 fight as we are organised to produce. Hence the Plant 
 Committee to bring together all workers on the plant, 
 to concentrate labour-power, to meet centralised capital's 
 power.* 
 
 » The Workers' Committee, pp. ir, 12. 
 
120 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 It would, of course, be idle to deny that there is 
 much truth in what Mr. Murphy says, but we think 
 that the workers would be unwise to model their 
 organisation simply upon the hnes which the 
 capitalist himself finds most convenient as a means 
 to the production of profit. The Plant Committee 
 may be valuable as an ad hoc body for fighting the 
 employer, but we do not want to bmld the free indus- 
 trial society of the future on purely capitalist lines, 
 or to reproduce in self-sufficient but amorphous 
 corporations the enclaves of profiteering. Moreover, 
 Mr. Murphy overstates his case when he says that 
 
 There are no clear demarcation lines between one 
 industry and another, just as there are no clear demarca- 
 tion lines between skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled 
 workers. 
 
 We must remember that what may^be true of engineer- 
 ing is not true, for instance, of printing or of cotton 
 production or of the postal service. There is nothing 
 in the proposals of National Guilds, as we shall see 
 at a later stage,' to prevent close interdependence 
 between Guild and Guild, or to standardise any 
 artificial separation of the workers. But unless we 
 base the framework of our new society upon some- 
 thing more fundamental and njore national than 
 the organisation of a group of profiteers, we shall 
 not build securely. The capitaHst is goaded by the 
 hope of profit ; the Guild must be founded upon the 
 principle of function. It is that true Industrial 
 Unionism which prepares the organisation of the 
 industry as a national whole in the interests of all 
 concerned therein, and does not merely set itself to 
 
 * See below, chapter viii^ 
 
The Meanii^ of Industrial Unionism 121 
 
 follow bUhdly the whims and devices of Capitalism, 
 which will enable the workers to secure for themselves 
 and for society the spirit and structure of the Guilds. 
 We have sought, then, to separate Industrial 
 Unionism from the Craft Unionism with which it is 
 in conflict, and from the new " Employment " 
 Unionism with which it has become a Uttle con- 
 fused and entangled. But we do not wish to suggest 
 that, however clear we may be upon the principles 
 of Trade Union organisation, its practical details 
 can be other than complex. There will inevitably 
 be many " hard cases " and " border-line problems " 
 in any classification we may make. Even our 
 principles may seem to admit of confusion of 
 thought, as in the example of the postal service, 
 which may be claimed as an industry or held to 
 provide a field for "Employment" Unionism. 
 Moreover, in the case of the craft, we would not for 
 a moment be thought to be denying the validity of 
 craft representation because we have combated the 
 narrowness and insufficiency of Craft Unionism. 
 Not only is it possible for the craft to be represented 
 within the Industrial Union, but it is very necessary 
 and desirable if a truly representative democratic 
 organisation is to be achieved. Nor need there be 
 any great difficulty in providing for this. The 
 constitution of the National Union of RaUwaymen 
 contains a provision which admirably combines 
 departmental with district representation."^ More- 
 
 ^See the constitution of the N.U.R., Rule III. (3) : " The twenty- 
 four representatives on the Executive Committee shall be chosen by 
 ballot on the single transferable vote system. The Union shall be 
 formed into six electoral districts for this purpose. Within these 
 districts the various grades shall be divided into four electoral depart- 
 ments. The electoral departments shall be classified as follows : 
 
122 The Meaning of National Giiilds 
 
 over, in cases where crafts extend over various 
 industries, as with clerks and wood-workers, we may 
 look forward to seeing craft federations running 
 across and supplementing the Industrial Unions 
 concerned. 
 
 § 2. The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 
 
 The fundamental basis, then, of all Trade Union 
 reorganisation must be the adoption of a principle 
 of structure which will enable Labour to spend its 
 energies — and its funds — ^in the struggle with the 
 capitahst and not in miserable demarcation squabbles 
 within its own ranks, and which wiU, further, provide 
 it with a framework whereby it can assume "control 
 as opportunity offers and as its own initiative 
 decides. Industrial Unionism provides this principle 
 and opens up these prospects ; this is why it is the 
 cardinal issue for Trade Unionists to-day. But 
 though it may offer us the clue for which we are 
 seeldng to the maze of the modem Labour move- 
 ment, there is much more upon which we have to 
 make up our minds before we can feel assured that 
 our plans for the future of that movement are well 
 and truly laid. If the Industrial Unionist principle, 
 of structure be accepted, five main problems still 
 He before those who seek to build the new Trade 
 Unionism : the creation of a central co-ordinating 
 authority, the reproduction of a similar authority 
 in the locahties, the estabhshment of the Union 
 
 (i) Locomotive Department ; (2) Traffic Department ; (3) Goods and 
 Cartage Department ; (4) Engineering Shops and Permanent Way." 
 It is further laid down that " The Executive Committee shall be 
 divided into four departmental sub-committees, comprising the repre- 
 sentatives of the departments named." 
 
The Reconstnictioii of Trade Unionism 123 
 
 securely upon the essential unit of the workshop, 
 the amalgamation of competing and overlapping 
 Unions, and the assignment to the general labour 
 Unions of a definite function in relation to the rest 
 of the world of labour. To the consideration of 
 these problems we must now turn. 
 
 I. The well-worn cUche, to which we have already 
 referred, which pictures Trade Unionism as the 
 " Army of Labour " is nowhere seen to be more at 
 fault than when we consider the first essentials of 
 an army — authority and command. The Trade 
 Union movement recognises no authority and moves 
 in obedience to no command. It may be argued 
 that from the standpoint of the advanced Trade 
 Unionist this is aU to the good, since no check is 
 thereby imposed on the initiative of a Union which 
 has the courage and intelMgence for a spirited 
 pohcy ; nor is it left to a reactionary officialdom 
 to set the pace. Yet this freedom from co-ordina- 
 tion and direction is bought at a high price, and the 
 result is that if Labour is advancing, it is also 
 (to adopt a famous phrase) " advancing in all 
 directions." To recognise that a strengthening of 
 central control, or at any rate of co-ordination, 
 might have perils for the enterprise of Trade Union- 
 ism if it followed certain obvious Unes, does not 
 absolve us from the necessity of thinking out ^ays 
 and means by which that control could be developed 
 without reactionary consequences following. Until 
 Trade Unionism realises itself as a whole and trans- 
 lates its watchwords of solidarity into terms of a 
 voluntarily imposed disciphne, it will never take a 
 
124 ^e Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 decisive step forward. Victory in the class-struggle 
 may not involve revolutions as commonly under- 
 stood, but it will certainly involve something stronger 
 than the resolutions which seem to be aU that Trade 
 Unionists can unite to achieve at the present time. 
 If the Labour movement, however, is without a 
 central authority, it is not without a large amount of 
 centraUsing piachinery. In addition to that existing 
 before the War — the Trades Union Congress, the 
 Labour Party, and the General Federation of Trade 
 Unions (the G.F.T.U.), with a Joint Board nominally 
 co-ordinating their activities — there have arisen 
 since its outbreak two important and very represen- 
 tative bodies : the War Emergency : Workers' 
 National Committee and the Joint Committee for 
 After-war Problems. Meanwhile the G.F.T.U. has 
 been excluded from the Joint Board, while, on the 
 other hand, the Labour Party, in addition to con- 
 templating a drastic overhauling of its constitution, 
 is preparing for a closer co-operation with the Trades 
 Union Congress, the housing of both bodies in a 
 single building, and an extension of activities to be 
 undertaken jointly in spheres as yet hardly explored 
 officially by Labour — for example. Trade Union 
 Research. Outside all this lies the great Co-opera- 
 tive movement, which is at last, however, showing 
 signs of making up its mind to enter the political 
 sphere from which it has so far held rigidly aloof. 
 Nor must the future of the Triple AlUance of the 
 Miners, the Railwaymen, and the Transport Workers 
 be left out of account when considering, the problem 
 of how to co-ordinate the activities of Labour. 
 There is no lack of machinery at hand from which 
 
The Reconstruction oi Trade Unionism 125 
 
 an authority might be evolved which would fill the 
 required role ; the difficulty Hes rather in adjusting 
 the claims of competing bodies and securing that 
 each may contribute most effectively to a result 
 worthy of the cause which each is seeking, albeit 
 confusedly, to serve. 
 
 We are not concerned in this chapter with either 
 the Co-operative or the poHtical activities of Labour, 
 but with its primary weapon and most significant 
 and potential manifestation — Trade Unionism. 
 And here the most important and authoritative 
 central body is indubitably the Trades Union 
 Congress. In this assembly, which has met annually 
 since 1871,' the vast majority of Trade Unions are 
 represented and discuss social and industrial 
 questions of interest to the working class as a whole. 
 The Congress can . legitimately claim to represent 
 British Trade Unionism, and attendance at its 
 gatherings has steadily increased ; in 1917 at Black- 
 pool 695 delegates were present, representing 
 "3,082,352 Trade Unionists. These facts have led 
 to the Congress being popularly styled — with 
 natural, if somewhat wearisome, inaccuracy — the 
 " ParMament of Labour " ; but it is in fact less a 
 parliament than a glorified debating society, or, 
 as Mr. and Mrs. Sadney Webb described it two 
 dozen years ago, " an unorganised pubhc meeting, 
 unable to formulate any consistent or practical 
 policy." Not only is membership of the Congress 
 not compulsory, but its decisions are not even 
 binding (save perhaps " morally " — ^for what that 
 
 ' Except in 1914, when the Congress was postponed — unwisely, as 
 many thought — owing to the outbreak of w^r. 
 
126 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 is worth) upon the affiliated Unions affected by 
 them ; when its decisions are resented by a Union, 
 they are consistently ignored. '■ The Craft Unionists, 
 for instance, secured a verdict against Industrial 
 Unionism at the 1915 Congress over the question of 
 the railway shopmen, but the N.U.R. representatives 
 roundly declared that this would make no difference 
 to their persisting with their endeavours to organise 
 the shopmen ; nor has it done so. The Congress 
 elects each year an executive known as the " Parlia- 
 mentary Committee," the very title of which is 
 really an anachronism, now that the Labour Party 
 has been definitely estabhshed to represent the 
 political interests of Labour. The closer harmony 
 now foreshadowed between the Congress and the 
 Labour Party may lead to the Parliamentary 
 Committee formally abandoning its political activi- 
 ties and even changing its name ; but at present 
 considerable overlapping exists. The ParUamentary 
 Committee still fritters away over the consideration 
 of legislative problems time which would be better 
 spent, in attempting to reconcile the sad divisions 
 and differences which distract its affiUated bodies.* 
 But little is to be hoped for from the Trades 
 Union Congress tiU it shakes itself free from the 
 deadweight of officiahsm and the monstrosity of 
 misrepresentation known as the block-vote. By 
 means of this ridiculous device the whole weight of 
 a Union's voting strength is cast for or against a 
 measure, though opinion upon it within the Union 
 
 ' A notorious example is the repeated condemnation of " half-time " 
 juvenile labour in the cotton-mills. 
 
 ' Efforts have recently been made to take up this task, with but 
 indifferent success, 
 
The Reconstraction of Trade Unionism 127 
 
 may be almost equally divided. » The whole method 
 of procedure combines to rob the Congress of the 
 , democratic qualities of initiative and spontaneity. 
 One finds in it the domuiance and ubiquity of 
 officials, the rigid binding down of the delegates by 
 their Unions before they start, and their helplessness 
 before the " platform " when they arrive, together 
 with the congestion of business and the wearisome 
 reappearance of " hardy annuals " on the resolution 
 paper. Many critics consider that the Congress 
 made a mistake in 1895 when it excluded the Trades 
 Councils, since it is in the local Ufe of Labour that 
 the ordinary worker finds his best chance of getting 
 his point of view represented. By excluding the 
 Trades Councils, the Congress not only seriously 
 weakened one of the most essential organs of the 
 iabour movement, but it deprived its gatherings 
 of just the sort of delegates it needs to invigorate its 
 proceedings and keep it in closer touch with tl;ie 
 more virile elements amongst the younger workers. 
 Something to effect this must certainly be done if 
 the Trades Union Congress is to retain its prestige 
 at the head of the world of Labour. Its authority 
 may remain unrivalled, but, imless it adds to that 
 authority something of initiative, spirit, and imagina- 
 tion, it win cease to be a democratic organ, even in 
 form, and will justify the gloomy verdict of one of 
 the keenest of the yoimger champions of Labour, 
 who returned from a recent Congress convinced 
 
 ^ An instance which seems likely to become classic is that of the 
 miners' vote at the two Labour Congresses in 1917 to consider the 
 question of a British delegation to Stockholm. It was due almost 
 entirely to the transference of the miners' vote from one side to the 
 other that a majority of 1,296,000 was reduced to one of 3,000, 
 
128 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 that, " so far as the workers are concerned, demo- 
 cracy seems to mean goveipment by the old " ! 
 
 The Trades Union Congress, thenj-ds ^vithont the 
 authority to enforce its decisions and without 
 satisfactory machinery even to arrive at them. 
 ^\''here else can we turn for a body able to command 
 Labour's allegiance and co-ordinate its industrial 
 activities ? There is another competitor with 
 claims to be considered — the General Federation of 
 Trade Unions. This body was founded in 1899 
 with the express intention of imif jdng the Labour 
 movement ; it does not interfere in poHtics, but sets 
 out (to quote from its " Objects ") 
 
 To improve in every direction the general position and 
 status of the workers by the inauguration of a policy 
 that shall secure to them the power to determine the 
 economic and social condition under which they shall 
 work and live, and to secure unity of action amongst all 
 societies forming the Federation. 
 
 Here we might seem to have at least the nucleus of 
 the authority for which we are looking. Its struc- 
 ture, its ambitions, and the energy of its secretary, 
 Mr. W. A. Appleton, have led some observers to 
 accept the G.F.T.U. at, and even above, its face 
 value. Mr. G. D. H. Cole, for instance, in his first 
 book,' while frankly recognising its weakness in 
 influence and membership, declared that " the 
 
 1 See for the following quotations The World of Labour, p. 245. But 
 this was in 1913, and there is evidence that time has modified Mr. Cole's 
 opinions on this point ; see, for example, his pamphlet, in collahoration 
 with Mr. W. Mellor, Trade Unionism in War-time (published by the 
 Herald in 1915). Mr. Cole in his chapter " The Reorganisation of 
 Trade Unionism " in Self-government in Industry (1917) makes only a 
 casual reference to the G.F.T.U, 
 
The Reconstmctiott of Trade Unionism 129 
 
 G.F.T.U. is, in form at least, exactly the co-ordinat- 
 ing body required." After insisting that " there 
 should be some body capable of sajdng to two rival 
 Unions that their rivalry is a nuisance, and saying 
 so with the whole moral weight of the Labour 
 movement behind it," he adds : 
 
 This should be the function of the General Federation 
 of the future. . . . Sooner or later the British movement 
 must evolve its central authority, and there seems to be 
 no way of getting this except with the co-operation of 
 the -Trades Union Congress and the General Federation. 
 It is of importance that the Federation should pass 
 safely through its present financial difficulties, and 
 particular Unions ought to be ready to make sacrifices to 
 save it. 
 
 Perhaps they ought to have been, but they were 
 not ; and the secession in 1916 of the largest of the 
 affiliated bodies, the A.S.E. (in circumstances not 
 very creditable to either side^), struck a deadly blow- 
 at the always precarious position of theTederation, 
 and brought down its membership well below the 
 million mark it had but lately reached. The blow 
 was not unexpected. . 
 
 The history of the General Federation is the old story 
 of nearly aU Federations ; the Unions that joined came 
 in very often in the hope of getting something for nothing. 
 Some of them have got it, but others have been badly 
 hit." Naturally, the weakest Unions flocked to take 
 advantage of the chance to get benefits on such good 
 terms as the Federation offered. All went smoothly for 
 a few years ; but in 1911 came the uprising of the less 
 
 1 See the G.F.T.U. Annual Report for 1916 for particulars of the 
 secession. 
 
 K 
 
130 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 skilled workers, and the weaker Unions began to drain 
 the Federation's resources.* 
 
 The strong grew tired of helping the weak, and with 
 the weakening of their allegiance within the federa- 
 tion the attacks of its enemies outside redoubled, 
 till in 1915 they secured its exclusion from the Joint 
 Board. " Since then the G.F.T.U. has lost its reason 
 for existing (save as an insurance society against 
 strikes) and has become a tertium quid, rather in 
 competition with the official authorities of Trade 
 pnionism' than complementary with them. 
 
 We might lament the decline of the G.F.T.U. 
 more deeply if there had been real reason to think 
 that its prosperity would have been valuable to the 
 true interests and purposes of Trade Unionism. 
 But the evidence is to the contrary. The best 
 feature of the Federation — its protection of the weak 
 Unions by the strong — ^was neutralised, to some' 
 extent at any rate, by its general tendency to 
 encourage the survival of small societies which would 
 have better sought the interests of their members 
 and of Labour as a whole by amalgamation with more 
 influential bodies and, especially, with such Indus- 
 trial Unions as already existed. The G.F.T.U., 
 even more than the Trades Union Congress, has acted 
 as a bulwark of Craft Unionism. Moreover, among 
 its " Objects " is the specious phrase, " to promote 
 industrial peace." Never more than now would it 
 be disastrous for the Trade Union movement to fall 
 under the sway of an authority aiming expHcitly at 
 industrial pacifism. The activities of the G.F.T.U. 
 
 ' G. D. H. Cole, The World of Labour, p. 243. 
 ' See above, p. 124. 
 
The Reconstnictiou o£ Trade Unionism 131 
 
 since the War have done much to encourage the 
 apprehension that industrial pacifism is its principal 
 goal for the post-war period ; some of its leading 
 spirits have been associated with proposals for that 
 premature and spurious industrial millennium in 
 which the profiteer lion will he down with the labour 
 lamb in a " National Alliance of Employers and 
 Employed." The G.F.T.U. may aim at "improving 
 in every direction the geileral position and status 
 of the workers," but it seems bhnd to the 
 only improvement in their status that is worth a 
 moment's consideration — ^their emancipation from 
 wage-slavery. 
 
 Thus far our survey of the co-ordinating machinery 
 of the Labour movement has been rather depressing 
 for those who look to see the central authority of 
 Trade Unionism something better than a mere 
 mouthpiece of officialdom or an association for the 
 preservation of Craft Unionism and " industrial 
 peace." But there is one achievement in the field 
 of Trade Union co-ordination of a unique character 
 and vast potentiaHties. We refer to the " Triple 
 Industrial AUiance " (the T.I. A.) of Miners, Railway- 
 men7 and Transport Workers. • The scheme for j oint 
 action in certain contingencies, between these three 
 great industrial bodies caused some excitement when 
 first mooted in 1913 ; but when it was finally ratified 
 in June, 1917, it attracted little notice in face of the 
 more sensational issues of the Russian Revolution 
 
 ' See articles in the Labour Year Book for 1916 and 1918 ; also a 
 useful pamphlet on The Significance and Possibilities of the Triple 
 Alliance, by G. R. Carter ("Advertiser" Press, Page Street, Hudders- 
 field, 3d.). There is a chapter on the Triple Industrial Alliance in 
 Trade Unionism on the Railways, by G. D, H. Cole and R, Page Amot. 
 
132 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 and the War. Yet in its way the successful com- 
 pletion of the Triple Alliance is a sensational fact 
 enough. A joint arrangement between nearly 
 800,000 miners, 350,000 railwayman, and 250,000 
 transport workers to act together if they agreed that 
 circumstances demanded it, representing a force 
 capable (as one of their spokesmen has expressed it) 
 of " stopping every wheel in the country- if the 
 necessity arose of doing so," is a matter of sufficient 
 importance to justify our inquiring with some care 
 into its origin and examining its future possibihties. 
 The scheme arose out of a resolution passed at the 
 Annual Conference of the Miners' Federation in 
 1913 ; its realisation was already in sight when the 
 outbreak of the War interrupted aU plans for the 
 reorganisation of Trade Unionism. The matter was 
 postponed indefinitely, but the N.U.R. showed 
 that they had not forgotten it by passing a resolution 
 at their 1915 Conference expressing the hope that 
 negotiations would be opened immediately after the 
 War. Happily, however, the postponement was 
 not to be so indefinite as'this. It was appreciated 
 by the leaders concerned' that the reconstruction 
 of Trade Unionism should rather precede than follow 
 the " reconstruction " of industry, in the course of 
 which problems might well arise which affected the 
 Unions concerned, and in the settlement of which 
 they might expect to have a more decisive share if 
 they acted together than if they remained in isola- 
 tion. It was with general satisfaction, then, that 
 
 > For example, see Mr. Robert Smillle's article in the Labour Year 
 Book, 1916, p. 131. The following account of the T.I.A. is adapted from 
 an article in the 1918 Labour Year Book written by one of the authors 
 of this book. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 133 
 
 the rank and file of the three bodies learnt in the 
 autumn of 1915 that their representatives were 
 resuming the discussion of a proposal already 
 accepted in principle, with a view to laying a definite 
 scheme before a joint confeJence of the national 
 executives of the organisations involved. 
 
 The idea behind the Triple Alhance is simple 
 enough ; it is, in fact, no other than the old dogma 
 of Trade Unionism that an injury to one is an injury 
 to all. But this doctrine is true in a very special 
 sense in the case of the miner, the railwayman, and 
 the transport worker ; and it was brought home to 
 them in the great strikes of 1910-1912, when the 
 workers' " downing tools " in one of these industries 
 led to an involuntary stoppage of work in the others, 
 " as a result of which the workers had incurred all 
 the drawbacks of being simultaneously out of 
 employment without gaining any of the advantages 
 of sympathetic action." Whatever the value of 
 the " S3nnpathetic strike," it is clearly better that 
 the S37mpathy should be voluntary, and better still 
 that machinery should exist to provide for the 
 synchronised strike, the threat of which would — in 
 most cases at any rate — prevent the strike taking 
 place at aU and gain for the Unions concerned a 
 " bloodless " victory. We shaU speak later of the 
 moraUty and policy of strikes in general, but it must 
 not be thought that the Triple Alliance is likely to 
 embark upon an ambitious strike policy or apply its 
 enormous power indiscriminately. Not only have 
 its pioneers, Mr. Robert Smillie and Mr. J. H. 
 Thomas, for example, exhibited in their speeches 
 a sense of the deep responsibility imposed by the 
 
134 The Meaimg of National Guilds 
 
 possession of so much power, but the constitution of 
 the Triple Alliance forbids action being taken save 
 on matterSjOf the first importance to aU its constituent 
 bodies, and then only after the most thorough 
 consideration. '■ 
 
 Space forbids us a fuU quotation of the constitution 
 of the Triple AUiance ; but Clause 8, which gave rise 
 to the fuUest discussion when the constitution was 
 being drafted, is worth reproducing in full. It runs 
 as follows : 
 
 Joint action can only be taken when the question at 
 issue has been before the members of the three organisa- 
 tions and decided by such methods as the constitution 
 of each organisation provides, and the Conference shall 
 then be called without delay to consider and to decide 
 the question of taking action. 
 
 It is clear that this provision sufficiently guards 
 against the danger of precipitate action. The clause 
 was only agreed to in its present form after several 
 other proposals had been considered. It was first of 
 aU suggested that joint action should be taken when 
 two of the executives decided in fp.vom: of this beiag 
 done ; but to this it was objected by the Miners' 
 Federation that in a matter of so much importance 
 more democratic methods were necessary, and its 
 representatives brought forward a proposal that a 
 baUot vote should be taken and a two-thirds majority 
 obtained before a conference was called to decide the 
 question of taking action. To this the representative 
 of the other bodies objected that a baUot was not 
 suitable or even practicable for their organisations. 
 
 ' See the summary of the constitution in the Labour Year Book, 1918. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 135 
 
 The result was that the clause was agreed to in the 
 form quoted above. 
 
 Though not finally constituted until June, 1917, • 
 joint action was taken by the executives of the Triple 
 Alhance on more than one occasion in 1916. Its 
 proposals in regard to demobiUsation were the first 
 to be formulated by any central Labour body, and 
 their presentation to the Premier by deputation in 
 August of that year caused the Times to level at the 
 Triple Alliance the accusation (so strikingly appro- 
 priate to its own ambitions and activities) of " form- 
 ally attempting to supersede constitutional govern- 
 ment and to frighten the appointed Ministers of the 
 Crown, who are responsible for the conduct of the 
 affairs of the nation, into doing their own will." 
 The terrible charge of attempting to induce the 
 nation's representatives to consult in their deaUngs 
 with Labour the wishes of Labour itself might once 
 more have been brought against the Triple Alliance 
 in December, 1916, when it strenuously and unani- 
 mously protested against the importation into the 
 British Isles of coloured labour from overseas. 
 Whether because of this or not, it is significant that, 
 after the threat of action by the Triple Alhance, no 
 more was heard of the proposal, sinister rumours of 
 which had given rise to grave apprehension amongst 
 Trade tJnionists previously. 
 
 Important as may be the influence of the Triple 
 Alhance upon the affairs of the country generally, 
 nowhere is that influence likely to be more important 
 than inside the Trade Union movement itself.' 
 
 » At a full representative meeting held in London and attended by 
 
 280 delegates, representing 1,286,000 organised workers. ' 
 
 ' Tias was the verdict of the Daily News on the ratification of the 
 
136 The Meaning of National Gltiilds 
 
 This is true, above all, in one direction, upon the 
 significance of which we have already insisted in this 
 chapter : the Triple AUiance is a practical afiirmation 
 of Industrial Unionism more striking than pages of 
 theoretical argument. This statement must not, 
 of course, be pressed too far ; the constituent bodies 
 of the Alliance are of three very different types, and 
 only one could be accurately described as an Indus- 
 trial Union. But the miners are organised expUcitly 
 upon an industrial principle, and (though their 
 Federation may not be free from the weaknesses of 
 all federations, or be a finally satisfactory form of 
 organisation) it enjoys a degree of power and 
 authority not generally Eissociated with the term. 
 The Transport Workers' Federation (the T.W.F.), 
 though from the natvure of the case far weaker and 
 less satisfactory, confronted with many difficulties 
 and anomalies' and not free from inter-Union 
 rivalries, forms a valuable step towards a Transport 
 Workers' Union on industrial lines, which is the goal 
 at which its more enterprising and far-sighted leaders 
 are aiming. It was, no doubt, with the case of the 
 T.W.F. chiefly in their mind that those who drafted 
 the constitution of the Alliance included the import- 
 ant Clause 6 which lays down that " Every effort 
 shall proceed among the three sections to create 
 effective and complete control of their respective 
 bodies." 
 Any doubt, however, of the Industrial Unionist 
 
 Alliance : " The amalgamation will have more immediate and practical 
 results on the Trade Union movement itself than on the pubUc and 
 private employers against whom in certain circumstances it may be 
 pitted." 
 
 » For example, the problem of the general labourer, who forms a high 
 proportion of those employed in the industry. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 137 
 
 tendency of the Triple Alliance is set at rest by the 
 consideration of a most important decision to which 
 it came at the outset of its career. The Federation 
 of Enginemen, a federation of " kindred-craft " 
 Unions at issue ever3rwhere with the principle of 
 Industrieil Unionism, and including the Associated 
 Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen, the 
 ' great antagonist of the N.U.R., appUed to be 
 admitted to the Alliance when its formation was 
 first proposed. This application was refused on 
 the ground that Unions should only be admitted 
 " through the appropriate body representing the 
 industry as a whole." The significance of this 
 decision is obvious, and it is emphasised by the 
 following words written by Mr. J. H. Thomas, the 
 general secretary of the N.U.R., to explain the 
 origin of the Triple AUiajice : 
 
 The workers concerned saw that sectional Unionism 
 had become obsolete, and that even occupational Unions 
 would have tq^be put into the melting-pot and recast. 
 Not only mustlfuture organisation be on industrial lines, 
 and its marMng of the units of industry pay some regard 
 to the employer,* but there must be co-operation 
 between the various Industrial Unions. 
 
 These words offer a ghmpse of a vastly important 
 future for the Triple AUiance, the possibUity of 
 which justifies us in having devoted so large a 
 proportion of this chapter to the consideration of 
 its origin and potentialities. For it becomes clear 
 that the AUiance may be destined to serve as the 
 
 * This cautious acceptance of " Employment " Unionism by a leading 
 N.U.R. representative is inoidentalfy of some interest. See above, 
 pp. 116-7. 
 
138 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 / 
 
 nucleus of a General Federation of Industrial Unions, 
 and so co-ordinate the activities of the new Trade 
 Unionism as the G.F.T.U. tried, and failed, to co- 
 ordinate the activities of the old. In proportion 
 as the Trade Unions of to-day approximate to the 
 Industrial Unions which are the essential structure 
 of a free to-morrow, we may expect to find them 
 claiming admittance to the AUiance, and finding 
 their claims sympathetically considered. Indeed, 
 the point has already been urged. At the 1917 
 Conference of the Postal and Telegraph Clerks' 
 Association several advocates of a " forward 
 policy " argued in favour of 1 the changes they were 
 proposing that they would hasten the formation of 
 a Postal Industrial Union, and " wUl facihtate its 
 inclusion into what is at present known as the Triple 
 Industrial AlUance." 
 
 At the end, then, of our survey of the co-ordinating 
 machinery of the Trade Union movement we have 
 found something with better claims upon our atten- 
 tion than a mere traditional " authority " or an 
 imposing array of " Objects " culminating in a 
 delusive industrial peace. We do not suggest for 
 a moment that the Triple Alliance should, or even 
 could, take over the functions of the Trades Union 
 Congress ; it has expressly repudiated any such 
 intention, and it is clear that the " Parliament of 
 Labour " has still a most important part to play as 
 an arena for the discussion of the innumerable 
 problems with which the workers are confronted. 
 In this respect, at any rate, the latter body is never 
 likely to be superseded. But as an executive 
 authority, a rallying ground, and a striking force in 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 139 
 
 the class-struggle, the Triple Alliance has vast 
 possibilities, and may achieve some of the purposes 
 that past observers have looked to see realised by the 
 G.F.T.U. — ^in vain. For not a mere General Federa- 
 tion of Trade Unions, but rather a General Federation 
 of Industrial Unions, is what Labour needs to lead it 
 on its great adventure of emancipation. It is 
 significant that within the ranks of the Triple 
 AUiance is to be found the clearest consciousness of 
 Labour's true destiny ; the principle of partnership 
 with the community has been definitely embraced by 
 the railwaymen and is widely advocated amongst 
 the miners. If the power of the Triple AUiance is 
 used to this end, and to raise the status of the workers 
 and not merely their wages, its title to the leadership 
 of Labour wiU be as indisputable in the realm of 
 ideas as it bids fair to become in the sphere of 
 organisation. 
 
 II. Our search for a central authority for Trade 
 Unionism has proved a long business, and we do not 
 claim that any clear and finally satisfactory solution 
 has been found. It is perhaps too early to expect 
 one. But when we pass from the national area to 
 the locaUty, the need for centralisation and co-ordina- 
 tion is no less, though here the problem is rather 
 different. The difficulty in this case is not to find 
 the appropriate authority, nor does it lie in the 
 absence of such a thing ; it consists in the need for 
 strengthening the prestige and enlarging the func- 
 tions of a body, the existence of which is fairly 
 widespread — the Trades Council. These Councils 
 represent an attempt to co-^ordinate the interests 
 
140 The Meanii^ o£ National Guilds 
 
 and activities of Trade Unionism in the various 
 localities where they exist. Being free as a rule 
 from the domination of officialdom, and offering an 
 opportunity for the ordinary worker of zeal and 
 intelligence to express himself, they represent in 
 some respects the most spontaneous manifestation of 
 the keen Trade Unionist's point of view. We have 
 already referred to the exclusidfl' of the Trades 
 Councils from the Trades Union Congress ; from this~ 
 rebuff they have never recovered, with the result 
 that Trade Unionism ETas been crippled in one of its 
 most essential activities. There has lately been a 
 distinct tendency to a revival in the local life of 
 Labour' and an increased interest in and spread of 
 Trades Councils. A " National Federation of 
 Trades CouncUs " has even put ia an appearance, 
 though its authority would seem to be dubious and 
 its leading motive an attempt by its patron, the 
 G.F.T.U., to steal a march on its rivals — ^the Trades 
 Union Congress and the Labour Party. But imtil 
 the authority of the Councils is strengthened, their 
 financial resources much increased, and their func- 
 tions more clearly defined and more ambitiously 
 designed. Labour wUl remain without one of its - 
 most valuable weapons for to-day and one of its 
 most necessary organs for the future. 
 
 The functions of the Trades Councils in a re- 
 organised Trade Union movement have been outlined 
 so clearly and so convincingly by Mr. Cole in his 
 latest book' that we may be pardoned for quoting 
 
 'The proposals for the revision of the Lahour Party constitution, 
 for instance, seek to strengthen — though not, as some think, sufficiently 
 — the local Labour Parties and Representation Committees. 
 
 ' Self-government in Industry, pp. 149, 150. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 141 
 
 what we should only injure by reproducing in any 
 other form : 
 
 First of all, they should serve as the centres of Labour 
 propaganda and education. They should make Trade 
 Unionists, and, having done this, they should make good 
 and enhghtened Trade Unionists. The Trades Councils 
 should be hnked up closely with the educational side of 
 the Trade Union movement, with the Workers' Educa- 
 tional Association ajid with the Labour Colleges. They 
 should run, in connection with these bodies, classes on 
 industrial and kindred subjects, and they should serve 
 to bring together into one fellowship the whole Trade 
 Union hfe of their district. Secondly, they should be 
 given new industrial functions. The control of the 
 Labour Exchanges, either wholly or jointly with the 
 employers, should pass into their hands, and they should 
 assume a share in the control of the provision for and 
 against unemployment. Local Federations of Trade 
 Unions should be hnked up with the Trades Councils, 
 they should be kept fully informed of all local movements, 
 and should serve as centces for information about and 
 research into local industrial conditions. . . . 
 
 Clearly, if the Trades Councils are to fulfil these 
 fimctions, they must have money. They will need 
 buildings of their ^wn to serve as centres for the whole 
 Labour hfe of their district, for meetings, demonstrations, 
 conferences, concerts, plays, and all other aspects of the 
 industrial, poHtical, educational, research, and social 
 work of the Labour movement. Whence, then, is this 
 money to come ? Clearly, it can come only out of Trade 
 Union contributions. Every Trade Union should insist 
 that aU its branches shall af&hate to the local Trades 
 CouncUs, and Councils should be formed wherever they 
 do not exist. Then it should be made possible for branch 
 contributions to the Trades Councils to be increased, 
 in order that the local hfe of Trade Unionism might be 
 made more vigorous and class-conscious. 
 
 This admirable summary shows the possibilities 
 
142 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 for Labour still left unexplored by the neglect and 
 starvation of its local organs. Nor does it exhaust 
 the tasks which a vigorous and authoritative network 
 of Trades Councils might reasonably undertake. 
 The adjustment of inter-Union relations and the 
 solution of demarcation and other disputes between 
 the local branches of Trades Unions might well be 
 handed over to the Councils as they gain in prestige 
 and general recognition amongst the workers. The 
 task of strengthening the local Hfe of Labour offers 
 opportunities which should be no longer neglected, 
 and which, if widely used, would sensibly increase 
 the initiative and the control of the rank and file. 
 Eut for this to be accomplished completely an even 
 more urgent reform is needed — the foimding of 
 Trade Unionism upon the true industrial unit of the 
 workshop. This problem we have now to consider. 
 
 IIL It cannot be too often repeated that self- 
 government is something more than representative 
 government, and that no democracy is a real one 
 which does not provide for the individual, and even 
 stimulate his initiative. This is not less true in 
 industry than in pohtics ; before it can be realised 
 in the Guilds of to-morrow, it must first be sought 
 for in the Trade Unionism of to-day. It is true that 
 Capitalism seeks ever to suppress the independence 
 of the worker, and is suspicious even of his originality 
 and his every creative impulse, lest the exercise of 
 these quaUties should drive him into conflict with 
 the narrow purposes of profit. But, circumscribed 
 as he is by the wage-system till he has gained the will 
 and the strength to smash it, the worker has in his 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 143 
 
 Trade Union a standing challenge to Capitalism. 
 Here he may hope to exercise the initiative and enjoy 
 the true self-government so largely forbidden to him 
 outside. Yet Trade Unions are far from being 
 patterns of democratic practice, whatever they may 
 be in theory, and the worker is too often expected, 
 by those who have induced him to elect them, to 
 play nothing but a passive game of " Follow my 
 leader." No doubt many leaders do not desire this, 
 but they have not the imagination to see any alterna- 
 tive to it but anarchy ; if they can imagine a better 
 alternative, they are too conservative to provide for 
 it. They blame the apathy of the rank and file 
 (when they are not deploring their " insubordina- 
 tion ") ; yet they fail to recognise that alternate 
 apathy and insubordination are but symptoms of a 
 system which fails to allow — or, at any rate, to 
 encourage — ^the constant assertion of will by the 
 ordinary man. We are far from saying that either 
 the apathy or the insubordination of the average 
 Trade Unionist can be transformed immediately 
 into conscious wiU b\' any mechanical changes in 
 Trade Union government. But without these 
 changes they vnU. only increase, and no impressive 
 amalgamations of national bodies, though consistent 
 with the most approved Industrial Unionist models, 
 will achieve anything worth while unless they are 
 reflected in changes throughout Trade Union 
 organisation. Many such changes could be sug- 
 gested : the balancing of the power of the executive 
 by the check of constant ad hoc national conferences 
 of the rank and file ; provision against the'automatic 
 re-election of officials ; adequate representation for 
 
144 ^6 Meaning of National Gkiilds 
 
 locality and craft. But more important than all is 
 a reform which Mes at the base of the whole structure, 
 and must largely condition it — the estabhshment of 
 a tnie unit of Trade Union government by the 
 recognition of the workshop as the branch. 
 
 The proposal is not merely h5rpothetical ; it is 
 already in the way of becoming an accomplished 
 fact. The question is whether that fact shall be 
 "reahsed under the auspices of Trade Union authority, 
 or in defiance of it. Circumstances differ, of course, 
 in various industries, but the common practice in the 
 past has been for the branch organisation to depend 
 for the most part on the place at which the Trade 
 Unionist is sleeping, not on that at which he is 
 working. To supplement this, a niunber of Trade 
 Unions appointed shop stewards to represent their 
 interests in the various workshops, and in. some 
 cases shop committees also. But these officials and 
 committees have tended less and less to represent 
 the sectional and " official " interests of particular 
 Unions, and have become more and more the repre- 
 sentatives of the workers in the shop themselves, 
 regardless of Union and even of craft barriers. 
 What was originally set up to strengthen the hold 
 of official Trade Unionism over the workshop has 
 passed into being in many cases a rival authority to 
 it. The spontaneous democracy of the workshop, 
 ignoring the quarrels and prejudices of their national 
 leaders and the artificial division to which they led, 
 seeking often for a natural and efficient organ through 
 which to express their contempt for what appeared 
 as a pusillanimous and dilatory pohcy, and resolved 
 somehow to take " direct action " themselves, has 
 
The Beconstraction of Trade Unionism 145 
 
 created in many centres, and especially in those 
 where the munitions industry gave rise to new 
 problems, new perils, and new opportunities, a Shop 
 Stewards movement at variance with official Trade 
 Unionism and often in open revolt against it. What 
 appeared as a new phenomenon on the Clyde in the 
 spring of 1915 is now arising ever5rwhere, and the 
 Trade Union leaders — in the engineering industry in 
 particular — are confronted in, this new " ferment of 
 revolution " with the Nemesis of half a century of 
 complacency, sectionalism, and lack of enterprise and 
 spirit. 
 
 It is true that the causes of the Shop Stewards 
 movement are complex, and the faults are not all on 
 one side. There is an element of recklessness and 
 impossibiHsm ia the movement. Its attacks upon 
 established Trade Unionism are not always due so 
 ,much to a conviction of its errors and a desire to 
 refomx them, as to a doctrinaire determination 
 (derived often from the half-baked " Indiistrial 
 Unionism " of the U.S.A.) to overthrow the existing 
 Trade Unions simply because they are established, 
 and to create new organs for a " class war " which 
 bids fair to be waged primarily upon the workers' 
 own class. Whether by the attempt to create the 
 amorphous absurdity of the " One Big Union," or 
 by the setting up of defiant httle " Industrial 
 Unions " which only add to the chaos of competition 
 that they set out to contend against, the extremists 
 of the " Workers' Committees " seem sometimes 
 likely to do more harm than good. Their violence 
 irritates the ordinary man more than their argu- 
 ments persuade ; the average Trade Unionist is 
 
 L 
 
146 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 as suspicious of the rhetoric of " Defiance " as he is 
 disillusioned with the platitudes of " Defence." 
 But the strength and significance of the Shop 
 Stewards movement lie not in the language of a few 
 leaders, nor even in their personalities, but in the 
 soimdness of the fundamental ideas for which they 
 stand. The heresies of unofficial Trade Unionism 
 are but the intellectual vengeance of the suppressed 
 truth of workshop initiative and control. 
 
 If we Usten, for instance, to the words of a leadiilg 
 spokesman of the Shop Stewards movement, Mr. 
 J. T. Murphy, of Sheffield, we shall find the essentials 
 of industrial democracy stated and applied with a 
 directness and sanity altogether admirable.- We 
 take the following from his valuable pamphlet The 
 Workers' Committee, which we recommend to the 
 attention of our readers : 
 
 Compare the outlook of the man in the workshop and 
 the man as a full-time official. As a man in the workshop 
 he feels every change ; the workshop atmosphere is his 
 atmosphere ; the conditions under which he labours are 
 primary ; his Trade Union constitution is secondary, 
 and sometimes even more remote. .But let the same 
 man get into ofi&ce. He is removed out of the workshop ; 
 he meets a fresh class of people, and breathes a different 
 atmosphere. Those things which were once primary are 
 now secondary. He becomes buried in the constitution, 
 and of necessity looks from a new point of view on those 
 things which he has ceased to feel acutely. . . . 
 
 Men working together every day become familiar to 
 each other and easily associate, because their interests 
 are common. This makes common expression possible. 
 They may Hve, however, in various districts and belong 
 to various branches. Fresh associations have therefore 
 to be formed, which at the best are but temporary, 
 
The Beconstmction of Trade Unionism 147 
 
 because only revived once a fortnight at the most, and 
 there is thus no direct relationship between the branch 
 group and the workshop group. The particular 
 grievances of any workshop are thus fresh to a majority 
 of the members of a branch. The persons concerned are 
 unfamUiar persons, the jobs unfamiliar jobs, and the 
 workshop remote ; hence the members do not feel a 
 personal interest in the branch meetings as they would 
 if that business was directly connected with their every- 
 day experience. The consequence is bad attendance at 
 branch meetings and little interest. We are driven, 
 then, to the conclusion that there must be direct con- 
 nection between the workshop and the branch in order 
 to obtain the maximum concentration on business. 
 The workers in one workshop should therefore be 
 members of one branch.* 
 
 It is impossible to resist the cogency of this 
 reasoning by one who is himself a worker and speaks 
 of what he knows. The urgent problem is to 
 reconcile a movement so essentially necessary to the 
 vigour of Trade Unionism with the established 
 machinery of the Trade Union world.' Conflict 
 between them may satisfy the stubbornness of the 
 extremist on the one side and the reactionary, 
 official on the other, but it vnll only bewilder and 
 disgust the ordinary worker, who neither wishes to 
 shatter all that he has contributed to build up, nor 
 regards as sacrosanct the details of its framework. 
 There is nothing inherently impossible in refashion- 
 ing the basis of branch organisation so as to make it 
 depend upon the workshop, or even in securing that 
 the shop steward elected in the workshop should be 
 
 1 The Workers' -Committee, pp. 3-5. The pamphlet should be 
 referred to for many interesting suggestions (some, perhaps, of dubJQUs 
 value) as to the organisation and federation of Workers' Committees. 
 
 •See the treatment of the subject in Mr. Cole's Self-government in 
 Industry, pp. 138-143. 
 
^8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 as much an officer of the Trade Union as was the 
 shop steward appointed from outside. To quote Mr. 
 Murphy once more : 
 
 The initiative should be taken by the workers in the 
 various districts. It is immaterial whether the first 
 move is made through the local Trade Union committees, 
 t)r in the workshops and then through the committees, 
 so long as the stewards are elected in the workshops and 
 not in the branches. The means are then assured of an 
 alliance between of&cial and unofficial activities by an 
 official recognition of rank-and-file control. 
 
 The difficulty, indeed, is likely to prove rather 
 practical than theoretical. Nowhere is the conser- 
 vatism of the mid- Victorian Trade Unionist more 
 obstinately persistent than in the Engineering Craft 
 Unions, such as the Steam Engine Makers and 
 the Patternmakers ; their leaders have perceived in 
 the Shop Stewards movement a revolutionary force 
 threatening to sweep them away, and they have 
 denounced it with all the violence of a privileged 
 caste which feels its grip on power menaced by the 
 mob. Their instinct is to a large extent correct, for 
 the workshop movement, in all but its most extrava- 
 gant manifestations, is the herald of the true Indus- 
 trial Unionism which builds up from below a demo- 
 cracy capable of waging the class-struggle and of 
 organising its conquests when they are won. With- 
 out organisation in the workshop the workers can 
 never gain that control over production which is an 
 essential step towards the Guilds that should be the 
 goal of all their effort. Moreover, the workshop 
 movement holds the promise of a solution to the 
 next problem with which we have to deal, a problem" 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 149 
 
 which would, save for this promise, seem often to be 
 insoluble — the problem of arhalgamation. ^ The 
 jealousies, rivalries, and egotisms which officially 
 sunder one Union from another and provide the 
 vested interests at their head offices with the material 
 for an interminable feud are cahnly ignored and set 
 aside when men begin to organise in the workshop. 
 They are ignored because they are seen to be 
 negligible in face of the overwhelming community 
 of interest that the workers have with one another 
 when they are labouring together to create a common 
 product. The " obstacles to amalgamation " dwelt 
 upon so persistently by Trade Union leaders are 
 shown to be more imaginary than real when amalga- 
 mation ceases to be a vague and often hypocritical 
 aspiration and is quietly translated into fact from 
 below by the rank and file. Amalgamation 
 achieved by this means, if it is slower and less 
 sensational than the big fusions arranged from above, 
 is not less valuable and perhaps not less secure. 
 
 rV. It is when we turn to consider the problem of 
 amalgamation as more commonly understood that 
 we see how the process we have been discussing may 
 alone serve to retrieve a situation which woxild 
 otherwise appear in many instances to be desperate 
 indeed. In view of aU we have already written, we 
 do not propose to rehearse the arguments in favour 
 of closer unity between the Unions composing an 
 
 •This has been perceived by thejinofficial "Metal, Engineering, 
 and Shipbuilding Amalgamation Committee," which, after some rather 
 reckless threats to establish an " Engineering Industrial Union " in 
 despair at the lethargy of theofficial leaders, is now wisely concentrating 
 on the achievement of practical amalgamation in the workshop. 
 
150 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 industry, or even to debate the rival merits of 
 federation and amalgamation.' For the Industrial 
 Unionist the case for amalgamation is clear ; it only 
 remains to achieve it. In some industries, as we 
 have already suggested, the goal seems not far off. 
 The position in mining and on the railways, if not 
 finally satisfactory (and Craft Uhionism is not dead 
 in these industries by any means), is still very 
 hopeful ; iind there are other branches of industry 
 where Uttle in this respect remains to be done. 
 But when we turn to building, to engineering, and 
 to the textile industries, the situation, especially 
 in the first two cases, is depressing indeed. Section- 
 alism is rampant ; demarcation disputes exhaust the 
 energies of the workers ; the snobbery of the 
 " sMUed man " persists in its most obnoxious form, 
 and the framework and the spirit of Industrial 
 Unionism seem equally remote. 
 
 There can be no doubt that of all obstacles to 
 amalgamation the greatest is the reluctance to 
 attain it. It is necessary to s.tate such a truism 
 since it is so often and so successfully veiled beneath 
 a camouflage of " insuperable barriers " adroitly 
 paraded to deceive the innocent. There are none 
 so deaf as those who will not hear the call to unity 
 and soUdarity which must be {^resumed to reach even 
 the bureaucracy of Trade Unionism in their ofiteial 
 fastnesses. It is a caU,' moreover, which comes not 
 merely from " bourgeois " friends of Labour with 
 perhaps no special claim to be listened to (and even 
 less expectation of such a thing !), but from the 
 
 ' For a full discussion of this subject, see The World of Labour, by 
 G, D. H. Cole, chapters vii. and viii. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 151 
 
 rank and file of the workers themselves. The 
 secretary of the National Union of Hair-sphtters 
 (which, for aU its ambitious title, may well prove 
 to be a single-branch organisation unheard of out- 
 side its native town and the Trade Union directory 
 of the Labour Year Book) is not going to see " his 
 society " swallowed up in a more efficient and 
 represen^tive organisation in the interest of any 
 hjrpotheticEd " soUdarity of Labour," or to sink from 
 his general secretaryship to a humbler post, even 
 though at an enhanced salary. This pride in the 
 body to which a man has given, it may be, the best 
 years of his hfe, and devotion to its traditions and 
 its fortimes, are natural enough and even praise- 
 worthy ; but if the cause of the workers' emancipa- 
 tion is reaUy to transcend the private interests and 
 hobbies of individuals, these instincts must give way 
 to a larger loyalty. The crusade against wage- 
 slavery cannot be endangered or impeded because 
 every petty captain claims undisputed command 
 over his own troop. 
 
 We have mentioned first this obstacle of ofl&cial 
 egotism, because we are convinced that if it is not 
 the chief barrier to amalgamation, it is at any rate 
 the most obstinate. Where this particularism is 
 reflected in the rank and file, it is as often as not 
 deliberately engendered from above. Instances of 
 this could be given, were we not determined to avoid 
 being plunged Jn the maelstrom of inter-Union 
 rivalries. Does a local branch of some Craft Union 
 enter into friendly relations with the local branch 
 of the Industrial Union which is competing for the 
 allegiance of its members? Down comes a high 
 
152 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 official frolm the head office and in a " powerful " 
 speech rehearses all the old causes of dispute, adding 
 perhaps a few more that may happen to be current 
 and of which the branch has been .previously in 
 happy ignorance, passes on to expatiate upon the 
 unique and exclusive glories and benefits pertaining 
 to membership of their particular society, and sits 
 down with the conscious satisfaction that no such 
 deplorable incident as the fraternisation of the 
 workers m a single industry is Hkely to recur in that 
 centre for an appreciable time. The official interest 
 working on the craft spirit has achieved its end of 
 disunion by stoking up bad feeling which would 
 otherwise have died down. 
 
 We do not deny that the official and, far less, that 
 the craft obstacles to amalgamation are sometimes 
 genuine, or that the difficulties involved are real. 
 But however real they may be, it is not beyond the 
 power of goodwill and resolution to cope with them, 
 and the history of Trade Unionism affords ample 
 illustration of the maxim that difficulties exist only 
 to be overcome. Where the officials of the societies 
 concerned cannot be found useful posts in the offices 
 of the new amalgamation, as \yill generally be the 
 case, it is better that they should be handsomely 
 pensioned off than that the tenure of their old offices 
 should be made the excuse to postpone a fusion 
 which may be long overdue. The remarkable 
 generosity and loyalty of the British workman is 
 nowhere exempHfied more clearly than in the con- 
 sideration which he shows to the officials whom he 
 deems to have served his interests and whose tenure 
 of office he is so reluctant to disturb. But this 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 153 
 
 generosity and loyalty can be carried too far if they 
 lead to the perpetuation of a status quo which, in the 
 interests of the more vigorous prosecution of the 
 workers' cause, it is essential to disturb. The craft 
 difficulty is more fundamental, and it may be 
 admitted that some Industrial Unionists have not 
 sufficiently taken into account the just claims and 
 natural apprehensions of the craftsman. The 
 Miners' Federation, for instance, might be more 
 successful in its struggle to ehrol the surface workers 
 if it conceded something to their natural and 
 legitimate desire for sectional representation, and 
 took steps to provide for this explicitly in the 
 constitution of the Federation. That there is 
 nothing impossible about the reconcihation of 
 organisation upon industrial lines with representation 
 for the craft, we have already shown in the quotation 
 given above from the constitution of the N.U.R. 
 It is by some such provision as this that the hostility 
 of Craft Unionism is most likely to be undermined 
 and the path to amalgamation robbed of one of its 
 most genuine terrors. 
 
 Further and more concrete obstacles to amalgama- 
 tion are financial and legal ; difficulties are raised by 
 the existence of varying benefit scales and unequal 
 reserve .funds, and by the necessity of conforming 
 with a law which has, in the past at any rate, made 
 the attainment of a fusion between Unions desiring 
 if* unreasonably difiicult. The financial difficulty 
 often looms very large before Trade Unionists, and it 
 has wrecked many promising schemes of amalgama- 
 tion. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that 
 this has often served as an excuse to wreck schemes 
 
154 ^e Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 to which some at least of their nominal promoters 
 were secretly opposed, the means of frustrating them 
 being to prey upon the ever-present suspicion of the 
 Trade Unionist that someone is after his funds. 
 The member of a wealthy society wants to be assured 
 that the desire, of less opulent Unions to bring about 
 an amalgamation is not motived by secret ambition 
 of financial gain. This suspicion is generally as 
 groundless as it is unnecessary, for it is not beyond 
 the wit of leaders sincerely desiring amalgamation 
 to devise schemes of benefit which wiU safeguard 
 every legitimate claim of the wealthier Union, even 
 when^that Union is not prepared to surrender some 
 immediate material advantages in return for the 
 greater moral and economic gain that the amalgama- 
 tion signifies. To discuss means by which this may 
 be done would take us into technical details outside 
 the scale of this book. '■ But it is substantially true 
 that, in this respect as in the others with which we 
 have dealt, the will to amalgamation is the key to its 
 attainment, and that where there is a will to over- 
 come the financial obstacles a way will ultimately be 
 found. 
 
 The legal obstacle, which in the past has proved 
 formidable, is hkely to prove less so in the' future 
 owing to the recent passage of a BUI prompted by 
 Mr. John Hodge, in sponsoring which he conferred 
 a greater service on the workers than by all the 
 reflected glory he may have thought to shed upon 
 them byliis own triumphant rise to power. Pre- 
 viously it was necessary to obtain a vote from 
 
 ' The difficulty arises principally in regard to superannuation benefit, 
 the claims of which constitute a frequent danger to the soundness of 
 Trade Union fimance. 
 
The Reconstruction of Trade Unionism 155 
 
 two-thirds of the members of each Union concerned 
 before an amalgamation between them became legal. 
 The difficulty of securing a ballot from such a large 
 proportion of Trade Unionists is notorious, and there 
 is no good reason why so foolish a provision should 
 have been allowed to obstruct the course of Trade 
 Union reorganisation so long. The situation has 
 now been largely, though not completely, remedied 
 by the passage in July, 1917, of Mr. Hodge's BiU,' 
 and good results may be expected to flow from it. 
 But where a formal amalgamation stiU proves, for 
 one reason or another, too difficult, a useful and 
 interesting alternative is provided by a scheme of 
 confederation such as has been adopted with so much 
 success by the iron and steel trades. By this 
 arrangement the Unions which are a party to it agree 
 to accept no further members ; all further applicants 
 for membership become members of the Confedera- 
 tion, to which members of the constituent Unions 
 may also transfer, if they so wish. Thus, as the old 
 bodies die out from lack of membership, a new 
 association comes into existence to represent the 
 unity which the original Unions were unable by other 
 means to achieve.' 
 
 V. The spread of Industrial Unionism tends 
 naturally to stimulate the amalgamation movement, 
 but there is another sphere in which the tendency 
 to amalgamation has been spreading recently, after 
 
 ' As a resiilt of this Act, amalgamation between two or more Trade 
 Unions may take place if 50 per cent, of tlie members entitled to vote 
 record their votes, and if of those 20 per cent, more vote in favour than 
 vote against. 
 
 » For a full account of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation 
 scheme, see the Labour Year Book, 1918. 
 
156 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 many disappointments, with an almost sensational 
 swiftness, and with the promise of inlportant results. 
 This is among the Unions catering for general 
 labourers. We have seen already how well over 
 half a million general labourers are grouped in the 
 three largest Unions catering for them ; and there 
 is a good prospect that these three and their next 
 largest rival will merge from four competing Unions 
 into two amalgamations, which in their turn would 
 seem likely to favour a further and final amalgama- 
 tion and to enrol the vast majority of organised 
 general labourers under a single banner, with a 
 membership of approximately 700,000. ^_^. 
 
 This marshaUing of forces on the part of the 
 unskilled worker is of great significance and import- 
 ance ; but, though the amalgamation of competing 
 Unions is always a step in the right direction, we 
 must not draw the hasty deduction that those who 
 promote it necessarily mean to continue any further 
 along the road of which amalgamation marks but 
 the first milestone. Before we can be sure whether 
 the schemes for closer unity among general workers 
 are likely to strengthen the Labour movement as a 
 whole, we must first be clear as to the precise function 
 of the general labour Union in relation to the rest of 
 •Trade Unionism. Secondly, we must discover how 
 far that function is accepted and its fulfilment aimed 
 at by the general labour Unions themselves. 
 
 It is clear that, for all those who share the views 
 upon the purpose and organisation of Trade Unionism 
 sketched out in this chapter, there can be no question 
 of the matter being considered from the standpoint 
 of the unskilled worker alone. If the general labour 
 
The Becoustniction of Trade Unionism 157 
 
 Unions are to consolidate their forces, it must not be 
 with the object of merely playing for their own hand. 
 Yet the danger of civil war in the world of Labour 
 is never far away, and nothing would suit the 
 employers better than to drive a wedge between the 
 " aristocracy of Labour " and the mass of the less 
 skilled. One of the strongest points in favour of 
 Industrial Unionism as a method of fighting the 
 capitalist is that, in proportion as it is accepted and 
 acted upon, his prospect ,of dividing the workers and 
 so commanding them disappears. In the Industrial 
 Union there must be organised every grade of worker 
 whose services contribute to the finished product 
 that the industry is concerned to turn out ; there 
 must be no artificial hmits imposed, beneath which 
 the labour of the worker is not considered to be of 
 sufficient importance to. warrant his organisation 
 alongside those to whom the possession of skill, 
 or maybe merely tradition, has guaranteed a higher 
 price in the labour-market. It may be repHed that 
 a Umit can be discovered which is not artificial, by 
 counting all those the nature of whose labour is such 
 that it may equally well be employed in a number of 
 industries, as not being specifically concerned with 
 the industry in question. These " general labourers," 
 it is argued, are a class apart, and should be organised 
 apart. But even if we admit — what is, of course, 
 the case — ^that there does exist a class of mobile 
 labour which passes indifferently from one industry 
 to another according to the demands of the labour- 
 market, it does not foUow either that this genuine 
 type of " general labour '' is sjmonymous with what 
 is generally termed " unskilled labour," or that the 
 
158 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Industrial Union, where it exists, should not have 
 any control over the general labourer during the 
 time when he is actually engaged in the industry 
 which it covers. The solution of the latter problem 
 is largely a matter of administrative detaU concerned 
 with the transference of membership cards and 
 mutual arrangements for the payment of contribu- 
 tions for industrial benefits. It cannot be discussed 
 here, but it certainly offers no very serious difficulty 
 if approached by the parties concerned with a 
 sincere"desire to effect a settlement ; whUe, as for the 
 gulf presumed to yawn between the skUled and the 
 unskilled, it is well known that the recent tendency 
 of industrial development — a tendency greatly 
 accelerated by the War — ^has been to narrow the 
 gap by the evolution of methods of production which 
 create a large mass of " semi-skilled" workers in the 
 middle, alike infringing on the monopoly of the 
 skilled and raising the standing (and incidentally the 
 wages) of the unskilled. 
 
 It is not particularly fruitful either to rejoice in 
 this tendency or to weep over it, but it is important 
 to recognise its existence, since it may give rise to 
 grave discussion between the skilled Unions and the 
 general labour Unions when the moment comes to 
 open the whole question of the restoration of Trade 
 Union rights after the War. ^ This is not the place 
 to discuss this knotty problem,' except to say that 
 it provides a most cogent example of the need for a 
 proper adjustment of relations between the skilled 
 Unions, who have the letter of the law on their side, 
 
 * See in this connection an interesting and valuable article entitled 
 "The Control of Labour " in the New Statesman for November 24th,i9i7. 
 ' See below, chapter vi., pp. 219-229. 
 
Tbe Reconstruction of Trade Unionisim 159 
 
 and the general labour Unions, who have the 
 tendencies of industrial evolution and a growing 
 consciousness of power upon theirs. A serious 
 conflict might prove a disaster which would split 
 Traije Unionism fmm top to bottom and result in 
 grave loss to both sides and ruin to the hopes of 
 Labour's emancipation. No doubt, the ultimate 
 solution Ues in Industrial Unionism, but it is just in 
 those industries where that solution seems least in 
 prospect that the problem is likely to arise in its 
 sharpest form — particularly, of course, in engineering. 
 - To treat of the difficulties involved would be to 
 pciss beyond the space and the scope of this chapter, 
 where examples .are cited only in order to call 
 attention to the principles which lie behind. The 
 principle here is the simple one of soUdarity ; the 
 root problem is the most efficient expression of that 
 principle in organisation. But soHdarity cannot be 
 satisfied by a liorizontal organisation of Laboiir into 
 two great opposing brigades of artisans and general 
 labourers, struggling for members across an ill- 
 defined and fluctuating border-line. It demands 
 rather a vertical organisation of Industrial Unions, 
 ever widening to include the converts to Trade 
 Unionism which the general labour Unions make. 
 The general labour Unions must conceive themselves 
 as pioneers ; like all pioneers', it wiU be their mission 
 to serve the cause for which they struggle rather than 
 to serve themselves. They must strive rather to 
 grow smaller by surrendering their members to the 
 tJnion which can most appropriately organise those 
 members than to grow larger by setting up a class 
 of semi-skilled workers in opposition to the skilled 
 
x6o The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 artisans.* Naturally this involves a reciprocal 
 obligation on the part of the skilled workers to offer 
 a fair share of control over the affairs of the Union 
 to the less skilled workers who join them ; it is clear 
 that the matter will be infinitely simpler wherp an 
 Industrial Union exists to obviate the problems of 
 overlapping and to express in concrete form the 
 principle of sohdarity. Though this solution doubt- 
 less involves many difficulties, it is fundamentally 
 sound ; and no other is compatible with the interests 
 of Trade Unionism, conceived as a whole. 
 
 It is natural that such an apparently altruist 
 principle — however much it may serve the interests 
 of all the workers in the long run — requires more 
 imagination and a higher sense of sohdarity than 
 one can as yet expect the majority of Trade Unionists 
 to show. Some such principle is, however, generally 
 accepted by certain of the organisations concerned, 
 as, for instance, the Workers' Union, though its 
 acceptance does not always lead to its realisation in 
 fact. The difficulty arises not merely from disputes 
 about the proper organisation of some class of workers 
 in a centre where* branches both of general labour 
 Unions and artisan Unions exist ; it arises, too, as a 
 result of pioneering work done by a general labour 
 Union in a district where the scattered population 
 has not warranted the artisan Unions troubling 
 to organise the few persons qualified for their 
 membership. A shifting of population may induce 
 these Unions to start branches ; they then find 
 
 1 See G. D. H. Cole, The World of Labour, p. 240. " The general 
 labour Union," he says, " ought to be a sort of clearing-house, retaining 
 oijly such members as could not well be permanently organised in any 
 other way." 
 
The Becoustructioii of Trade Unionism i6i 
 
 themselves in conflict with the general labour Union 
 over^the right to entice away members who clearly 
 should belong to a skilled Union. The proper 
 solution of these difficulties will involve unselfishness 
 on the part of the general labour Union ancj patience 
 from the artisans ; but unless the growing strength 
 of the former develops an egotism which overbalances 
 their devotion to the cause of Labour as a whole, a 
 solution is not impossible. 
 
 § 3. The Future of Trade Union Policy 
 
 We have indicated what seems to us the only 
 future for Trade Unionism compatible with the 
 safety of society and the liberty of the worker. We 
 have stated the principles on which its reconstruction 
 must be foimded, and outlined the main details of 
 structure which its reorganisation on the lines of 
 Industrial Unionism will necessitate. It remains 
 to suggest what should be the immediate pohcy of an 
 alert and spirited Trade Unionism in its relations 
 wth the capitahst, whom it recognises as an enimy 
 (of society no less than of itself) , and with the State, 
 whom it perceives as destined to be its partner on the 
 " morrow of the social revolution " when both shall 
 have thrown off their allegiance to the creeds and 
 codes of the profiteer. We shall be dealing in this 
 chapter only with the immediate problems of Trade 
 Unionism ; the larger issues which arise when we 
 consider the transition to the Giiilds receive treat- 
 ment in a separate section. Moreover, we shall be 
 touching only upon such problems as bear directly 
 upon the question of how the worker, through his 
 
 M 
 
z62 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 industrial Unions and workshop committees/ may 
 gain that control of production which is the indispens- 
 able preUminary to an advance to the Guilds. 
 We do not deny that there are many other problems, 
 including aU those comprised under the heading of 
 " wages questions," which are temporarily of The 
 highest importance to the workers. But, just as 
 in sketching briefly the past of Trade Unionism we 
 touched only upon those items in it which were of 
 significance from the standpoint of the Guild idea, , 
 so in discussing its immediate future we shall deal 
 simply with those problems which involve the status 
 of the workers, and not merely with those others 
 (however immediately urgent and important) which 
 concern their comfort or security. This we sbaJl 
 do, not merely for reasons of space, but because we 
 beUeve that if Trade Unionists seek first the cause 
 of emancipation and its righteousness, all else shall 
 be added unto them. 
 
 Before we can turn to discuss how the worker may 
 render more real his status as a free man, we have 
 first to consider how he may preserve it. We have 
 dealt in an earher chapter with the menace of the 
 Servile State, but here we are thinking of one 
 particular method by which that menace might be 
 most swiftly and decisively reahsed. We mean the 
 withdrawal from the worker of the right to strike. 
 The very phrase, " the right to strike," is a perilous 
 one, since it suggests that the decision to cease 
 
 1 We do not wish to be taken as implying that the structure of Trade 
 Unionism must be perfected before any problems of policy can be 
 attacked. The two are really inseparable, and each will help to deter- 
 mine the other. But if the policy which we shall suggest is Jo be 
 successfully followed out, it will render only more urgent the structural 
 changes we have discussed. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 163 
 
 labouring for the private profit of others is not a 
 choice that any worker may naturally and freely 
 make, but a privilege conceded to him by society. 
 The right to combine in the refusal of labour-power 
 to those who purchase it is an assertion of the 
 collective free-will of Labour, with the vanishing of 
 which its degradation would be complete. There 
 -is therefore a sense in which every strike is morally 
 justifiable, however much it may be pohticaUy 
 inexpedient or iU-chosen. It reminds the profiteer 
 that his human machinery differs fundamentally 
 from the rest of his plant in possessing a wiU of its 
 own, and that, if it is his " most precious raw 
 material," it is also the most precarious. It reminds 
 the public that somewhere at the bottom of the huge 
 impersonal apparatus of modem production there 
 is after all a personality, debased, degraded, and 
 denied, but a personaUty none the less. " The 
 British PubUc," Mr. G. K. Chesterton has said, 
 " only remembers the British workman when he 
 stops working," It is just as well that the pubhc 
 shoiild be reminded of the worker by means of a 
 strike, if no less drastic a method wiU suffice. 
 Moreover, the strike is an outward and visible sign 
 of that class-struggle the existence of which the 
 worker is only too ready himself to ignore ; for in the 
 vast majority of cases everyday fife means for him 
 the crushing of initiative, the extinction of every 
 natural enthusiasm, and a slow sapping of all those 
 qualities which are indispensable to his deliverance 
 from wage-slavery. The strike demands courage, 
 imagination, and a strong sense of esprit dc corps. 
 Even a foolish and mistaken strike has something 
 
i64 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 manly about it, A well-known Trade Unionist has 
 said that 
 
 The workshop life of Labour is of a humdrum, 
 uneventful character. Because there is an almost entire 
 lack of power, there is an equal lack of responsibility. 
 The strike and the agitation afford a break in the eternal 
 routine and monotony ; it ministers to the love of 
 adventure, and anything is better than accepting as final 
 the present unfair and unequal system of production, 
 to say notliiilg of its distribution.* 
 
 It may be asked how the right to strike can ever 
 be taken away from a Labour movement determined 
 to enforce it. Is not the danger, a mythical one, 
 since you can take the Trade Unionist to the work- 
 shop, but you cannot make him work ? The fallacy 
 in this question lies in the assumption that Labour 
 is united in holding precious its free status, conscious 
 of the peril in which it stands, and determined at all 
 hazards, and despite all temptations to barter it 
 away, that it will preserve it as the indispensable 
 preliminary to every advance of which it dreams. 
 No doubt it would be impossible to force the great 
 mass of the workers to continue at work against their 
 will by bluntly declaring that compulsion would be 
 appUed to them. In the crisis which the War 
 emergency has created, not even the genuine 
 patriotism of the workers — more genuine perhaps 
 than that of any other class of civihans — ^has pre- 
 vented them rising in indignant protest at the more 
 blatant and clumsy attempts of the bureaucracy to 
 treat them lindisguisedly as industrial serfs. But 
 
 ' Mr. F. S. Button, of the A.S.E. See Indtisirial Reconstruction, 
 p. 104. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 165 
 
 it is not the open and confessed efforts to impose 
 industrial compulsion on the workers which are 
 likely to achieve their end. It is the subtle and 
 plausible assumption that, since industrial peace is 
 a good thing for all concerned, it must be preserved 
 by an impartial State interfering to procure for th^ 
 worker a reasonable standard of wages and condi- 
 tions, and guaranteeing to the employer in return 
 the punishment of such of his work-people as show 
 themselves to be insatiable and irresponsible — 
 in short, by the introduction of compulsory arbitra- 
 tion. " Impossible ! " it may be objected. " Has 
 not the Trade Union movement repeatedly protested 
 that it win not touch the accursed thing ? " It has 
 indeed ; but there is much to make one doubt 
 whether the protest was clearly understood, and 
 whether in the imagined millennium of Reconstruc- 
 tion a State sanction for " industrial harmony " may 
 not make an irresistible appeal to the many among 
 the working class, and especially to the leaders, on 
 whom there has settled a natural but very dangerous 
 " class- war-weariness."' The illusion of impar- 
 tiality in industrial issues is very deep-rooted, even 
 amongst the workers themselves, and it sometimes 
 takes yet stranger forms than a beHef in State inter- 
 vention. It has been stated by the representative 
 of a large Employers' Federation that, in the case of 
 any dispute with a federated firm, the Unions were 
 
 * " At present, as the general debate at the 19 12 Trades Union 
 Congress revealed, they [the Unions] have the haziest idea of what the 
 whole subject implies. Generally speaking, there is a vague objection 
 to compulsory arbitration ; but the objection seems to be so much a 
 matter of words that it is very doubtful if such a proposal would not be 
 accepted, were it called something else." — G. D. H. Cole, in The World 
 of Labour, p. 290. 
 
i66 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 encouraged to take the matter directjo the Federa- 
 tion itself, since they could regard it as an impartial 
 authority and did in fact so regard it ! If the 
 workers can find impartiality in the tribunals of the 
 masterrclass, how much more ready will they be to 
 recognise it in the impersonal detachment of the 
 Sovereign State ? 
 
 Our criticism of this assumption — ^that the 
 standpoint of the State and the practice of its officials 
 is likely to be impartial — ^is based not so much on the 
 conviction that State interference will upset the 
 status quo between Capital and Labour, as on the 
 fear, amounting almost to certainty, that it will 
 attempt to preserve it. There is no more pains- 
 taking promoter of a patched-up peace in industry 
 than the Government official. There is no wage 
 dispute in which he is not prepared to split the 
 difference between the demands of masters and men 
 with all the air of having hit upon the sole solution 
 compatible not merely with the claims of abstract 
 justice, but with the circumstances of the case. If 
 the wisdom of Solomon is necessarily exemplified 
 by following his precedent of giving each claimant 
 half of what he asks for, the " impartial person " 
 may doubtless pride himself on being as wise as he 
 is neutral. But when we are at issue with the wage- 
 system itself, it is not so obvious that neutrality can 
 be reconciled with wisdom. Confronted with this 
 fundamental problem, the " impartial person " is 
 an impossible person ! He does not exist, and he 
 never can exist. If we have any doubt upon which 
 side of this question the impartial chairman is 
 likely to be found, we have only to ask ourselves 
 
The Future o! Trade Union Policy 167 
 
 with vvrhich party to the issue he is likely, when 
 negotiations are concluded for the day, to go out to 
 dinner. And since there is every reason to hope that 
 disputes between Capital and Labour will turn more 
 and more upon questions of " discipline and manage- 
 ment," suggesting the first beginnings of a repudia- 
 tion of the wage-system, it is increasingly important 
 that nothing should be done to give compulsory 
 powers, or indeed any kmd of very considerable 
 powers, to outside chairmen, whose impartiaUty is 
 never likely to extend to open-mindedness on the 
 fimdamental question of whether industry should be 
 autocratically controlled in the interests of profit, 
 or democratically controlled by the worker in the 
 interests of society and of themselves. '■ 
 
 It is improbable, as we have seen, that the right 
 to strike will be explicitly withdrawn from the 
 worker by the State (which has, in fact, never con- 
 ferred it on him), even though the " right to work " 
 for which Labour has so often contended — in a 
 rather muddle-headed way, it must be admitted — 
 were to be conceded in return. No , doubt the 
 capitalists would be only too glad to see a bargain 
 driven so essentially satisfactory to themselves. 
 But whatever the leaders of Labour may be prepared 
 to accept in this -direction, it is to be hoped that the 
 rank and file would see, were it plainly put before 
 them, that there is another right far more vital to 
 the worker than the right to work ; this is the right 
 not to work, if he so chooses. The danger is that 
 the penalty for refusal to work on " reasonable " 
 
 • We may recall in thistfonnection the outburst of the chairman of 
 the Glasgow Munitions "fribunal quoted earlier in this chapter. See 
 above, pp. 101-102. 
 
i68 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 terms may be introduced gradually under specious 
 disguises, or retained (under pretexts even more 
 specious) from the War legislation by which the evil 
 precedent has been so thoroughly established. It 
 may be that the imposition of an arbitrary standard 
 on the worker by external authority may be carried 
 out in a manner reminiscent of the schoolboy's 
 answer to the problem of the authorship of the 
 Homeric poems, which he declared " were not 
 by Homer, but by another gentleman with the 
 same name." However this may be, if such an 
 invasion of the right to strike (or, rather, of the legal 
 recognition of it) were in fact to take place, it would 
 be unUkely to be the only one. The Trade Disputes 
 Act, passed into law so precariously a dozen years 
 ago,^ has long been marked out for repeal by a 
 powerful section of the employing class ; should 
 their object be reahsed, any Union could then be 
 mulcted in respect of its funds for financial damages 
 claimed /to be infhcted by its officers and members 
 as the result of a trade dispute. It is clear that in 
 such circumstances the funds of no Union could hope^ ' 
 to smrv ve many strikes, and the power of Trade 
 Unionism would be effectively destroyed. The 
 unlimited exercise of such powers as the repeal of 
 this Act would confer on employers might well 
 
 * The passage of this Act in 1906 is often attributed by enthusiastic 
 supporters of political action to the recent appearance in Parliament of 
 some forty Labour members. But it is certain that many at least of 
 those who voted for it did so in the secret anticipation that the House of 
 Lords would throw out the Bill. The Upper House, however, was not 
 without suspicion that the onus of unpopularity was intended thus to 
 be transferred to it, and passed the Bill, preferring, as Lord Lansdowne 
 put it, to join issue " on ground more advantageous to ourselves." 
 Thus one of the very few pieces of legislation passed by the Liberal 
 Government which was of any real value to Labour became law' very 
 largely by accident. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 169 
 
 provoke a revolution, but a wise Capitalism, while 
 carefully abstaining from carr5dng the matter to 
 this point, might inflict upon the resources of Trade 
 Unionism damaging raids by which its activities 
 would be seriously crippled. 
 
 The strike, then, is a weapon which it is vital for 
 labour to preserve against all attempts, direct or 
 indirect, that would result in diminishing its power. 
 But it does not follow that this power should be 
 constantly resorted to or lightly exercised. A 
 strong and well-organised Trade Unionism would aim 
 at few strikes, and these directed to the establish- 
 ment of some important principle, well understood 
 and openly proclaimed. What such principles 
 should be will form the subject-matter of much of 
 the remainder of this chapter. But it is better that 
 even these should be estabhshed where possible by 
 organisation and determination sufficient to convince 
 those against whom they are directed that it would 
 be unwise to oppose the combination of conscious 
 will and economic power which they represent. 
 Labour need never be ashamed of any victory, 
 however " bloodless," which leaves it in occupation 
 of the territory of its adversaries. Moreover, the 
 machinery of negotiation may be employed to 
 advance the interests of Labour in the future as 
 effectively as it has often been employe^ to defeat 
 them in the past. The workers, .ak they advance in 
 strength of purpose and of organisation in support 
 of that purpose, will be better able to turn schemes 
 of conciliation into schemes for the consolidation of 
 their own industrial power. It is not to the interest 
 of either the capitaUst or the workman to precipitate 
 
170 The Meaning of National Giiilds 
 
 a stoppage when the issues can be resolved by dis- 
 cussion based on the economic strength of either 
 party. If that discussion fails, recourse may be had 
 to a trial of the strength that lies behind. As long 
 as no principle is thereby compromised, as long as no 
 " joint responsibility " is thrust upon the workers — 
 for whom any true responsibihty is impossible while 
 the wage-system be maintained — as long as no 
 external authority is called in to impose a settlement, 
 then the machinery of negotiation is valuable and 
 even indispensable to the worker in saving him from 
 . continually falling back upon his Union funds with 
 the arrival of every fresh matter for dispute with the 
 employer, > 
 
 The working of conciUation schemes in the past 
 has often been such as to inspire amongst Trade 
 Unionists the deepest mistrust of every kind of 
 negotiation machinery between employers and 
 themselves. This feehng arises partly from a 
 confusion between schemes of arbitration and those 
 other forms of collective bargaining which do not 
 involve any submission to the decision of an outside 
 party ; and partly from the unwise provisions which 
 certain important conciliation schemes have con- 
 tained. The true remedy, however, Hes not in 
 rejecting the existing machinery of negotiation 
 altogether, but in stripping it of its oppressive and 
 objectionable features. The workers must get rid 
 of the " impartial " and impossible person ; they 
 must refuse to enter into long time-agreements 
 which might hamper their action in the event of 
 
 ' Mr. Cole has well described conciliation as " the diplomacy of 
 industrialism," in The World of Labour, p. 48. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 171 
 
 unforeseen circumstances, and they must provide 
 for the termination of all agreements covering an 
 industry (and perhaps aU industries) at the same 
 moment ; they must refuse to allow the em- 
 ployer to rule out of discussion any matter con- 
 cerning their working Uves ; and they must be 
 careful to accept no scheme which provides for the 
 separation of different grades within the industry. 
 Above all they must not be betrayed into assuming 
 any sort of joint responsibility — an idea as essentially 
 fsillacious as it would prove perilous in practice. 
 
 It is this very assumption [of responsibility], however, 
 that invalidates the " justice " of every act of concilia- 
 tion ; for in actual fact the two sides are not equally 
 responsible, but one is responsible (namely, Capital), 
 while the other is not. Even upon this footing, never- 
 theless, conciliation may proceed, since industry must 
 be carried on even when one of the parties has no 
 responsibility in the matter. Conciliation is thus a 
 capitalists' device for appearing to be just, and Labour's 
 device for appearing to be reasonable. ^ 
 
 The whole subject is far too large to be dealt with 
 here,' but an interesting illustration of the import- 
 ance of wisely drafted schemes of concihation is 
 afforded by the example of Trade Union experience 
 in this direction on the railways.' The matter can 
 perhaps best be summarised by caUing attention to 
 the main features of the 1916 concihation scheme, 
 
 ' A. R. Orage, An Alphabet of Economics, p. ig. The possibility of 
 joint responsibility is discussed in connection with the Whitley Report 
 in the following chapter. 
 
 ' See as an introduction to the subject-chapter ix. in The World of 
 Labour. 
 
 ' There is an excellent account in Trade Unionism on the Railways, 
 chapters iii., vii., viii., ix. The various conciliation schemes are 
 reprinted at the end of that volume. 
 
172 The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 which was unanimously recommended by the 
 executive of the N.U.R. to the special general 
 meeting of its members, and very significantly 
 rejected by that body. The scheme was admittedly 
 an improvement on the 191 1 scheme it was designed 
 to replace, but it did not represent the advance which 
 the sensational increase in the strength and organisa- 
 tion of Trade Unionism on the railways had led the 
 majority of railwaymen to anticipate. None of the 
 chief provisions could be described as satisfactory. 
 In the first place, the principle of recognition (which 
 the railway companies have been even slower than 
 other capitahst corporations to concede) was not 
 clearly and explicitly granted, so thatian Industrial 
 Union with a membership of over 300,000 remained 
 without the standing enjoyed for years by the 
 majority of sectional Unions with only a tithe of the 
 numbers and. influence of the N.U.R. Secondly, the 
 scheme failed to obtain the right, anxiously and 
 rightly sought for by the men, to include within the 
 scope of the Boards questions of discipline and 
 management. In these matters the companies 
 have jealously guarded their prerogative ; yet it is 
 in regard to them that " unauthorised " strikes have 
 most frequently broken out upon the railways. As 
 the Guard Richardson case showed, the men, far 
 from being naturally irresponsible, are in some 
 respects at any rate even more capable of looking 
 after the interests of the public than their employers. » 
 Agam, the clerks at one end and the workers on the 
 railway shops at the other were both excluded from 
 co-operation with the manipulative grades — a decision 
 
 ' See Trade Unionism on the Railways, chapter v. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 173 
 
 which was by no means in harmony with the Indus- 
 trial Unionist principles of the N.U.R., as also was not 
 the maintenance of a separate Board of Concihation 
 for each grade, the existence of which runs counter 
 to the contention of the N.U.R. that the interests 
 of all grades are ultimately the same.* Further, 
 though the scheme provided for the abolition of the 
 impartial chairman with a final power of decision, 
 the element of arbitration was not completely 
 eUminated, since it was proposed to set up two 
 assessors (one from each side) in his place, who, 
 should they disagree, had power to appoint an 
 umpire, to whom the right of decision would then 
 pass. Finally, the scheme was to run for at least 
 three years, and only after this period did it become 
 terminable at twelve months' notice. The rejection 
 of this scheme, after the executive had argued 
 strongly in its favour, not only testified to a valuable 
 spirit of independence in the N.U.R. , but showed 
 how aJive this Union was to the essentials of a sound 
 system of negotiation.^ The whole incident affords 
 a valuable concrete example of the distinction 
 between schemes of concihation which may retard 
 the healthy development of Trade Unionism and 
 schemes which may serve to promote it. 
 
 The importance of negotiation depends not merely 
 upon its value as a means of securing victories for 
 Trade Unionism without resort to a strike, but upon 
 its possibilities as a training-ground for future con- 
 trol by Trade Unionists in the sphere of production. 
 
 ' It is difficult to see, however, how in face of the opposition of the 
 Locomotive Men's Society this could have been altered. 
 
 ' The executive has now prepared a fresh draft scheme, and the 
 matter is still under discussion with the companies. 
 
174 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Control is the logical development of negotiation, 
 as negotiation is itself the logical development 
 of recognition ; once the worker has established his 
 right to interferenee in questions of discipline and 
 management, the prospect of encroaching upon the 
 employer's prerogative in the control of production 
 begins to open before him. The immediate task 
 of Trade Unionism in the well-organised industaes 
 must be expressed in the watchword of " Encroach- 
 ing Control." This is not the place to discuss the 
 thorny subject of whether that control should be in 
 all cases " exclusive control " by the Union, or if it 
 may on occasion take the form of " divided control " 
 with the capitaUst and his representatives.' Nor 
 can we trace in this chapter the impUcations of this 
 principle beyond its earhest stages." But as the 
 extension of control over production must be the 
 principal goal of Trade Unionism, if it is to aspire to 
 any future more exalted than that of a passive 
 servitude to the purposes of profit, we wiU turn 
 now to consider in what ways a task of such vital 
 importance ma}' be best begun. 
 
 In doing so there are certain matters which we 
 shall take for granted, without further discussion of 
 them. One is that, in proportion as the Trade 
 Unions develop the spirit and imagination to put 
 forward concrete claims to instalments of control, 
 they will prove themselves capable of fulfilling 
 the tasks that they accept. In view of the success 
 of the Co-operative movement — to say nothing of the 
 creation and development of Trade Unionism — there 
 
 ' See below, chapter ix., pp. 430-442. 
 • See below, chapter vii., pp. 284-293. 
 
The Futuie of Trade ITnion Policy 175 
 
 is not much reason to doubt the administrative 
 capacity of the British workman ; it is well known 
 that many of the important and responsible posts 
 at the head of our great industrigii concerns are held 
 by men who have risen from the ranks of the workers. 
 In view of these facts, the surprising thing about 
 Trade Unionism is rather its modesty and diffidence 
 than any tendency in it to undue ambition and 
 presumption in putting forward its claims. The 
 workers are still under the spell of the ideas of 
 individual " self-help," and, though they may beheve 
 that Samuel Smiles was right in showing to what 
 heights the individual may climb by a careful devo- 
 tion to his personal interest, they do not yet see 
 that what is possible for one in isolation may be no 
 less possible for the many in association. Trade 
 Unionism must have for its purpose the transforma- 
 tion of the instinct for individual self-help into the 
 conscious determination to chmb to a nobler status 
 side by side. 
 
 We shall assume, moreover, that it is no longer 
 necessary to urge the need for a full and explicit 
 recognition of Trade Unionism, and that in those 
 cases where this has not yet been fully won (as, for 
 example, in such an important instance as that of the 
 railways) it will be urgently and ceaselessly contended 
 for until it is achieved. Again, we shall not multiply 
 arguments to show how much easier will become the 
 attainment of victory in the sphere of control in 
 proportion as the principles of Industrial Unionism 
 are accepted and the structural changes consequent 
 thereon satisfactorily brought about. Nor need we 
 demonstrate the importance of eliminating the 
 
176 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 non-Unionist and realising as soon as may be the 
 ideal of the " blackleg-proof Union." But in this 
 connection there is a preliminary question of pohcy 
 which it is necessity to dispose of before we can 
 pass on to consider the best means of applying the 
 maxim of " Encroaching Control." This is the 
 question described rather loosely in the phrase 
 " Compulsory Trade Unionism " — a subject in 
 which interest was revived by its finding mention 
 in the tentative and very unsatisfactory after-war 
 programme accepted by the 1916 Trades Union 
 Congress on the motion of the London Society of 
 Compositors. This programme was not reaffirmed 
 by the Congress in 1917 ; but the question of Com- 
 pulsory Trade Unionism is sufficiently important 
 to demand examination. 
 
 It is obvious that Trade Unionism might be made 
 compulsory in three ways : by the State (through 
 legislation, or by the employer after agreement with 
 the Trade Unions or even without any definite 
 agreement, or by the pressure of the Trade Unions 
 themselves. Clearly, our verdict on Compulsory 
 Trade Unionism wiU depend very largely on which 
 of these methods is being advocated when the phrase 
 is used. Probably it is the first suggestion which 
 is most commonly intended by those who employ it. 
 This form is perhaps the most objectionable of the 
 three. ' If the Unions stoop to accept at the hands 
 of the State favours that they are not strong enough 
 to win for themselves, they wiU be Hkely to find that 
 the State demands more than a quid pro quo in the 
 
 ' It does not follow, however, that the State cannot do anything to 
 foster Trade Unionism ; on the contrary, it may usefully do much, but 
 not by methods of compulsion. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy .177 
 
 direction of control over the Unions' freedom of 
 action. The Unions, indeed, will be in a like case to 
 those early inhabitants of Britain who called in the 
 aid of warriors from over the seas to defend them 
 against their enemies and found themselves before 
 long subject to the sway of those whom they had 
 counted upon as deliverers. Trade Union independ- 
 ence of any external authority is a vital principle 
 which must be maintained at all costs ; no apparent 
 accession of strength which might accrue to the 
 Unions could be safely purchased at the price of 
 their passing into being mere administrative organs 
 of the State. Moreover, conscription of the workers 
 for the Trade Union army, enforced by statute, 
 would be more open even than any other form of 
 compulsory Trade Unionism to the important 
 objection that an imwilling Trade Unionist is a bad 
 Trade Unionist, and that an influx of reluctant 
 members with a grievance against the organisations 
 to which they were attached might do more to 
 weaken Trade Unionism than to strengthen it. 
 
 There is a good deal of force in this contention, 
 and it is to some extent valid against the other 
 methods mentioned above of enforcing membership 
 of a Trade Union. The proposal that the Unions 
 should covenant with the employer that he should 
 require membership of a Trade Union as a condition 
 of engagement for his work-people may appear inno- 
 cent enough at a first glance ; but, in addition to the 
 danger already indicated, there is the further one 
 that to hand over the power of insisting on member- 
 ship of a Trade Union would be to place a very useful 
 weapon in the hands of employers in those industries 
 
 N 
 
lyS The Meaning of National Ghiilds 
 
 where a number of competing Unions exist. The 
 employers would be thereby enabled, by judicious 
 apportioning out of their work-people, to foster just 
 those very jealousies and divisions between sectional 
 societies which do so much to impair the strength of 
 the workers ; while, if a single powerful Union, 
 or a small group of powerful Unions, succeeded in 
 bargaining with an employer to accept only their 
 members in his works, there would be produced just 
 that kind of aUiance, between the masters and a 
 group of the workers against the remainder, which 
 would serve most successfully to obscure the true 
 issues of modem industry, ,and which it is most 
 important to avoid. 
 
 It is certain that, whatever degree of compulsion 
 the Trade Unions may decide to apply to those 
 members of the working class who accept the benefits 
 of organisation without embracing its burdens and 
 its risks, they must resolve to apply it themselves. 
 Non-Unionists are broadly of three kinds : the 
 deliberate blackleg, who is prepared to disregard the 
 standards of his fellow workers and to play for his 
 own hand without scruple and without shame ; 
 the apathetic type of shirker, who is, as often as not, 
 a lapsed member ; and a little handful of people who 
 object either " conscientiously " or cantankerously 
 to the principles of Trade Unionism. These differing 
 types call for different treatment. The blackleg is 
 from the outlook of any spirited form of Trade 
 Unionism an outlaw, and he deserves to be treated 
 as an outlaw to whom no mercy should be shoAvn. 
 The apathetic type may best be stimulated by the 
 example of vigorous Trade Union action and the 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 179 
 
 successes which it is Ukely to carry with it ; sh&uld he 
 continue recalcitrant, Trade Unionists would do well 
 in refusing to work side by side with him while he 
 remains outside the organisation which has a claim 
 upon his allegiance. ^ As for the genuine " objector," 
 he will seldom be found in large enough numbers to 
 make his refusal to join the Union a matter of any 
 serious consequence. To embark on long and costly 
 strikes (as has been done in some cases) in order to 
 force single individuals to join a Union they are 
 resolved not to join in any circumstances (and whose 
 abstention is of no practical importance) is a piece 
 of doctrinaire futility imworthy of an intelligent 
 Trade , Unionism. A problem may arise later, 
 should a substantial section of the workers " con- 
 scientiously " object to a poKcy of, assault upon 
 CapitaUsm embraced by the majority of keen Trade 
 Unionists ; but this is a bridge that Labour need not 
 cross until it -comes to it. The steady development 
 of a conscious purpose to control the circumstances 
 of their Hves in the workshops is far more Ukely to 
 unite the workers than to divide them. \\''hen 
 Trade Unionists have something of consequence to 
 quarrel about with their masters, they will give up 
 quarrelling amongst themselves. 
 
 The ground is now clear for a considerartion of how 
 " Encroaching Control " may be translated into 
 practice. It is obvious that the circumstances of 
 
 * " The question of compulsory political action be'ng now more or 
 less out of tlie way, a man can have no reasonable excuse except 
 stupidity for not joining the Union in which his fellows are organised — 
 and mere stupidity, as well as knavery, has to be coerced where coercion 
 serves a useful object. Either from stupidity or from deliberate 
 treachery, the non-Uniouist in an organised industry is a traitor to his 
 class — and the workers have no use for traitors." — G. D. H. Cole, 
 The World of Labour, p. 376. 
 
i8o The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 every industry are so different that no policy will 
 apply in the same way to the conditions, for example, 
 in a workshop and at a railway station, at a pit and 
 in. a local post office, 'it is. very necessary that 
 Guildsmen should undertake the tasks of formulating 
 a Guild programme for each industry.' In the 
 meantime we can only say generally that the watch- 
 word of the workers ever5nvhere in regard to schemes 
 of control should be Invasion, not admission. They 
 must not wait for an invitation from their masters 
 to share the burdens of discipline and responsibility ; 
 they must themselves lay down the terms on which 
 they are prepared to sell their labour. These terms 
 will deal not merely with the amount of the price to 
 be paid for the labour, but with the circumstances 
 under which the labour is To be employed ; and they 
 will cover such vital and immediate issues as the 
 restoration of Trade Union rules and customs, 
 payment by results, and the collective contract. 
 We shaU discuss the first of these points at a later 
 stage in this book, while the second is of too technical 
 a character to fall within our scope. We may 
 observe in passing, however, that there is one form 
 of " Trade Union Rules " which has yet to be 
 developed ; these are Trade Union rules relating to 
 the regulations of affairs inside the workshop. We 
 can best illustrate what we mean by quoting a by- 
 law issued by the Ministry of Munitions a few months 
 after the passage of the Munitions Act : 
 
 The owner of any controlled establishment shall as 
 soon as possible post [his] rules relating to order, discipline, 
 
 'This has already been begun by the National Guilds League in 
 their pamphlets Towards a Miners' Guild and Towards a National 
 Iiai\way Quild, 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy i8i 
 
 timekeeping, and efficiency conspicuously in his establish- 
 ment, so as to bring them to the knowledge of workmen 
 employed therein. 
 
 Industrial democracy, like many other valuable 
 things, can best be appreciated by a consideration 
 of its opposite ; and this example of chartered 
 Capitalism is of real value in that respect. At a 
 moment when the workers were being asked and 
 were consenting with an almost surprising unanimity 
 to surrender the rules they had established by years 
 of struggle and which gave them a certain negative 
 control of industry, the employer is endowed by the 
 State with a considerable extension of his autocracy 
 over his work-people by the guarantee of support 
 from a Government Department. » So far from 
 accepting such a mean and miserable subterfuge, 
 the workers should, of course, have demanded 
 precisely the opposite. " We will surrender that 
 negative control which our restrictions give us," 
 they might have said, " since the State demands it 
 in the national interest, but only on the under- 
 standing that we obtain a measure of positive 
 control in return. We wiU make ourselves respon- 
 sible for the workshop ; the rules which may be 
 hung up there we will determine ourselves. The 
 State may for the time being deal with the capitalist 
 in regard to the product, but in regard to production 
 it must deal with us." 
 
 Workshop rules may seem a small thing, but any- 
 thing which subtracts from the autocracy of the 
 capitalist is worth having. When we come to the 
 
 ' Non-compliance by the workers with these rules became an offence 
 against the Munitions Act. 
 
1 82 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Collective Contract, ' however, we undoubtedly reach 
 a point in the immediate programme of Guild theory 
 of the utmost significance and value. By the 
 application of this proposal a principle of great 
 importance may be introduced — namely, that 
 individual relations between the capitalist and the 
 wage-earner should give way to relations between 
 the capitalist and the Trade Union. So long as the 
 workers sell their labour, let them declare that -they 
 wUl only do so through the sole channel of com- 
 mimication with the employer which they are 
 prepared to recognise — the Trade Union, with its 
 aUied trades committees in the district and its shop 
 committees in the works ! One development of this 
 principle might take the form of a demand that the 
 members of a Union should no longer be paid wages 
 on an individual basis ; but that the employers 
 should hand over a lump sum to the Union itself, 
 which it should divide amongst its members on lines 
 agreed upon within the Union. This sum should not 
 in any way depend upon the price at which the 
 product might be sold nor upon the amount of the 
 capitalist's profits ; it would be in the nature of a 
 standard rate. The individual standard rates which 
 the Union merely intervened to secure for the 
 individual worker in his bargaining with the employer 
 would give way to a collective standard rate in regard 
 to which the Union would assume complete authority 
 
 • The elaboration Of this idea has been the special contribution of the 
 Glasgow Group of the National Guilds League through their excellent 
 monthly, the Guildsman. See, tor instance, the article on " Collective 
 Contract " in the issue for December, 1917, the Editorial Notes for 
 May and October, I9i7,.and a memorandum, "Towards Industrial 
 Democracy," in the issue for June, 1917 ; tlie last has since been 
 reprinted by the Paisley Trades Council. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 183 
 
 before the capitalist in the name of the workers he 
 employed. The profiteer would be bargaining no 
 longer with his individual wage-slaves, assisted in 
 the process by a Trade Union ; he would be face to 
 face with a new authority fundamentally inconsistent 
 with his own, and already preparing to challenge it 
 by assuming functions in regard to his work-people 
 which he had hitherto fulfilled. He would be forced to 
 recognise that the children are growing up, and that, 
 though their labour may stiU support him in comfort, 
 he is no longer undisputed master in his own house. 
 This is even more obvious in the case of the Collec- 
 tive Contract itself. A contract system is already in 
 existence in certain engineering shops and ship- 
 building yards ; by the development of this under 
 Trade Union control (throu^ shop committees in 
 the first instance, and, at a later stage, upwards to 
 the works and even the district) the whole relation- 
 ship of the wage-earner to the capitalist may be 
 fundamentally changed, and a large degree of 
 control over production secured to the workers 
 through their Union machinery without taint of 
 co-partnership or comphcity in profiteering. We 
 have no wish to paraphrase what has already been 
 clearly expounded by others ; we prefer to quote 
 the following excellent summary of the proposal, 
 from the colunms of the Guildsman'- : 
 
 Under the Contract System a workman or group of 
 workmen in partnership enter into a contract with a firm 
 to perform a particular piece of work, say, to construct 
 a steel mast or part of the framing of a ship or to erect 
 a piece of machinery, for a price agreed upon beforehand. 
 
 ' See the " Notes of the Month " for May, 1917. 
 
i84 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 In some cases the contractors engage their own men and 
 pay them, pocketing whatever profits the transaction 
 may yield. Now, we would point out that men working 
 under these conditions are in a very different relation 
 towards the employer or manager from the ordinary 
 hour-to-hour wage-earner. Where they are concerned, 
 the foreman is httle more than an inspector, scrutinising 
 only the quality of their workmanship and exercising 
 . a very limited authority over them. The real authority, 
 the effective control, has been transferred to the sub- 
 contracting boss of the squad. 
 
 Our proposal is briefly, then, that the shop committee, 
 democratically elected by the Trade Unionists in the 
 workshop, should be substituted for this chief of the 
 squad, and that the squad should be extended to include 
 the whole body of the workers in the firm. The com- 
 mittee would assume complete control, and the principle 
 of petty profiteering — which is, of course, no less 
 objectionable in the workman than in the employer — 
 would disappear. The committee would be the sole 
 medium of communication and contract between the 
 management and the workman ; so that the employer 
 would no longer have any dealings whatever with 
 individual workers. The foreman, if the ofiice were not 
 abolished, would retain merely the status of inspector, 
 a shadow of his former self. His power would pass to 
 the convener or leader of the committe0. We see no 
 reason why the ghop committee should not eventually 
 take over, either in a single large contract or in a multi- 
 tude of smaller contracts, the entire production of the 
 works, reporting to the Trade Unions periodically, 
 perhaps weekly, the amount due to each man. The 
 employer would remit the contract price and the men 
 would be paid, possibly through their Trade Unions, 
 and by whatever system they cared to adopt, since it 
 would no longer be the concern of the employer. It is 
 conceivable that specially enlightened shops might go 
 in for equal payment. An important feature of all 
 contracts under these new conditions woiild be a clause 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 185 
 
 limiting the responsibility of the committee to the actual 
 business of pKoduction. That is to say, they would not 
 be held answerable for any stoppage of work from what- 
 ever cause, or hable for losses arising therefrom ; nor 
 could they accept any sort of responsibility for the smooth 
 running of industry. . . . 
 
 The advantages of such a system as we have here very 
 roughly sketched would be, first, that collective bargain- 
 ing would be substituted for the individual bargaining 
 which is the real danger of " Payment by Results " ; 
 second, the functions of management would be trans- 
 ferred to the shop committee, a body directly elected 
 by the workers themselves ; and, thirdly, combination 
 on an industrial as distinct from a craft basis would be 
 realised, since the committees would necessarily be 
 representative of the different trades. 
 
 This admirable outline of the case for the intro- 
 duction of Collective Contract as a step towards 
 Guild control shows in how many respects it would 
 encroach upon the present operation of the wage- 
 sj^tem at the expense of the profiteer. It offers a 
 sound and practicable alternative to the dangers 
 inherent in capitalist schemes of payment by results 
 — devices which, for the most part, swindle and 
 corrupt the worker at the same time. It opens up 
 the prospect of a de facto amalgamation of sectional 
 Unions which would inevitably soon become de jure 
 also. It provides a training in the control of 
 production, and an opportunity of industrial self- 
 government through leaders chosen by the workers 
 themselves. It weakens the autocracy of the 
 capitalist by withdrawing functions from him which 
 had been previously bound up with his ownership 
 of the means of production ; and there is no reason 
 why, as the process is carried further, out of the 
 
i86 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 workshop into the works itself, it should not with- 
 draw the further function which the capitalist 
 exercises by his purchase of raw material. 
 
 It cannot be denied that a policy with such great 
 possibiUties as the Collective Contract would trans- 
 late into action our maxim of " Encroaching 
 Control." It is true that, in the shape in which it 
 has been formulated, it applies only to certain 
 industries, of which engineering is the most obvious 
 example ; but a little thought would suffice to adopt 
 the principles involved to the circumstances of any 
 industry by those famihar with its conditions. 
 The question may be asked whether thV capitalist 
 is Hkely to accept a programme that threatens so 
 formidably his power and prestige. We might reply 
 that, when the workers are sufficiently alert to 
 appreciate the issues at stake in the adoption of such 
 a pohcy and to formulate the terms of their demand 
 in unmistakable language, they wUl also be sufii- 
 ciently spirited to force it upon the capitalist whether 
 he cares to accept it or not. We might then see the 
 definite appearance of a strike for status already 
 foreshadowed by the disputes which have broken out 
 over questions of " discipHne and management." 
 
 But there is some reason to think that the employer 
 might be prepared to accept an arrangement which 
 would, in the first instance, owing to the smoothness 
 and efficiency it promised, 
 
 appeal to the employers' commercial instinct in as 
 favourable a light as that of individual contract. But 
 no objection need be offered to it on this score, for may 
 we not offer a bribe in the shape of increased efficiency, 
 if we see a possibility thereby of gaining our ultimate 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 187 
 
 ends? It matters not that this gain will ultimately 
 prove as illusory to the capitaHst as higher wages under 
 individual contract will prove to the worker. Men 
 always will consult their immediate economic good, but 
 what shall it profit an employer if he gain a big profit 
 and lose all control ? * 
 
 That an employer may sometimes even propose 
 a scheme in his own immediate interest which would 
 prove of high value to the workers if they adopted 
 it was exemplified in a number of suggestions for 
 the regulation of labour at the docks ^ put forward 
 in the course of a letter to the Press by a prominent 
 Liverpool shipowner in June, 1914. The following 
 sentence from his letter explains (with the aid of our 
 italics) the essentials of his suggestion : 
 
 The true policy, in the opinion of the writer, is that 
 the employers of dock labour should, in their corporate 
 capacity, guarantee to every registered docker a regular 
 adequate minimum week-s wage in return for the regular 
 offer of his serMces, whether used or not, in accordaiice with 
 conditions and regulations jointly to be agreed. 
 
 He further proposed that the men should be 
 divided into two sections, those working regularly 
 for individual employers, the others obtaining 
 employment from the various employers through the 
 labour clearing houses, but all retained, whether 
 actually at work or not, by the payment of a mini- 
 mum weekly wage which each could supplement by 
 earning what he could beyond that on an agreed 
 scale. The administration of the scheme was to 
 
 ' The Guildsman, December, 1917 ; article on " Collective Contract," 
 by Geo. W. Thomson. 
 
 « A letter giving particulars of the proposals, from " S. A. M.," 
 appeared in the New Age, September 23rd, 1915. 
 
i88 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 rest with the Dock Labour Joint Committee. By 
 these means it was hoped to import steadiness and 
 regularity into the habits of the dockers and their 
 conditions of employment, in return for which the 
 employer should be prepared to maintain the dock 
 labour he needed, whether, at any selected moment, 
 work could be found for aU of it or not. 
 
 It may be objected that these proposals are very 
 vague, and at a first glance they may not seem to 
 amount to much. But what makes them important 
 is the opportunity which was thereby offered to an 
 alert Trade Union to seize the control of its labour 
 and thereby raise the status of the workers. It 
 would have been simple to translate the rather 
 tentative proposals of the employer into a scheme 
 of direct dealing between the employers " acting in 
 their corporate capacity " and the men acting in 
 their corporate capacity — ^that is, through the 
 Union. " Registered dockers " could only have 
 been interpreted to mean members of the Dockers' 
 Union ; " regular offer of services " involved a 
 decisive change in the status of the docker ; 
 "jointly" suggested opportunities for continued 
 interference by the Union in the conditions of the 
 dockers' service. Very little effort would have been 
 needed to arrive at some such terms as the follow- 
 ing : (i) That the Union should undertake to supply 
 labour at the docks ; (2) that labourers supplied by 
 the Union to the number demanded by the employers 
 and definitely registered as belonging to the industry 
 should be paid, whether working or not at any given 
 time ; (3) that the Union should receive such a 
 lump sum in pay as should be agreed upon, and 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 189 
 
 should distribute it amongst its members covered 
 by the scheme as might be decided by the Union 
 itself. Such a result, by interposing the Union 
 completely between the men and their employers, 
 would have been a distinct advance towards 
 self-government ; that- no notice was taken of 
 the employer's proposals does not speak well for 
 the enterprise and far-sightedness of the Union 
 concerned. 
 
 A more hopeful exhibition of these quaUties was 
 afforded by another organisation of workers, at the 
 very moment when the Liverpool Dockers' Union 
 (through the drowsy apathy of its head of&ce to 
 an5d:hing more important than a wages dispute) 
 .was throwing away the chance of raising the status 
 of its members. The contract entered into by the 
 London Building . Industries Federation with the 
 Theosophical Society in the midst of the great 
 London building lock-out in the summer of 1914 
 was an extremely interesting example of direct 
 dealing. The Federation agreed to supply the 
 labour for the Society's new building without the 
 intervention of any contractor ; it promised, more- 
 over, that the labour should be efficient, and under- 
 took full responsibihty for the proper execution of 
 the work, while carefully abstaining from embarking 
 on axiy financial responsibihty in connection with it. 
 The Theosophical Society, in return, agreed to pay 
 the men- whom the Federation selected, individually 
 at current rates. ' Coming as it did in the midst of a 
 
 1 Full accovmts of the circumstances and conditions of the contract 
 will be found in the Daily Herald for the months of May and June, 1914. 
 The best statement of its significance from a Guild standpoint will be 
 fotmd in the " Notes of the Week " in the New Age, June nth, 1914. 
 
igo The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 big dispute in the building trade — a dispute, more- 
 over, precipitated very largely by the masters from 
 fear of the growing strength of the Federation as 
 distinguished from the various sectional Unions it 
 included — ^the contract attracted a good deal of 
 attention. Its significance was widely appreciated, 
 as, for instance, by the Manchester Guardian, which 
 wrote that " the principle of organised labour 
 entering industry as organised labour is here 
 admitted." On the other hand, the New Statesman 
 declared that " all that the agreement amounts to is 
 that the Trade Union is to act as a Labour Exchange." 
 But this was obviously a short-sighted view in face 
 of the fact, already referred to, that the Federation 
 assumed responsibility for the labour it supphed and 
 for the quahty of the work, which is more than any 
 Labour Exchange can do, or, for that matter, any 
 employer either. Indeed, it may be remarked that 
 in undertaking explicitly this twin responsibility 
 Labour showed an honesty and pubUc spirit in 
 agreeable contrast to the spirit of profiteering. It 
 is worth noting, too, that it was only the coming 
 into being of the Federation which made possible 
 the undertaking of such a contract — an example how, 
 with the development of organisation and the 
 approach to a monopoly of labour. Trade Unionism 
 becomes aware of its first great step towards an 
 improved status, the control of labour, and through 
 the control of labour approaches the control of 
 production. Further, the proposal of the Theo- 
 sophical Society indicated that if Labour holds out 
 for honourable conditions, honourable conditions 
 will be offered to it. We may speculate from this 
 
The Futuie of Trade Union Policy 191 
 
 example to what important results a strike under- 
 taJcen explicitly for status might lead. 
 
 On the other hand, as the New Age wisely pointed 
 out at the time, the contract, significant as it was, 
 was far from being a final step towards the Guilds 
 as some enthusiastic critics had seemed to suggest. 
 In the first place, it was but a single incident in a 
 single industry. Again, the Federation covered 
 only manual labour ; the architects^ surveyors, and 
 other professional workers had to be separately 
 engaged through independent channels. Further, 
 the men were not paid through the Federation — as 
 they might well have been, and as we have seen they 
 would be through the wise apphcation of the poUcy 
 of the Collective Contract. And, finally, the officials 
 concerned were the ordinary officials of the Trade 
 Unions, chosen and adapted for the very different 
 purpose of fighting, or, at any rate, negotiating, with 
 the employer, not for the purpose of replacing him 
 and his officers. It is a point well worth consideration 
 whether, with the progressive encroachment of the 
 Unions on the control of production, a new type of 
 official win not have to be evolved whose business 
 wiU be the positive function of administration — in 
 full responsibility to the Union only, of course — 
 rather than the more negative, though still necessary, 
 tasks previously associated with the holding of a 
 Trade Union office. 
 
 However this may be, it is certain that the selection 
 of Trade Union officials wiU become an increasingly 
 important matter as the pohcy of " Encroaching 
 Control " becomes adopted more widely. The men 
 will be electing representatives destined not merety 
 
192 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to negotiate with the employers, but to challenge 
 the authority of their officers and to replace it. 
 Already in the negotiations upon the recogniticm 
 of shop stewards the question of their relation to 
 foremen has emerged, and, however it may be 
 temporarily adjusted, there is not much likehhood of 
 its being finally settled until the employers' nominee 
 has been driven out of the workshop altogether. 
 It may be a long time before this is accomplished 
 expUcitly, and in the meantime two processes may 
 continue side by side : the strengthening of the 
 authority of the shop steward, and the extension of 
 control over the foremen. As regards the first, we 
 have seen already how by the introduction of the 
 Collective Contract that authority can be increased, 
 while the right of the shop steward to visit any shop 
 in the works to see that conditipns agreed upon are 
 being actually complied with, ' which has now been 
 conceded in principle by the Employers' Engineering 
 Federation, is an important point to have gained in 
 this respect. As to control over foremen, the right 
 to veto any foreman introduced by the employer has 
 already been gained in some cases, and here obviously 
 it is no long step to the demand that the right to 
 reject an official should be transformed into the 
 right to elect one. It is essential, however, that in 
 cases where such a demand may be put forward it 
 shall not provide for the election of a foreman from 
 a distinct caste of individuals separated and perhaps 
 organised apart from the Trade Union to which the 
 rank and file of the workers belong. The foreman, 
 
 ' It was the denial of this right to Mr. David Kirkwood by a Glasgow 
 firm which led to the trouble on the Clyde in 1916, and ultimately to 
 the " deportation " of a number of the Clyde shop stewards. 
 
The Future ol Trade Union Policy 193 
 
 whether or not he has been previously a recognised 
 shop steward, must be organised along with his 
 fellow workers in the association which, by its 
 widening authority, wiU replace the present captain 
 of industry and Ms subordinates, the N.C.O.'s of 
 Capitalism. 
 
 We have written of the " workshop " for the most 
 part in this chapter, since it is here that the problem 
 of control has arisen most sharply in the last few 
 years. But, of course, the worker has no less need 
 to govern himself in every other industrial unit ; the 
 question presents itself with varying degrees of 
 insistence in every industry. In mining, for 
 instance, the control of officials is an urgent matter, 
 and some advance in this direction has already been 
 made. The recognition of the checkweighman, an 
 officer appointed by the Union, is often pointed to 
 by Guildsmen as a valuable step towards control. » 
 
 The checkweighman, well controlled by an alert 
 miners' lodge, can serve for more than the mere checking 
 of weights. He can, and sometimes does, become the 
 recognised spokesman of the miners in many matters 
 affecting the management of the mine. Again . . . the 
 miners have a limited right to appoint visiting inspectors, 
 and here again they possess a weapon that can be used 
 for interference with the management.' 
 
 As regards the future. 
 
 The workers can claim for themselves the right of 
 choosing their own deputies, foremen, examiners, and 
 the like. There will have, no doubt, to be some standard 
 
 ' For example, see National Guilds, pp. 56, 57. 
 " Towards a Miners' Guild (National Guilds League pamphlet), 
 p. la. 
 
 O 
 
194 The Meaning of National Gtiilda 
 
 of attainment to which every candidate must conform ] 
 but in the mining industry these standards already exist, 
 and amongst those who have reached them the miners 
 can claim to make their own choice. By this means 
 they can win to their side, and- make responsible to 
 themselves, those who are now the representatives of 
 the management ; and this process, by a series of steps, 
 can be carried further and further, till the mine manager 
 holds his office by appointment as the nominee of th^ 
 Miners' Union. Each step in this process will give the 
 Union more power, and will make the employer less 
 necessary to the conduct of the industry.' 
 
 But it is not only the officials who direct them that 
 Trade Unionists have got to enrol in their organisa- 
 tions. That vast array of clerical workers now 
 sundered from them almost entirely by caste, 
 costume, and convention must be attracted to their 
 ranks, and the gulf between the proletariat and the 
 salariat must be bridged in the only way that it can 
 be bridged, by the Guild idea. Trade Unionism has 
 spread fairly rapidly amongst clerks during the 
 present century ; this is due largely to the activity 
 of the National Union of Clerks, an energetic body 
 with a membership of about 12,000. It is obvious 
 that the organisation of clerical workers presents 
 problems too numerous and specialised to be dis- 
 cussed here.' But Industrial Unionism has claims 
 here no less than it has in regard to the skilled 
 craftsman ; the continued existence of separate 
 organisations for " brain workers " is incompatible 
 with the ideal of solidarity. The future of the 
 
 ' Ibid., p. 14. 
 
 2 See a series of articles by J. H. Lloyd on " The Organisation of 
 Clerks " in the Clerk (the organ of the National Union of Clerks), June- 
 December, 1917. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 195 
 
 National Union of Clerks would seem to be rightly 
 envisaged in a similar light to the future of the 
 general labour Union — ^that is, as a " clearing 
 house " for those clerical workers whose interests 
 are not specially identified with any particular 
 industry. In addition to this function, it might 
 serve further as a craft federation to cope with those 
 particular interests of clerks qua clerks which were 
 not covered by their own craft representation on the 
 particular Industrial Union to which they were 
 attached. In cases where the " brain workers " in 
 any industry are already organised apart, as is the 
 case on the railways and, to some extent, in mining 
 and engineering, the Industrial Union concerned 
 must not consider its task of organisation completed 
 until these separate societies have been merged in 
 itself, and the workers in them have been given their 
 fair share of craft representation on the governing 
 body. 
 
 We have said that only the Guild idea can bridge 
 the gulf between the mental and manual worker ; 
 but though, as we have seen in. a previous chapter, 
 that gulf is very largely imaginary, the circumstances 
 of his emplojonent make it loom very large before 
 the clerical worker. Indeed, the distinction between 
 a salary and a wage is sufficiently real to bKnd both 
 salariat and proletariat to their underlying unity of 
 interests. This distinction, on which we have 
 already remarked, ^ has been well brought out by a 
 writer in the Guildsman' in the following passage : 
 
 The. clerk and the draughtsman, the commercial 
 
 ' Chapter iv., p. 85. 
 
 ' See the Guildsman, September, 1917 ; " The Salariat : A Study in 
 Pathology," by G. W. Thomson. 
 
ig6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 traveller and the salesman, although their labour is also 
 bought, are retained in times of slackness, and their 
 salaries go on regularly as in the busiest period. The 
 salaried person is not "questioned," when he is late, 
 nor do holidays and sickness mean a stoppage, sudden 
 and complete, of the means of hfe. But the employer 
 has not paid something for nothing. It is not one of 
 Fanny's pretty ways ! The salaried man has sold 
 something more than his labour ; he has sold his birth- 
 right and his soul. Thus, the employer has him always 
 in demand for spurts and emergencies, generally at no 
 extra cost to himself, and, moreover, he has succeeded 
 in aUenating him from the class to which he truly belongs, 
 that of the workers, and by giving him the bribe of 
 admission on to the staff he has convinced him that his 
 interests are much more closely identified with those of 
 the firm than with those of the wage-earner. 
 
 What is the result ? The salaried workers have 
 lost not only their friends, but their enemies ! They 
 are the spectators, and even the victims, of a class- 
 struggle which they cannot understand, and they are 
 the more miserable since, in a world of injustice^ they 
 have surrendered even their antagonisms. 
 
 Only at great peril of the spirit can a man give up his 
 right to healthy and just hatreds, and this the salariat 
 has done. This class is an object of contempt to the 
 capitalist, and an object of despair and a stumbhng-block 
 to the wage-earner. Yet in the great fight for emancipa- 
 tion we must carry him with us. If he only understood 
 it, our cause is his cause. His shaUow vanity and 
 snobbishness make him verily an " old man of the sea " 
 on the worker's back. We cannot, if we would, lay him 
 down. ' 
 
 The writer of this article proceeds to elaborate his 
 indictment against the salaried employee, and we 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 197 
 
 cannot deny that many counts in it are true and the 
 result damning to those — ^the majority of the lower- 
 middle class — against whom it can be justly brought. 
 But we cannot deny that there is something to be 
 said, too, upon the other side. The apologia of the 
 salariat might perhaps be framed in such words as 
 the following : " You accuse us of deserting* you in 
 your struggle with the capitahst system ; but when 
 have you ever asked for our assistance? More- 
 over, when have you ever taken pains to explain 
 to us and to society generally exactly what that 
 struggle is about, what part you expect us to play in 
 it, and what precisely our relation will be to your 
 Unions when they have won their victory ? Again, 
 we do not clearly understand (and we are not sure 
 that you do) what part you consider your Unions 
 should take in the new society that will replace 
 CapitaUsm. What you call the ' class-struggle ' 
 looks to us very often rather like a scramble for 
 spoils ; what you call ' social democracy ' we would 
 define as ' government by the bureaucrats for the 
 politicians.' You talk about improving your status, 
 but you will not do that by strikes for higher wages ; 
 and for aU your century of Trade Union agitation, 
 we prefer our comparative security — on a salary, 
 the amotmt of which, however small, is at'^ny rate 
 assured for a reasonable time — ^to your precarious 
 existence as casuallabourers, which is all you weekly 
 wage-earners really are, however ' skilled ' you may 
 be. Admittedly, we have done wrong in Ustening 
 to the temptation held out to us by our masters that, 
 if we are good, we may one day hope to take a hand 
 with him in running the administration of his 
 
19$ The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 profiteering system ; but, unless we are very much 
 mistaken, that is precisely what your leaders are 
 proposing to do under the name of Reconstruction. 
 If you are really going to give us a lead, do try and 
 make sure that it is a lead in the right direction. 
 Which reminds us that we should like to hear more 
 of these National Guilds that some of your members 
 are talking about." 
 
 A retort along these lines would not be without 
 justification ; Trade Unionists will do well to recog- 
 nise that in the alienation between the salariat and 
 themselves there have been faults on both sides. 
 That alienation can only be ended when it is replaced 
 by co-operation for a common purpose. No lesser 
 purpose than the conimon pursuit of control, 
 responsibihty, and a real change in status will 
 suffice to bring together the workers of every grade^ 
 Nor can the process stop with the attraction of the 
 lower ranks of the salariat into the orbit of Trade 
 Unionism. Besides the higher officials of every 
 industry, there are the great professional associations 
 of technicians and experts who form to-day a most 
 essential section of the industry to which they are 
 attached, and who will be no less essential to the 
 proper functioning of the Guild. These professionals, 
 banded together in institutes and associations, have 
 already something of the Guild spirit, and will often 
 be found to be impatient of the trammels which 
 CapitaHsm imposes even upon them, and of the 
 canalisation of their energies to the purposes of 
 profit. In proportion as the Gmld idea is spread and 
 formulated by the Trade Unions, the problem of re- 
 conciliation between the workers and the professionals 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 199' 
 
 will be brought nearer to a solution. It is the 
 Guild for which every rank and grade of the genuine 
 workers in modem industry are waiting — whether 
 consciously or no. Not tUl the Trade Unions 
 themselves move to the attack can the army of 
 emancipation go forward ; the power of that army 
 will be revealed, if they will but sound the challenge 
 and lead the way. 
 
 Our survey of Trade Unionism, though it has been 
 long, has touched only those of its features and 
 problems which are essential from the Guild stand- 
 point, and touched them only so as to provide an 
 introduction to a fuller understanding and a closer 
 study. We have attempted throughout to deal with 
 the issues at stake in the light of that future which 
 lies beyond Trade Unionism and gives to it its crucial 
 importance to-day — ^the future in which the Guilds- 
 man, like a new St. George, will have vanquished the 
 dragon of profiteering which now enslaves our nation 
 and humiKates its people. The Guildsman will be 
 no magic deUverer from without, but the common 
 Englishman, shamed into action by the peril in 
 which he finds his freedom to stand, awake at last to 
 the possibiUties of " self-government " and " citizen- 
 ship," and determined to experience as reaHties 
 what he has long worshipped at a respectful distance. 
 We have heard much more in these years of war of 
 the ordinary man, of his spirit, of his initiative, and 
 of the respect and honour due to him, than we heard 
 in those pre-war days when reactionaries discussed 
 what was to be done with the people, while Liberals 
 boasted of what they were going to do for them. 
 
200 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Yet the " people " was always conceived as a passive 
 thing, to be regulated, to be benefited, or to be 
 bribed ; never as an aggregate of active wiUs, with 
 purposes of their own and demands formulated by 
 themselves. After the War, the soldier returning 
 from pay to wages and the Trade Unionist struggling 
 at last from wages to pay will have much to learn 
 from each other, and from the lesson may result 
 that rare phenomenon of our history-^^the English 
 citizen, conscious and alert, swift to assert his will 
 and eager to act. Such a resurrection would be 
 worth more than a century of " reconstruction " ; 
 it is the clue to aU our social puzzle, and, above all, to 
 the puzzle of Trade Unionism and beyond. The 
 creation of the Guilds demands it ; for their buHding 
 is a problem and not a theorem — a task to be done, 
 not a proposition to be proved. 
 
 It is for this reason that throughout this chapter 
 we have insisted on the impulse from below as vital 
 before aU, on structural changes based on the 
 workshop, on a >^e facto sohdarity as more important 
 even than a de juke amalgamation, and on a policy of 
 " Encroaching Control " which starts at the end 
 which the worker can best understand since it 
 concerns his everyday hfe and labour. But while 
 we have tlfus insisted on the essentials of industrial 
 democracy, we have sought equally to emphasise 
 the crying need for organisation and discipline, 
 without which Trade Unionism will find itself 
 betrayed on every battlefield. Discipline, self- 
 sought and self-imposed, can alone prepare the 
 victories which democracy justly demands, and 
 which leadership and loyalty will win. Of leader- 
 
The Future of Trade Union Policy 201 
 
 ship we have said little in this chapter, since it is 
 idle to talk of leaders tiU the workers have deter- 
 mined whither they would be led and are able to 
 recognise the stages on the way. It is because in the 
 pcist the bUnd have too often led the bhnd that Trade 
 Unionism has stumbled again and again into the 
 ditch of servile legislation and industrial defeat. 
 Hence the outcry against all leaders, and the suspi- 
 cion of the rank and file that it is beiag sold and 
 trapped. 
 
 Yet if Trade Unionism is to make even the 
 advances which we have sketched out in this chapter, 
 it will need more leadership rather than less. The 
 remedy, after all, Hes largely with the rank and file 
 themselves ; for if they would take more trouble in 
 the choice of the men whom they elect to lead them, 
 and treat those who serve them well with as much 
 generosity as they now treat with toleration those 
 who serve them badly or not at all, the tragedies of 
 treachery and ineptitude which at present too often 
 disgrace Trade Union leadership would seldom occur. 
 Leadership is not, as some imply, a denial of demo- 
 cracy ; it is a condition of its success and even a 
 witness to its strength. The Trade Union leader of 
 to-morrow will need the loyalty of those to whom he 
 is responsible as much as they will need his loyalty^ 
 to their interests. Every wile will be used by his 
 enemies, whether capitalists or bureaucrats, to 
 dazzle, to bewilder, even, it is to be feared, to bribe 
 'him, if by these means he can be induced to desert 
 his fellows and betray his class. Trade Unionists 
 must reahse how strong may be the temptations to an 
 able and enthusiastic workman to throw over the 
 
202 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 uphill struggle for the promise of power and influence 
 and a hfe of " usefulness." The motives which lead 
 a Trade Union official to throw in his lot with the 
 " governing class " are not always sordid, however 
 much we may deplore them ; it is sometimes the 
 sheer apathy of the workers that drives their former 
 champions in disgust over to the ranks of the enemy. 
 While the highest aims of Trade Unionism are but 
 reforms within the wage-system, we cannot wonder 
 at the apathy of the mass or the disillusion and 
 desertion of the abler few. But, with the Guild 
 idea before them, we could hope for the loyal 
 activity of the rank and file and for the fideUty and 
 boldness in those whom they choose to lead. Even 
 to-day that hope is not unreasonable. Though the 
 workers still wander in the forest of wageiy, some 
 there are amongst them — an ever-growing company 
 — who have seen the Ught beyond the trees. 
 
 A special Bibliography to the foregoing chapter will bs 
 found below, pp. 450-1-2. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE MIRAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION 
 
Reconstruction : once an ideal, now a programme. The 
 idol of social peace. " Reconstruction as a new 
 crusade." As an antidote to revolution. Its " catas- 
 trophic " ideas. An alternative to emancipation. 
 The hterature of Reconstruction. Its leading idea, indus- 
 trial autonomy, derived from National Guilds. The 
 restoration of Trade Union conditions. Mr. Sidney 
 Webb's proposals : their dangers. Trade Union 
 regulations as an earnest of Guild control. Restriction 
 of output : its causes and its remedy. Industrial 
 MiUtarism and Mr. Ernest Benn. 
 The Whitley Report. Are its proposals " equivalent to 
 National Guilds " ? How they differ. Objects of 
 the Report. " Joint Control " : a fallacy and a fraud. 
 Labour and the new industrial concordat. The perils 
 of " responsibility." The essential safeguards for 
 Labour : independence and unity. Further dangers 
 of the Whitley proposals : (i.) the infection of labour 
 with profiteering ; (ii.) anti-social conspiracy between 
 Capital and Labour ; (ui.) the stereotyping of opposition 
 between capitaUst ofificials and Labour representatives ; 
 (iv.) the outmanoeuvring of the workers- 
 Joint Councils an accomphshed fact : example of the 
 pottery trade. Attitude of tjie Government. The 
 right policy for State employees : some difficulties. 
 The Whitley Report and Nationalisation : an oppor- 
 tunity for Labour. Joint Councils and workshop 
 control : defects of the Report in this respect. 
 Labour's role in Reconstruction. The Labour Party 
 Report : its shortcomings. The reconstruction of 
 CapitaHsm : a warning to Labour. The employers 
 and the State : can they promote the Guilds ? The 
 meaning of the class-struggle. Limitations and 
 opportunities (i.) of the employer; (ii.) of the State. 
 Reconstruction a mirage : emancipation a task. 
 
VI 
 
 " THE MIRAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 That blessed word " Reconstruction " has already 
 made its appearance more than once in this book ; 
 indeed, it would be strange if this had not been so, 
 since it is impossible to avoid a phrase which is on the 
 lips of everyone, and corresponds to ideas which are 
 formulated, more or less definitely, in the minds of 
 many. Those ideas, long in the air, have now 
 acquired not only a name, but a local habitation in 
 a Government Department. Taking shape first 
 in projects spontaneously initiated and privately 
 circulated, they have filtered through into White 
 Papers, and passed into that final stage when they are 
 announced as representing the " considered policy " 
 of the Government. It is, therefore, no longer 
 possible to treat Reconstruction as a phenomenon of 
 benevolent optimism, or to accept it as a piece of 
 social magic to be wrought by the War in which we 
 must beheve (as is said of theological dogmas), but 
 which we cannot hope to understand. Reconstruc- 
 tion is becoming a " programme," soihething which 
 the country will be " asked to accept " — ^which is to 
 say, that it will have to accept it with as good a grace 
 as possible, if it is not to incur from its masters the 
 awful charge of " barring the way of true social 
 advance." The peril of releasing British democracy 
 from the shackles of War legislation to think and act 
 
 803 
 
2o6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 for itself has appeared so hideous to our ever- 
 growing bureaucracy that it has set to work to 
 devise some efficient substitute which could be 
 imposed without delay and in an acceptable guise. 
 The result is Reconstruction, which began as an ideal 
 and has become a " stunt." 
 
 That it began as an ideal is undeniable, and 
 idealism, we suppose, must always be worthy of our 
 respect, if of nothing more ; though, when it is 
 concerned with " the relations of Capital and Labour 
 after the War," we must confess to an impatience 
 in according it even that. The good intentions of 
 our social reconstructors are generally obvious 
 enough, it is true ; but, then, so is the hell towards 
 which they are paving the way. It is the Servile 
 State. We are aware that this phrase is to the 
 reformer a stumbling-block and to the Collectivist 
 foolishness (has not Mr. Sidn^ Webb himself 
 described it as a " comic figment " ?) ; but we are 
 not the less — ^indeed, rather the more — ^hkely to see 
 it reahsed on that account. Compared with the 
 difficulties attending the estabhshment of iiidustrial 
 democracy by the workers themselves, which we have 
 traced in its earlier and more immediate stages in the 
 previous chapter. Reconstruction seems almost 
 dazzlingly simple, peaceful, and swift. It accords 
 weU with the comfortable delusion of the Uh^al- 
 minded in every governing class that the worid can 
 be reformed and society founded on principles of 
 justice and equality, and they themselves suffer 
 nothing in purse or station. Such men love to talk 
 of the " nation's industry " and the " nation's 
 wealth," as if the benefits associated with the control 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 207 
 
 of industry and the~possession of wealth could some- 
 how be enjoyed by the masses of the nation by mere 
 virtue of nationaUty and without any actual experi- 
 ence of them. Though peace with honour is im- 
 possible for the work^s within the wage-system, 
 Social Peace is an idol before which the reconstruc- 
 tiondst wiU never fail to bow the knee. And already 
 he sees his dreams of social harmony taking shape in 
 a National AUiance of Employers and Employed, 
 destined, no doubt, to blossom forth into a " League 
 to Enforce Industrial Peace," and put an end to the 
 brutal militarism of the class war. 
 
 It may be objected that we are unfair to the 
 reconstructionist, and that he is not always among 
 the fools who rush in where the angels of true revo- 
 lution fear to tread. We admit that there are to-day 
 amoifgst us perhaps a larger number of disinterested 
 men of real goodwill and first-rate intelligence, 
 seriously devoting themselves to the problem of ox\i 
 industrial future, than ever before in our history. 
 Many of them are completely independent of any 
 direct interest in the maintenance of CapitaHsm, 
 however much they may (even unconsciously) 
 accept it as essential to " national prosperity." 
 Some of them are employers, genuinely anxious to 
 harmonise their interests with the interests of their 
 coTintry and the happiness of their work-people, and 
 confident, as a rule, that such an adjustment is 
 perfectly feasible. So representative a figure as Sir 
 Maurice Fitzmaurice, in a presideiitial address to the 
 Institute of Civil Engineers, speaks as f oUows ' : 
 
 We all wish to see Labour contented. In Btirke's 
 ' Industrial Reconstruciion, pp. as, 24. 
 
2o8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 speech in 1775 on conciliation with America he said : 
 " The question with me is not whether you have a right 
 to render your people miserable, but whether it is not 
 your interest to make them happy." I, think that 
 expresses our view with regard to Labour to-day. 
 
 We think that it does. The same conviction has 
 been expressed even more emphatically by one of the 
 most prominent of modern capitalists, Mr. Dudley 
 Docker, who declares roundly that, " without doubt, 
 it is to the interest of aU employers to make their 
 work-people happy." * 
 
 Yet happiness in itself is not the true goal of 
 society; and even if it could.be proved that the 
 happiness of the workers could be completely secured 
 by the reconstruction of Capitalism and its national 
 recognition, the social question would remain un- 
 answered. Not happiness merely, but justice, is the 
 true end of society ; it is the recognition of this fact 
 more than any other that gives the real driving force 
 to the Labour movement. Already to the bestaiid 
 most spirited type of worker it is his condition, even 
 more than his conditions, which is an affair of honour. 
 This truth, it is only fair to say, has been recognised 
 by some of the best' among those who have associated 
 themselves with the idea of Reconstruction. It has 
 been recognised, for instance, by the authors of the 
 Garton Memorandum — perhaps the most thorough 
 and admirable of aU the attempts made to reconstruct 
 a new and nobler edifice of industry on the old 
 foundation of the wage-system. Say these writM's : 
 
 The grea4: obstacle to co-operation is the question of 
 status. The ill-will of Labour towards Capital and 
 
 ' Op. cit., p. 89. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 2og 
 
 Management is not wholly a question of their respective 
 share of earnings. . . . The fundamental grievance 
 of Labour is that while all three are necessary parties 
 to production, the actual conditions of industry have 
 .given to Capital and Management control not only over 
 the mechaiysm of production,, but also over Labour 
 itself.* 
 
 This recognition of the spiritual subjection to which 
 the wage-system condemns the worker, though it is 
 very incomplete, is none the less welcome ; it 
 differentiates the Memorandum from cruder pro- 
 posals made in the name of Reconstruction which 
 concern themselves entirely with increased output, 
 increased profits, increased wages, and increased 
 " happiness." A similar note had already been 
 struck in the columns of the Round Table, and an 
 even more exalted idealism is to be discovered in the 
 pages of the Athenaeum. In the columns of this 
 review the idea of social reconstruction after the 
 War receives not merely attention, but worship. 
 The word " Reconstruction '"itself occurs sometimes 
 as often as a dozen times in a single article, and never 
 without the homage of a capital " R," so that the 
 term begins to acquire a kind of magical significance, 
 as if it were the " Open Sesame " to a new world. 
 And it would seem that the writers have in mind 
 nothing less. 
 
 It wOl be clear that we regard Reconstruction as a 
 new Crusade with a new Britain as our goal and Holy 
 City. . . . Reconstruction is not the closing chapter of 
 the War ; it is the opening of a new chapter of national 
 
 ' Memorandum on the Industrial Situation after the War, by the Garton 
 Foundation, para. 145. A long and in many ways valuable criticism 
 of the memorandmn is to be found in Guild Principles in War and 
 Peace, by S. G. Hobson. 
 
 P 
 
210 The Meajoing of National Guilds 
 
 history. ... If we do but clear the ground and build 
 upon rock 'the foundations of freedom for the future, we 
 shall have been worthy of our day and generation.' 
 
 We shall indeed ; but what are those foundations ? 
 It is certain that we cannot look for them in the 
 wage-system. And if we are to " clear the ground " 
 of the whole commodity theory of labour, our recon- 
 struction will become revolution, and be far removed 
 from all the impatient patchwork generally bound 
 up with the phrase that the Athenaeum has taken as 
 its watchword. If we prefer the term " revolution," 
 it is not because we pin our faith to a swift and 
 catastrophic remedy as opposed to something more 
 steady and far-reaching. On the contrary, it is just 
 the rough and ready feasibility too commonly 
 associated with Reconstruction that renders it so 
 superficially attractive and therefore so dangerous. 
 The essentials of social renewal are not to be dis- 
 covered in the exploded superstitions of social reform, 
 nor the evils of exploitation and tj^anny wiped out 
 by six months of hasty tinkering with co-partnership 
 schemes and " joint committees." The foundations 
 of freedom can only be buUt by the steady and 
 ruthless destruction of its opposite — ^wage-slavery. 
 
 It seems, then, that we must choose between 
 reconstruction and revolution. Indeed, this neces- 
 sity is frequently put forward by reconstructionists 
 as an apologia to the timid among the governing 
 class for the " far-reaching " character of their 
 proposals. What these people do not — or is it, will 
 not ? — see, however, is that such a revolution need 
 not be a violent catastrophe or a sudden upheaval ; 
 
 1 The Athenaeum, January, 1917. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 211 
 
 indeed, it might be less violent and certainly less 
 sudden them some of the " machinery of reconstruc- 
 tion " — ^the phrase is as appropriate as it is prevalent 
 — seems hkely to be. We do not, of course, deny 
 that a revolution in the sense so actively dreaded, 
 for instance, by the authors of the Garton Memo- 
 randum, is impossible after the War, since no one can 
 feel assured that our plutocracy will not be callous 
 enough or our bureaucracy stupid enough to pro- 
 voke one. The gods seeking to destroy Capitalism 
 may first make it mad. This apprehension is 
 shared by the authors of this Memorandum : 
 
 The incendiary is not far to seek, and may be found in 
 all classes. . . . There is a real danger that this section 
 [the reactionaries amongst the employers] may adopt to 
 some extent the German view of Labour as a force which 
 need^ to be controlled and disciplined from above, and 
 many regard the War as an opportunity to accomplish 
 this end. There is reason to fear that some employers 
 look on the Military Service Acts, the State control of 
 war industries, and the temporary abandonment of 
 Trade Union restrictions as an opportunity to establish 
 once for all the ascendancy of Capital over Labour. 
 
 This danger, combined with " economic discon- 
 tent, class suspicion, and the doctrines of social 
 revolutionaries," has led the writers of the Memo- 
 randum to " foresee the occasion of a renewed 
 outbreak of industrial friction which would not only 
 obstruct our commercial progress, but seriously 
 cripple our power of recovery." ' Indeed, they have 
 become convinced, they tell us inr- their preface, 
 " that the return from war to peace conditions 
 would inevitably involve great difficulties which 
 
 * Garton Memonandum, paras. 6i, 62, 63, 1. 
 
212 The Meaning of National Giiilds 
 
 might result, if not carefully and skilfully handled, 
 in a grave outbreak of industrial disorder." 
 
 Hence, then, we have one leading motive of 
 Reconstruction — ^fear. " A grave outbreak of indus- 
 trial disorder " ! Tremble, ye tyrants of Capitalism ; 
 tremble and obey, lest worse things befall ye ; kneel 
 to kiss the rod of Reconstruction, since " only by 
 uiiiting the efforts of all classes towards common 
 ends, on the lines of a broad national policy, can 
 such a catastrophe be averted." Yet a catastrophe 
 cannot be averted by chch6s ; it is only when we 
 inquire how the common end for which aU classes 
 are to unite can be expressed m terms of dividends 
 paid to a handful of the population, and how a policy 
 can possibly be national, to say nothing of broad, 
 which leaves the assets of the nation to be exploited 
 for profiteering, that we begin to wonder whether a 
 " catastrophe " may not after all be necessary. 
 In truth, the antithesis between the reform of 
 CapitaUsm and the crash of catastrophe is a false one, 
 and sometimes, we suspect, a dishonest one as well. 
 The real question is which authority our reconstruc- 
 tion is going to strengthen at the expense of the 
 other. Is it going to strengthen the power of the 
 State at the expense of the efficiency and autonomy 
 of industry ? Is it going to increase still further the 
 prestige and power of the profiteer and extend his 
 autocracy over the Mves of his work-people ? Or is it 
 to be directed to fortif5dng the initiative and the 
 direct control of industrial democracy by Uberating 
 and stimulating the responsible activities of Trade 
 Unionism and preparing its future partnership with 
 the commimity ? 
 
The Mirage of Reconstraction 213 
 
 It may be replied that no one of these courses 
 is incompatible with the other two. There is 
 perhaps a very limited sense in which this may be 
 true. It may be useful, as a temporary measure 
 and .failing the courage for a decisive scheme of 
 nationaMsation, to strengthen State control over 
 certain industries, whUe leaving the capitaKst 
 secure — and, it may be, even more secure than 
 before — ^in his possession of them. It may perhaps 
 be possible to formulate schemes of " industrial 
 autonomy " which will increase the standing of the 
 employer without infringing or threatening the 
 powers, or even the potentialities, of the Trade 
 Union. What is not possible is to frame an enduring 
 compromise between ideals which are mutually 
 exclusive. Either the State is to administer the 
 main industries, or it is not. Either the capitaUst 
 is the best person to conduct his business, and profit 
 is the legitimate motive for it, or he must ultimately 
 be dethroned as a usurper, and profiteering repudiated 
 as a shame and a fraud. Either the Trade Unions 
 are the essential rudiments of self-government in 
 industry^ destined to develop into the controllers of 
 it, or they are protective associations of wage-slaves, 
 to be kept in their place if they seek to rise beyond 
 their station. It is vain to talk of reconstruction 
 until we have decided to what end our recon- 
 struction is directed, and what are the elements 
 in our society which we desire to strengthen or to 
 depress. 
 
 We are not den3dng that the after-war situation 
 wiU demand statesmanship, or suggesting that any 
 immediate solution to its problems can be applied in 
 
214 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 such a way as to solve them at one stroke. Indeed, 
 it is the very impatience of the reconstructionist, his 
 readiness to stake the whole future of society at a 
 single throw, that seems to us so perilous. He seeks 
 to seize and imprison in a permanent mould certain 
 momentary phases of our industrial transition. 
 " The single large issue that is revealed in the present 
 situation," said the New Age recently, " is as foUows : 
 which of the two parties, Capital or Labour, shall, 
 by partnership with the State, become the master 
 of the other." Reconstruction does not face this 
 issue ; it begs the very question it should set about 
 to solve. Confronted with the gradual formulation 
 and development of Labour's demand for a new 
 status in society, statesmanship would seek to 
 stimulate and enlarge that demand ; Reconstruction 
 seeks to standardise and to set bounds to it. Indeed, 
 the choice is not between reconstruction and catas- 
 trophe, but between the catastrophe of reconstruc- 
 tion and the achievement of emancipation. That 
 achievement may come soon, or (as is much more 
 probable) it may come slowly ; it may be hastened 
 or retarded, or even defeated, by the action of those 
 in power to-day. But one thing is certain : emanci- 
 pation from wage-slavery must be achieved; it- 
 cannot be imposed. In proportion as it is achieved 
 will a revolution have taken place. We have 
 indicated in the previous chapter how that achieve- 
 ment may be begun- by those whom it most con- 
 cerns ; we shall suggest in the next how it may 
 be carried forward to victory. We shall seek to 
 elucidate in this place what those who govern in 
 State and business may do in the matter ; we shall 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 215 
 
 be guided largely, it may be, by the discovery 
 what they should not do. 
 
 We take this opportunity of sa3mig plainly that 
 not only do we not advocate or seek to promote a 
 catastrophic revolution after the War, but we 
 should regard such an outbreak as Hkely to be 
 disastrous, not only to society as a whole, but to 
 Labour in particular. There may come a time when 
 catastrophic action will alone suffice to achieve the 
 last victories of the class-struggle. This, however 
 is a matter for speculation, not for prophecy, and 
 we caimot teU what changes of heart and mind 
 society may imdergo in the meantime. Labour is 
 far too uncertain of its aims, far too chaotic in its 
 organisation, and far too weak in its grip upon 
 industry to expect anjrthing but disaster from a 
 resort to catastrophic revohition ; nor has it yet by 
 its successful invasion of capitaUst control proved 
 its light to demand more. That Labour might be 
 driven into insurrection in defence of its free exist- 
 ence we will admit without discussing it, since we 
 are dealing now not with repression, but with what 
 is, at any rate nominally, reconstruction. But 
 as Mr. Chesterton has said, " A revolution for good 
 is always the frustration of an evolution towards 
 evU." It is in frustrating the Servile State by 
 steadily constructing the elements of its opposite 
 that Labour will be canying out most truly and 
 securely the revolution by which it will gradually 
 come into its own. 
 
 It is time to turn from general criticism of the 
 Reconstruction idea to an examination of some of 
 the proposals which have been put forward under 
 
2i6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 this name. Our examination will necessarily be 
 cursory, and many aspects of this rather vaguely 
 defined subject are outside the scope of this book. 
 Moreover, we may remind our readers that we are 
 not principally concerned with that ideal of "national 
 prosperity," sbught for its own sake, which is the 
 avowed basis of most reconstruction proposals. 
 The predominant question for" us is whether the 
 adoption of these proposals would weaken the spell 
 that the wage-system has xast upon us all, and 
 whether they would contribute to build those 
 democratic and responsible associations, essential 
 to the health and freedom of society, which we have 
 called Guilds. Just as we have admitted the good 
 intentions that lie behind many of the Reconstruc- 
 tion ideas, we are prepared to admit that some of the 
 detailed proposals mighf produce good and useful 
 results from the point of view with which they are 
 put forward — the increase of material prosperity 
 and the concihation of the workers. Though we 
 beHeve firmly that the estabhshment of National 
 Guilds will ultim9,tely secure both the prosperity 
 of industry and the satisfaction and content of all 
 those who labour in it, the immediate quest of those 
 goals, if it is undertaken in contempt or oblivion of 
 justice and equality, will only lead us more deeply 
 into slavery. We shall lose the substance of true 
 reconstruction in clutching at its shadow. 
 
 The Hterature of Reconstruction is by this time 
 both copious and varied, ranging from the almost 
 Bourbon-hke reaction of the report issued by the 
 Employers' Parliamentary Couhcil, which has 
 " learnt nothing and forgotten nothing " since 
 1914, to the audacious Mberahsm of the Carton 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 217 
 
 Memorandum, and including as its most notable 
 contributions the three reports of the British Associa- 
 tion edited by Professor Kirkaldjjs Mr. Malcolm 
 Sparkes's proposals for " Industrial Parliaments," 
 Mr. E. J, P. Benn's pleas for a national organisation 
 of industry, > Mr. Sidney Webb's Httle book on the 
 Restoration of Trade Union Conditions, the report 
 of a committee representing Scottish firms engaged 
 in engineering and "shipbuilding,' and a number 
 of volumes of the symposium type. " At the end — 
 and perhaps partly ,as a result — of ah this output, 
 there has appeared the famous Whitley Report, 
 the product of the Government's Reconstruction 
 Committee, and now adopted officially by the 
 Government as a basis for the future resettlement of 
 industry. Finis coronat opus. The Whitley Report 
 is more than a contribution to Reconstruction ; it is 
 a first-fruits of it.* We shall need to consider it at 
 soine length, for by its issue much previous specula- 
 
 ' tion on the subject with which it deals has been set 
 at rest, and the Joint Standing Industrial Council 
 appears as the final form of many tentative proposals 
 for industrial autonomy. 
 
 This idea of industrial autonomy appears under 
 various aliases in nearly all the schemes and sug- 
 
 ■ gestions we have mentioned above, and is certainly 
 
 ' See his books Trade as a Science and The Trade of To-morrow. 
 Mr. Benn is the promoter of the " Council for the Study of Industrial 
 Reconstruction." 
 
 ' Published in the Athenaeum, February, 1917. — 
 
 ' Of these, the most representative is Industrial Reconstruction, 
 edited by Mr. Huntly Cart;^, and containing contributions from some 
 sixty persons of widely differing views. 
 
 • Since this chapter was written a second Whitley Report has made 
 its appearance. It applies to industries in which organisation is still 
 far from complete, and supplements the suggestions of the main Report 
 by proposing to couple with them the further extension of Trade 
 Boards in such industries. 
 
2i8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the most important conception which is to be found 
 amongst them. It is based upon the fundamentally 
 sound principle that the responsibihty for the 
 management and control of industry should be 
 thrown upon those who understand it by the creation 
 of organs . appropriate for that purpose — ^in short, 
 by the rejection of Individuahsm and Collectivism 
 alike, and their replacement by the principle of 
 function. '■ Many strains of thought have converged 
 to produce the idea of industrial autonomy, but 
 there is not much doubt from what source the 
 reconstructionist has borrowed most consciously the 
 expression of it in concrete proposals. He has 
 borrowed it from the propaganda of National 
 Guilds. Indeed, this much is confessed by one of 
 the earhest examples of the tribe, " D. P.," whose 
 articles in the Times in the summer of 1916 on " The 
 Elements of Reconstruction " have been reprinted 
 in book form with a preface (significantly enough) 
 by Lord Milner. Therein, we beheve for the first 
 time, the success of the Guild propaganda was 
 openly admitted, and readers of the Times were 
 exhorted to sit up and take notice of it. It was no 
 longer enough merely to snub the National Guilds- 
 men, for " the workers are not snubbing them by 
 any means." It is time to "extract the good" 
 out of their proposals and, with the material thus 
 obtained, to issue a substitute which wiU look much 
 the same — but taste different. There followed these 
 deUghtful sentences about the handling of Guildsmen 
 .and their explosive theories : 
 
 Let us by all means continue to snub them, take it out 
 • For a philosophical treatment of the principle of function in the 
 
 light of the Guild idea, see Mr. Ramuro de Maeztu's book. Authority, 
 
 CSerty, and Function. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 2x9 
 
 of them socially and so on, but let us at least see whether 
 some use is not to be made of their ideas. These new 
 ideas amon^ the workers need not make for conflict, but 
 they certainly wiU make for conflict if they are ignored. 
 
 They have not been ignored, they have been 
 adapted ; though National Guildsmen, having 
 managed to survive the terrors of social ostracism 
 thus prepared for them, have been swift to expose 
 the frauds and fallacies of this not unexpected form 
 of flattery. Industrial autonomy, they have pointed 
 out, is of very dubious value if it be only another 
 name for the chartering of Capitalism ; nor will it 
 be worth much if it merely obliges the employer to 
 consult the opinion of his work-people without placing 
 him under the least obligation to pay any attention to 
 it . We shaU see later what detailed criticisms Guilds- 
 men have to make of the proposals of the Whitley 
 Report. Before dealing with future reconstruction, 
 we must say something of a preliminary problem 
 of restoration — the restoration of those Trade Union 
 rules and customs established by the workers in 
 their own defence after more than half a century 
 of struggle, and abandoned after a few weeks' 
 negotiations at the urgent entreaty of the Govern- 
 ment and in response to the appeal of patriotism. 
 
 The subject is very largely a technical one, but 
 some'thing much more than technicaUties is at stake. 
 What that is we shall see in a moment. Meanwhile 
 it is important to recall at the outset of any discussion 
 of the restoration of Trade Union rights how com- 
 plete and unqualified has been the Government's 
 pledge that tjhey shall be restored. Quotation is 
 unnecessary ; the fact is not disputed. The rights 
 were not surrendered ; they were not even bartered ; 
 
220 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 ' they were simply suspended for the duration of the 
 War, to be resumed at its close. It soon became 
 obvious, and indeed it might have been predicted, 
 that a hteral restoration would be no simple matter, 
 and might even prove impossible. -The enormous 
 stimulus provided by the War to the elaboration of 
 new processes and the introduction of new machines 
 has rendered quite inapphcable many of the provi- 
 sions relating to the manning of machines and the 
 allocation of various classes of work to different 
 grades of skUled and semi-skilled workers. More- 
 over, the effect of the War on industry has been to 
 hasten considerably a tendency already operating 
 before its outbreak to simphfy the highly skilled 
 processes, while there have at the same time been 
 discovered vast reserves of labour — ^especially female 
 labour — capable of being rapidly trained to opera- 
 tions generally beheved to, be beyond their capacity. 
 Naturally the employers were not slow to declare 
 that we could never go back to the old state of 
 things and restore customs which hampered the 
 enterprise of the workman, prevented free competi- 
 tion for a job, limited output, obstructed the 
 introduction of new machinery, put restrictions upon 
 " payment by results," and generally interfered 
 with the development and prosperity of "gis" 
 industries. ' 
 
 In face of this situation Labour grew bewildered 
 and alarmed. Instead of facing the whole matter 
 boldly and deciding what it reaUy regarded as 
 
 ■ \lt should be remembered, however (though it seldom is), that the 
 fact that women can manage to perform the tasks they have success- 
 fully undertaken in war-time does not necessarily prove that it is 
 desirable either for society or for themselves that they do so, nor does 
 it justify the continuance in normal times of a strain accepted or 
 imposed to meet an emergency, 
 
The Milage of Reconstruction 221 
 
 permanently valuable in the rights it had estabUshed 
 in the past and what it would be prepared to discard 
 in return for a satisfactory quid pro quo, it did 
 nothing but repeat its demand for the reiteration 
 of pledges of complete restoration from Government 
 spokesmen, who, conscioiis of hving from hand to 
 mouth, and conscious alsQ, perhaps, of a steady 
 decline in the " exchange value " of Government 
 pledges, gave the required assturances for the most 
 part cheerfully enough. One member of the 
 Administration, however, in referring^ to the matter, 
 let fall the somewhat mysterious remark that, though 
 of course it would be impossible for the Government 
 to keep its pledge in the letter, it would keep it in the 
 spirit ! Clearly this might mean anything or 
 nothing. 1 A possible interpretation was suggested 
 by the appearance in the Times in the winter of 1916 
 -of a series of articles by an anonymous author 
 on the subject of the restoration of Trade Union 
 conditions. Their style, no less than the proposals 
 they contained, swiftly betrayed an authorship which 
 was soon afterwards admitted when they appeared 
 in book form as the work of Mr. Sidney Webb. 
 
 The thesis therein laid down is as perilous as it 
 is characteristic of its author. Briefly stated, Mr. 
 Webb's proposal is to substitute for the Trade Union 
 conditions, which it is " impossible " to restore 
 substantially and " dangerous " to restore in a sham 
 
 1 It is to be noted that, although the Munitions Act of 191 5 
 ostensibly contains certain conditions compelling employers to restore 
 superseded Trade Union customs at the end of the War, there is good 
 reason for asserting that these provisfons are drafted in such a manner 
 as to be, from the legal point ot view, largely inoperative. See The 
 Munition Acts and Restoration, by G. D. H. Cole and H. If. Slesser 
 (Joint Committee on After Wi Problems, i Victoria St., London, S.W.). 
 
222 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 manner, a " settlement " of industry, guaranteed by 
 the State and proceeding from its initiative, that 
 will satisfy both parties and obviate " calamitous 
 industrial strife." Mr. Webb is tmder no illusions 
 as to the difficulties involved in scrapping conditions 
 which have been established with so much effort, 
 since, as he says, 
 
 Invidious as some of them might appear to persons 
 without the wage-earners' knowledge, they had been 
 found by experience, so it seemed to the men, to be 
 indispensable safeguards of the customary rate of wages 
 — necessary defences against a progressive degradation 
 of their standard of life. 
 
 But he proceeds to argue that the enormous revolu- 
 tion wrought by their suspension has been so 
 complete that their restoration wiU be impossible. 
 As we have said, the subject is largely a technical 
 one, and on its technical side the authors of this book 
 will not seek to give an opinion. There would seem, 
 however, to be good reason to regard Mr. Webb's 
 verdict on the matter with considerable suspicion. 
 In the first place, he advances no conclusive argu- 
 ments why restoration will be hteraUy impossible, 
 though he gives many to explain why he thinks it will 
 be difficult and undesirable. For instance, he says : 
 
 We may as well admit to ourselves straight away that 
 in face of so great a national loss [due to the decrease in 
 output which Mr. Webb assumes would result from the 
 restoration of the old conditions] and of the opposition 
 both of the employers and of the new classes of opera- 
 tives who would have to be turned out, together with 
 that of their sympathisers in other social circles, no 
 Government would insist on carrjdng out the pledge. 
 
The Iklirage of Reconstruction 223 
 
 and that, in spite of its plighted troth, no Government 
 will try. 
 
 The pressure of vested inter^ts is a strange justifica- 
 tion for perjury. Mr. Webb has not proved that it 
 will be impossible for the Government to keep its 
 word ; all he has done is to suggest that it may be 
 excused from doing so because it will be inconX^enient 
 and difficult to overcome the opposition of employers 
 and " dilutees " — neither of which classes, it must be 
 remembered, has any claim to be considered until 
 the nation's pledge has been redeemed. 
 
 Moreover, the suspicion that the wish not to see 
 Trade Union restrictions restored is father to Mr. 
 Webb's thought in the matter is increased by the 
 discovery that he does not approve of them.^ 
 Indeed, we may doubt whether he approves of 
 Trade Union interference at all where there is any 
 chance of insinuating in its stead the interference of 
 the Government official. In proportion as the 
 negative authority of Trade Unionism is weakened 
 does an opportunity occur for the strengthening of 
 an external authority — ^the State. Here is the 
 chance for a Fabian finger in the reconstruction pie, 
 and Mr. Webb, an industrial Canning, calls into 
 being the new world of bureaucracy to redress the 
 balance of the old. Apart from the fact that the 
 intervention of the State is far more Mkely to upset 
 the balance altogether in favour of the capitalist 
 than to redress it, the authority is an eJcternal 
 authority, and cannot in any way compensate for 
 
 ^^ See The Restoration of Trade Union Conditions, p. 31, and the 
 division there made between Trade Union activities " inspired by the 
 Eloctrine of Vested Interests and those inspired by the Doctrine of the 
 Common Rule." , 
 
224 The Meaning of National Giulds 
 
 the weakening of the essential democratic authority 
 of the Trade Unions. 
 
 Trade Union regulations are largely the basis of Trade 
 Union strength, and the visible confession of Trade Union 
 control in industry, and to these things there can be no 
 alternative. ^ 
 
 This is really the heart of the matter, and it is in 
 this light that Guildsmen must regard the whole 
 problem of Trade Union rules and their restoration. 
 They are not, we take it, greatly concerned with 
 these rules and restrictions for their own sake and 
 on their purely Trade Union merits. They recognise 
 them to be a natural outcome of the wage-system, 
 neither " right " nor " wrong " in themselves ; and 
 they should avoid the mistake of attaching an 
 exaggerated importance to every detail of these 
 customs, some of which may well prove to be stand- 
 ing in the way of the true development of Trade 
 Unionism. But the fact to which these customs 
 bear witness, and the principles on which they are 
 founded, are of immense consequence from the stand- 
 point of National Guilds, for — albeit in a stunted 
 and even a perverted form — ^they are the rudiments 
 of Guild control. They are a sign that the Trade 
 Union has got its foot into the doorway of manage- 
 ment, so that the capitaHst cannot impose the terms 
 of wage-slavery altogether unchecked. This position 
 is too precious to be surrendered for any State 
 guarantee of a servile security such as Mr. Webb 
 has put forward in place of the conditions it is so 
 " impossible " to restore. 
 
 ' G. D. H. Cole, Self-government in Industry, p. 70. The whole 
 chapter here referred to is valuable as a study of this subject, though we 
 think the author goes, if anything, too far in his emphasis on the need 
 for a complete restoration. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 225 
 
 We shall never liberate the worker by narrowing 
 the sphere of his authority. The Trade Unions 
 should only barter away their old customs of negative 
 interference for new rights of positive interference 
 and encroaching control. If they are once cajoled 
 by Mr. Webb, or any other reconstructor of wage- 
 slavery, into taking their foot out of the doorway 
 of management, the door will be slammed upon them 
 and bolted so well with the bars of State authority 
 that perhaps not even the crash of revolution will 
 bring it doAATi. 
 
 • We need not spend much time over Mr. Webb's 
 substitute for Trade Union interference, since he 
 himself says of the provisions of his " Charter of 
 Liberties " (Liberties, that is, taken by Mr. Webb 
 with the elementary rights of the worker) that 
 " every competent employer knows that none of 
 these . . . reduce by a single penny the margin 
 between cost and price, which is the employer's 
 profit."* After this we need not take the term 
 " Charter " very seriously, since it is clear that we 
 shall not find in it the only sort of emancipation 
 worth troubhng about. Moreover, we shall come 
 upon some of its details in a more elaborate form at 
 a later stage. One point, however, of the " Charter " 
 calls for mention — ^to secure which the employers 
 are to make those " concessions " the fraudulent 
 character of which Mr. Webb has himself betrayed. 
 It is, " No Limitation of Output."' If the worker 
 is secure in a job and in reception_of the standard 
 rate, benefits which the State has already secured 
 
 • Restoration of Trade Union Conditions, p. loi. 
 ' Limitation of output is not confined to Trade Unionists ; for its 
 practice by employers see Garion Memorandum, paras. 137. 138. 
 
226 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to him by earlier clauses of Mr. Webb's " Charter," 
 " the Government can legitimately ask " him to 
 give up all restrictions on output. Mr. Webb has 
 already explained' that the worker has no objection 
 to being " speeded-up " as long as he is not doing 
 others out of a job ; and as the State has promised 
 by section i of his " Charter " to keep everyone 
 employed somehow, the capitalist can hope to get 
 much more out of his hands than in the bad old days 
 of Trade Union rules. 
 
 It is significant that the State should thus be 
 caUed on to coerce the workers ; the phrase " legiti- 
 mately ask " can mean nothing less. The phrase is 
 repeated in connection with Mr. Webb's last point, 
 attractively served up tmder the title of " Freedom 
 for Every Worker." Will it be beheved that this 
 turns out to be freedom for every capitalist to hire 
 any worker he hkes in defiance of any outworn Trade 
 Union prejudices to the contrary ? Again the State 
 is invoked to effect this desirable transformation : 
 
 In return for these concessions [!] the Government may 
 fairly ask from the Trade Unions complete freedom for the 
 employer for engaging any sort of person whatever, for 
 any sort of work, complete freedom for any person to do 
 any task or carry out any process ; and complete freedom 
 for the introduction of any machinery or process. 
 
 The itaUcs are ours ; the sentiments are Mr. Webb's. 
 But the Trade Unions may " fairly ask " him what 
 the Government has got to do with the matter of Trade 
 Union rights, which are not derived from its sanction 
 and do not exist at its pleeisure. If they are to be 
 
 1 Op cit., "p. 70. 
 
The Milage of Reconstruction 227 
 
 abandoned, it must be only in exchange for some- 
 thing more positive, and not to assist the " complete 
 freedom for the employer " to do what he Hkes, about 
 which Mr. Webb seems so much concerned. 
 
 It is worth while remarking in this connection that 
 to talk of Trade Union rules as being mainly con- 
 ~cemed with the restriction of output is highly mis- 
 leading ; restriction, where it occurs, arises for the 
 most part spontaneously from the instinctive desire 
 of the worker to protect himself from "speeding-up," 
 the cutting of rates, and, unemployment, and is a 
 matter of custom rather than of regulation. That 
 there is good ground for these apprehensions even 
 the reconstructionists will often admit. For 
 instance, let us quote the Garton Memorandum^ : 
 
 The chief economic objection of the worker to the 
 introduction of labour-saving machinery arises from his 
 belief, unhappily founded on experience, that its im- 
 mediate effect is to lower his wages or deprive him of his 
 job. With some qualifications, this objection is well 
 founded. 
 
 And in later paragraphs the writers say : 
 
 The limitation of output by Labour arises partly from 
 the legitimate desire to restrict the hours of work in the 
 interest of health, education, family life, and enjoyment. 
 . . . Good work cannot be expected from men who are 
 ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, or feel that they derive 
 no advantage from increased production. 
 
 Whether either the workers or the community will 
 obtain the almost fabulous benefits commonly 
 associated nowadays with the dogma of " Increased 
 Production " is a moot point which we must leave 
 
 • Paras. loi, 139, 143. 
 
228 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 to be debated by the economists.* In any case 
 Labour, after its unparalleled exertions during the 
 War, will be in no mood to adopt a policy of " Kill 
 yourself to cure yourself." In any case, even if 
 increased production is to be the main goal of 
 industry after the War, long hours and the universal 
 adoption of overtime will not be the best way to 
 secure it.' A^horter working day is as prudent a 
 pohcy from an economic standpoint as it is impera- 
 tive from the point of view of the worker's welfare 
 and happiness ; a " six-hour day " has already been 
 advocated by so astute a capitahst as Lord Lever- 
 hulme. 
 
 There is, however, in the last analysis, no satis- 
 factory guarantee of efficient labour and uninter- 
 rupted output but democracy in industry. As long 
 as the workers are on the defence in a class-struggle, 
 unscrupulous methods on one side wiU provoke 
 reprisals on the others and the Trade Union hasiio 
 other weapon against the wage-system than com- 
 bination against the speeding-up of the average 
 
 ' Another point of view from that now so prevalent has been well 
 stated by Mr. A. J. Penty. He s^ys, for example : " Fabians and 
 capitalists appear to be agreed thatour one hope lies in increasing the 
 volume of production. . . What these wiseacres leave us in doubt 
 about is how this increased output of goods is to be disposed of. The 
 same people who advocate an increase of output also tell us that after 
 the War there will be a decreased purchasing power among the belli- 
 gerent nations. How they reconcile these conflicting ideas, and how 
 any wise statesmanship is to be based upon them, I am entirely at a 
 loss to understand. . . . The disease which has afflicted the modem 
 world is one which might be described as ' industrial gluttony ' ; and 
 just as the glutton, by reason of his greed, fails to benefit by the food 
 he eats, so a community which produces in excess of real needs (as ours 
 does) remains poor because its organs become incapable of assimilating 
 its produce." — Industrial Reconstruction, pp. 277, 278. 
 
 ' It- has been asserted with some show of reason that the war-time 
 strikes have not on the whole reduced output, owing to the increased 
 exertions of which the workers have proved capable after the unwonted 
 rests afforded by a few days' absence from the workshop. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 229 
 
 worker to the level of a few selected individuals. 
 Moreover, it is only by seeking to obtain a monopoly 
 of its labour that a Union can hope to maintain 
 wage-rates ; no State guarantee (even supposing that 
 the obtaining of favours by State intervention were 
 a satisfactory poMcy) could for long induce capital- 
 ists to conform to standards which they would 
 declare to be " economically unreasonable." With 
 a large reserve of available labour to draw upon, the 
 employers could defy even Mr. Webb himself to 
 make them pay rates which economic power did not 
 " justify." That all Trade Union restrictions are 
 conducive to the best interests of the community we 
 do not assert ; but, then, neither is the capitalist 
 system, which is the cause of them. In proportion 
 as that system is modified by the workers' achieve- 
 ment of genuine responsibility and freedom, "the 
 community — and even, for the moment, the employer 
 — ^wiU be better served. We have aheady seen, in 
 discussing the Collective Contract, how this may be 
 so ; it is along these Hues, and not by the adoption 
 of industrial militarism, that society may expect the 
 attainment of its own interests and the hberation of 
 Labour at the same time. 
 
 But industrial militarism is a solution seemingly 
 swifter and more simple, and certainly more natural, 
 to the governing class mind. " Scientific Manage- 
 ment," " Premium Bonus," " Increased Produc- 
 tion," and " a nation under orders " in workshop, 
 mine, and mill, is the alternative urged by the 
 apostles of capitalist efficiency to the ideal of Guild 
 control. Yet their wisest see that these things 
 cannot easily be imposed upon the workers until 
 
23P The Meauii^ of National Guilds 
 
 they have been " educated " into believing in them. 
 Mr. Ernest Benn, for instance, in his book Trade as a 
 Scie;nce, puts the matter quite plainly. He deplores 
 the " damage which is done by leaving Labour to 
 form its own opinion," but declares that whereas 
 
 The old-fashioned employer regards the Union as a 
 curse, as a matter of fact, if he only understood how to 
 handle it, it might weU be of the greatest advantage in 
 the development of trade. 
 
 But it is not every employer who is accomplished 
 in the deUcate art of " handling " Trade Unions ; 
 and in any case " the education of Labour in the 
 point of view of capital and commerce " is too 
 important a matter to be left to chance. It should 
 be a function of the Government. 
 
 The expenditure necessary . . . would probably be 
 found to be the most remunerative item in the cost of a 
 Ministry of Commerce. 
 
 Mr. Benn suggests further that 
 
 The work of the Labour Secretary and the Labour 
 Committee of a Trade Association [an organisation of 
 employers only, be it noted] woiild, in a general way, be 
 to watch over the interests of Labour and [our itaUcs] 
 keep in such close touch with Labour opinion as to see that 
 it was formed with due regard to the interests of Capital and 
 of the industry generally, 
 
 Mr. Benn, however, is nothing if not up to date, 
 and he is an enthusiastic supporter of industrial 
 autonomy. He argues very capably for the prin- 
 ciple, and proposes an interesting application of it 
 in his contribution to Industrial Reconstruction.'^ 
 
 » See pp. 73-8a of that volume. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 231 
 
 We take from there his concluding summary : 
 
 My demand is on behalf of the nation for the fullest 
 possible development of each industry. My argument 
 is that everyone engaged in that industry ought to be 
 .given the opportunity to take a hand in that develop- 
 ment. My theory is that this can only be done by the 
 introduction of the representative principle into each 
 trade, and the setting up of authorities for the study and 
 control of the whole trade. On these bodies Labour 
 should have an equal voice with Capital. 
 
 It is clear that we are not far from the proposals of 
 th^ Whitley Report ; and as these proposals incor- 
 porate the result of much previous suggestion and 
 speculation on the subject of Joint Councils, we 
 shall consider them as representing the most con- 
 structive, as they are certainly the most official, 
 programme in this respect, and deal with them in 
 accordance with their importance. 
 
 The suggestions of this now famous Report » have 
 been so often associated and even identified with 
 the aims and the programme of National Guilds 
 propaganda that it is necessary at the outset to 
 remove this misunderstanding. A typical instance 
 of such a confusiori was afforded by the notorious 
 series of articles on the " Ferment of Revolution " 
 which appeared in the Times. The writer, after 
 declaring that " within due limits we, too, are 
 prepared to trust Labour," proceeded in these 
 words : 
 
 * Interim Report of the Reconstruction on Joint Standing Industrial 
 Councils (Cd: 8606). The National Guilds League has published two 
 " White Papers," printed in facsimile of the Report, explaining care- 
 fully how the latter's objects and proposals differ from those of the 
 League and outlining its constructive alternative. These two publica- 
 tions {Observations and Notes for Trade Unionists) should be studied by 
 -every one interested in the proposals of the Report. 
 
232 The Meaning of National Giiilds 
 
 A special sympathy is due to the Whitley Report and 
 the practical measures now being taken to give it effect ; 
 for this scheme is in aU its essentials equivalent to the 
 scheme of National Guilds, and will give to the wage- 
 earner a long-overdue improvement in his status, making 
 him in principle a partner in industry, and not its drudge. 
 
 Our comment on this passage must be this : it is 
 exactly in its essentials that the Whitley Report is 
 not " equivalent " to the National Guild proposals, 
 since these demand not merely an improvement in 
 the status of the worker, but a complete alteration 
 of it ; the partnership which they propose is not a 
 junior partnership in profiteering, but a partnership 
 between the Guilds, representing industry, and the 
 State, representing all those common purposes of 
 the community which affect all its members equally 
 and in the same way. This distinction should help 
 to set us right ; if further doubt remains, it wiU 
 surely be removed by a consideration of the objects 
 of the Whitley Committee. These are stated as 
 follows : 
 
 (i) To make and consider suggestions for securing a 
 permanent improvement in the relation between em- 
 ployers and workmen. 
 
 (2) To recommend means of securing that industrial 
 conditions affecting the relations between employers and 
 workmen shall be systematically reviewed by those 
 concerned with a view to improving conditions in the 
 future. 
 
 Unless, therefore, the Report is drafted in such a 
 way as to disregard or misinterpret these objects, 
 it is clear that the result of the application of its 
 proposals will be to strengthen and to stereotype the 
 wage-system, not to undermine it. Guildsmen do 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 233 
 
 not seek to bring about an improvement in the 
 relations between Capital and Labom-, since they 
 believe those relations to be fundamentally evil ; 
 while, as for a " permanent improvement," this 
 can only come about by a surrender of the worker 
 to the purposes of profit and the acceptance of a 
 subordinate status in the pursuit of it. As for the 
 " systematic review " of the conditions of the wage- 
 system, we have every desire to see that task vigor- 
 ously undertaken by the Trade Unions, through 
 their District and Shop Committees no less than 
 through their National Executives. But we are of 
 opinion that they are more Hkely to achieve that 
 " Encroaching Control " on the importance of which 
 we have already insisted by formulating their 
 demands and negotiating about them in the usual 
 way than by trusting to secure it by accepting a 
 share in Councils which might only too often result in 
 becoming administrative organs of profiteering. 
 
 The general object of the Whitley Report, then, 
 is to provide a safety-valve for " Labour Unrest " 
 which wiU at the same time involve the acceptance 
 of the idea of a common interest between employers 
 and their workers, transcending minor differences 
 between them. How much truth there is in this 
 assumption we wiU examine in a moment. In the 
 meantime we may suggest certain further motives, 
 in harmony with the avowed objects to meet which 
 the Report was drawn up, and deriving naturally 
 from them — motives which must have been upper- 
 most in the minds of some of its signatories. One 
 of these motives is simple and natural enough : a 
 desire to prevent, or at least delay, the outbreak of 
 
234 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 strikes. Another is the anxiety to forestall the 
 rather vague demand of large sections of the workers 
 for a " share in control " by offering a version of 
 " control " which shall be compatible with Capital- 
 ism and even a useful buttress of it. No mention 
 is made in the Report either of the immediate 
 demands of the more resolute sections of the workers 
 for instalments of exclusive control by their own 
 associations, or of their ultimate goal of partnership 
 with the community. These are quietly ignored, 
 and a substitute put forward which is at the best 
 innocuous, and at the worst a grave peril to the 
 principles of industrial democracy. 
 
 The Whitley Report is a document more often 
 talked about than read. This is a pity, since 
 ignorance of what the Report actually does propose 
 may lead to much misunderstanding ; it is only 
 when it is closely studied that the significance of 
 many of its suggestions becomes apparent. A 
 casual reader might not notice, for instance, that 
 while. the workers' side of the proposed National 
 Industrial Councils and of the District Councils which 
 the National Councils may set up is exphcitly based 
 upon Trade Unionism — a decision which may 
 certainly count to the Whitley Committee for virtue 
 — this proviso is quietly abandoned when the works 
 unit is reached, and it is recommended that the 
 committees should be " representative of the 
 management and of the workers employed." Again, 
 a superficial knowledge of the Report has led many 
 persons to speak as if its proposals definitely pro- 
 vided for " joint control," whereas, though its 
 recommendations certainly propose that the Joint 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 235 
 
 Councils " meet at regular and frequent intervals," 
 not only is there no guarantee that the District 
 and Works Council (through which alone " joint 
 control " could be made effective, if at all) will ever 
 be set up, since this wiU only come about if the 
 National Councils so decide ; but, even if they are, 
 the matter of control need not necessarily be accepted 
 as one of the functions of the Councils. The Report 
 goes no further than to include, among the " appro- 
 priate matters " for the consideration of the Councils, 
 " means for securing to the work-people a greater 
 share in and responsibiUty for the determination 
 and observance of the conditions under which their 
 work is carried on." Far from making the attain- 
 ment of some share in control the object of the 
 Joint Councils, it only suggests tentatively that this 
 may be one of the " questions " with which they 
 might deal. 
 
 We would point out, then, that control is not 
 guaranteed to the workers, even in the form of 
 " joint control," by the proposals of the Whitley 
 Report. But let us suppose that the Councils, or 
 some of them, should decide to consider the " sharing 
 of control " by the " work-people " as " appropriate " 
 to their activities ; it remains to be discovered, not 
 merely whether the idea of " joint control " is 
 desirable, but whether it is in fact feasible at all. 
 Can the control of industry be actually shared by 
 Capital and Labour, acting together in a single 
 body? A little consideration will show that this 
 is impossible. Joint negotiation, even in the form 
 of Standing Joint Councils, is possible ; divided 
 control, by which Labour consents to take over 
 
236 The Meaning of National GKiilds 
 
 certain industrial tasks and consult with representa- 
 tives of Capital as to its performance of them, is also 
 possible. But "joint control," in any strict sense 
 of the phrase, is simply a myth — at once a fallacy 
 and fraud. 
 
 Labour cannot secure the control of industrial affairs 
 through the agency of a composite body. For such a 
 body must necessarily work in one of two ways : 
 
 (a) Either the Labour side of it will preserve an 
 attitude of complete independence, will regard 
 itself as in fundamental antagonism to the employers 
 on all questions regarding the status and condition 
 of the workers, and wiU conduct its business as ^ne 
 of negotiation, not as one of administration ; 
 
 (b) Or the Labour representation may capitulate, 
 accept the permanent overlordship of capital, and 
 devote itself only to securing the smooth working 
 of the industry in accordance with the desires of the 
 masters. 
 
 We hope that this second alternative is as unthinkable 
 as that the employers should capitulate and accept the 
 dominance of Labour. 
 
 But, leaving such possibilities aside, it is clear that 
 the Joint Councils and Joint Committees must on all 
 points — on questions of wages, of hours, of discipline, 
 of status — ^be composed of tWo ' sides with opposite 
 interests and opposite aims. These two sides may 
 negotiate ; they may bargain ; they may compromise. 
 But they cannot from the very fact of their inherent 
 antagonism control jointly. The very first essentials 
 of a controlling body is that its members shall have — 
 not, indeed, identical views — but a certain community 
 of purpose, and a certain identity of point of view.* 
 
 It may be objected that " joint control " is no part 
 of the VVhitley proposals, but rather a " share in 
 
 * Observations on the Whitley Report (National Guilds League) p. 4i 
 paras. 14-16. 
 
The Milage of Reconstruction 237 
 
 control," by which term is intended the suggestion 
 that the Joint Councils shall agree from time to time 
 to allocate certain tasks of industrial organisation 
 to the workers. As wUl be abundantly clear from 
 the previous chapter, we do not object to Labour's 
 encroaching, through its Trade Union machinery, 
 bit by bit upon the functions of Capitalism as long 
 as this policy is pursued with the fullest independence 
 and without prejudice to a future expulsion of the 
 iapitaUst from industry altogether. Indeed, this 
 doctrine of " Encroaching Control " seems to us to 
 be of the essence of Guild poHcy. But all depends 
 upon the spirit in which such experiments are made. 
 Encroaching control by Trade Unionism is one thing ; 
 capitalist devolution byemployers quite another. The 
 object of the former is the achievement of industrial 
 self-government by the workers at the expense of 
 profiteering ; the object of the latter is the conclusion 
 of a new industrial concordat confirming the wage- 
 system, by which Labour accepts a subordinate role 
 in the control of production, and is paid wages for 
 consenting to organise its discipline to that end. 
 This concordat is based not merely on the acceptance 
 of a perilous and false responsibiUty for inferior 
 tasks ; it implies the abandonment of any invasion of 
 capitalist privilege. It is intended to register the 
 attainment of an assumed equilibrium, not to signify 
 the promise of a further and unhmited advance. 
 
 This, then, is the essence of " joint control " — 
 it is the camouflage of Labour's capitulation to wage- 
 slavery. " Joint control " does not mean that at 
 every stage and in every department of industry the 
 workers are to be^ called on to co-operate with their 
 
238 The Meanii^ of National Ghiilds 
 
 employers in taking the initiative or even in the 
 making of decisions. We do not suggest that such 
 a co-operation would be satisfactory, based, as it 
 would necessarily be, on a caste division of society 
 and the maintenance of profiteering. But at least 
 it could fairly be represented as " joint control," and 
 would give some ground for the apology sometimes 
 made for the Whitley Report by its democratic 
 champions, that it introduces into industrial control 
 the authority of Labour, whiqh is bound, as a result, 
 sooner or later, to expel the authority of Capitalism. 
 But the Whitley proposals, by delimiting the 
 intervention of Labour strictly to the adjustment- 
 of the wage-system, do not menace but rather 
 strengthen and "sanctify the authority of Capitalism. 
 How true this is the reader can best estimate for 
 himself by glancing down the Ust of questions 
 suggested in paragraph 16 of the Report for the 
 consideration of the Coxmcils. Not one of them 
 entrenches on the wage-system ; most of them are 
 concerned directly with its regularisation. ^ Such 
 essential parts of industry as the purchase of raw 
 material and the putting of the finished product upon 
 the market are tacitly excluded from the Ust of 
 matters " appropriate " to the Coimcils. By many 
 reconstructionists they are in set terms ruled out as 
 far as Labour's " share in control " is concerned. 
 In Labour, Finance, and the War, a report drawn up 
 for the Economic Science section of the British 
 Association, the writers say roundly : 
 
 • It is well known that Mr. Malcolm Sparkes's scheme for Industrial 
 Parliaments formed the basis of the Whitley Report. "The Regularisa- 
 tion of Wages " was one of the subjects which Mr. Malcolm Sparkes 
 suggested that his projected "parliaments" would "naturally" 
 include in their agenda. 
 
 ■M:i 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 239 
 
 With such things as the marketing of products, Labour 
 is only indirettly concerned. . . . Those functions of 
 organisation which are concerned with bringing together 
 the different factors in production, determining the 
 proportions of these- factors in any enterprise, and 
 bringing the product to the consumers must remain in 
 the hands of the managers. 
 
 And the rest of the Report leaves no doubt that, in 
 the opinion of its authors, the managers must remain 
 in the hands of the profiteers. 
 
 " Joint control " we see, then, to be almost as 
 fraudulent eui idea in application as it is fallacious 
 in theory. An even more specious doctrine is 
 concealed beneath the word " responsibility," the 
 frequent appearance of which in connection with 
 schemes of reconstruction may be due to their 
 authors adopting the advice of the Times writer, 
 quoted earlier in the chapter, " to see whether some 
 use is not to be made " of the Guildsman's ideas. 
 It is true that the Guildsman has placed the idea of 
 responsibility for the Trade Unions in the forefront of 
 his propaganda. But their responsibility should be a 
 responsibility not for discipline to the capitalist, but 
 for service to the community. It may be admitted 
 that while Capitalisnii remains in economic control 
 the two may sometimes appear to coincide ; yet they 
 are essentially distinct. While Labour remains in 
 bondage to the wage-systeni as the raw material of 
 profit, true responsibility is impossible for it, since 
 its purposes and activities are dictated to it by 
 masters wholly exempt from its control and accepted 
 only under constraint. Responsibility without 
 choice is as impossible for a subject class as for a 
 subject people. - Labour, however, may — ^indeed, 
 
240 The Meaxtiug of National Guilds 
 
 it must — assume responsibility for an industrial 
 function which it completely controls. As it pushes 
 the doctrine of " Encroaching Control " further and 
 further into the sphere of production, and thus 
 entrenches upon the operation of the wage-system, 
 its responsibilities will become wider and heavier ; 
 nor must it be afraid to shoulder them. It must once 
 again be insisted that such responsibihties are not 
 owed nor can they be assumed in respect of Capital- 
 ism, not even under the specious claim of " the 
 prosperity of the industry." Prosperity for its own 
 sake is not Labour's business until its emancipation 
 from slavery to the purposes of profit has been 
 achieved. 
 
 We do not, of course, deny that the prosperity of 
 the industry is a matter of concern to the workers, 
 or that there may be matters on which co-operation 
 with employers is possible and useful. We venture 
 to quote once more from a publication of the 
 National GuUds League' that exactly expresses 
 our point of view on this matter : 
 
 We do not ignore the fact that the fundamental 
 antagonism of the interests of employers and workmen 
 does not prevent them from having in common certain 
 immediate interests which are not anti-social in character. 
 Such interests are concerned primarily with the pros- 
 perity of industry, especially in relation to technical 
 education, the progress of invention, and the upkeep of a 
 reserve of skilled labour in periods of slack trade. It is, 
 however, easy to see that too great insistence upon these 
 Umited and immediate common interests may readily 
 be used to obscure the fundamental antagonism, as well 
 
 • Notes for Trade Unionists on the Whitley Report, p. 6, paras. 17, 18. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 241 
 
 as to foster co-operation of an anti-social character to the 
 detriment of the public. , 
 
 While, therefore, we do not exclude co-operatiorf 
 between employers and Trade Unions in this limited 
 sphere, we are emphatically of opinion that such co- 
 operation requires to be most carefully limited and safe- 
 guarded. In no case should Labour co-operate unless 
 the Trade Union is admitted to an equal share in the 
 management of any joint organisation for technical 
 training, invention, or research ; and, should co-opera- 
 tion prove desirable in the matter of maintaining the 
 unemployed or under-employed, the method should be 
 that of an unconditional subsidy to Trade Union, 
 unemployment funds to be administered entirely by the 
 Trade Unions themselves.^ 
 
 We may seem to have wandered somewhat from 
 the proposals of the Whitley Report ; but it is 
 impossible to arrive at a clear and consistent attitude 
 towards those proposals unless we are first clear and 
 consistent in regard to the principles from which we 
 approach them. In general, we should lay down 
 two conditions as essential in formulating a practical 
 policy in relation to the Whitley proposals. First, 
 that Labour should enter no Joint Council with 
 Capital, save on the definite understanding that no 
 fusion of interests between the two is possible. It 
 is essential, therefore, that Labour representatives 
 entering such Councils " should maintain a complete 
 independence, that they should feel themselves to 
 be delegates negotiating, not administrators co- 
 operating." It follows, in our view, that these 
 Councils should be regarded rather as a development 
 of machinery for negotiation than as permanent 
 administrative organs of industry ; and to a large 
 extent our treatment of negotiation in the previous 
 
 1 See below, chapter ix., pp. 420-430. 
 
 R 
 
zif2r The Meaning of National Ghiilds 
 
 chapter' would apply to the Joint Councils, should 
 they be established. Certain special safeguards, 
 however, should be insisted on. The Labour repre- 
 sentation on ttip Councils should on aU occasions 
 meet separately to prepare its agenda and formulate 
 its poUcy. It should elect its own chairman and 
 secretary, and insist upon its right to place any 
 matter upon the agenda which it may desire to see 
 dealt Asdth. Above all, there must be no intervention 
 from outside by " impartial persons," whether State 
 representatives or otherwise. 
 
 The second condition which we regard as essential 
 is that if Joint Councils aie to be set up, it should only 
 be in industries where Labour is organised to present 
 at least a comparatively imited front. It would 
 perhaps be too much to demand that the workers in 
 any indutstry should refrain altogether from entering 
 into such a Council until they had achieved complete 
 Industrial Unionism. Nevertheless, the existence 
 of an Industrial Union does undoubtedly justify 
 Labour's entering into experiments which, until such 
 an organisation is achieved, may prove disastrous. 
 For it is not difficult to see how easily these Councils 
 might be used by a united body of employers to 
 divide the workers and play off one sectional 
 organisation against another, especially when rivalry 
 between them is aheady strong. A Whitley Council 
 in the engineering industry, for instance, might well 
 s^ve to obscure altogether the fundamental antag- 
 onism between Capital and Labour by accentuating 
 the antagonism between the Amalgamated Society 
 of Engineers and the smaller Craft Unions. Before 
 the workers in any industry can safely consent to 
 
 ' See above, pp. 169-171. 
 
!Ehe Mirage of tleconsiructioii 243 
 
 form part of any joint body in which to press forward 
 their differences with their masters, they have first 
 to settle their own. Thus, for example, what may be 
 possible for workers in the mines, on the railways, 
 and in the iron and steel trades, owing to the superior 
 organisation which they have achieved, must needs 
 be more da.ngerous for workers in the textile and 
 printing industries, and can only be disastrous as 
 things at present stand for workers in engineering, 
 shipbuilding, and waterside transport. We are cer- 
 tainly not saying that the achievement of Industrial 
 Unionism in itself necessarily j ustifies Labour entering 
 into Joint Councils with the employers ; many other 
 considerations have to be taken into account before 
 so important a decision should be made. We assert, 
 however, that a vital consideration in the matter is 
 the degree of unity with which Labour will face the 
 employers on the Joint Councils, in the works and 
 in the district no less than in the national body. 
 
 It wiU be obvious by this time how great are the 
 perils that lurk in the proposals, and still more in the 
 assumptions, of the Whitley Report, and with how 
 much wariness Labour should approach them. 
 Official Labour has been rather bewildered by the 
 Report, and almost as dazzled by the prospect of 
 representation in an " Industrial Parliament " as it 
 has been by membership, of a political one. But the 
 more clear-headed and stout-hearted sections of the 
 workers have already grasped the essentials of the 
 situation to which the Whitley proposals have given 
 rise. At the Shop Stewards' Conference which met 
 in Deceinber, 1917, the chairman of that important, 
 albeit unofficial, body spoke as foUows : 
 
244 The Meaning of National Gtulds 
 
 The Report, I must point out, reveals an outlook which 
 is in fundamental opposition to your own. Its outlook 
 I can best describe as static, accepting the present 
 economic relationship of the respective classes as penna- 
 nent. Our outlook of necessity must be dynamic, 
 regarding the present situation as temporary, deeming 
 all innovations of value in so far as they help towards a 
 iundamental change in the economic relationships of the 
 classes in society. 
 
 The question, then, is how far the Whitley 
 proposals can be made to help towards this " funda- 
 mental change." In this connection we must 
 recognise how grave is the danger of the workers, 
 through joint action with their employers^Kff, 
 more accurately, through complicity in the action 
 decided upon by their employers — ^becoming infected 
 with the very spirit and outlook of profiteering, 
 against which their movement has, up to the present, 
 been essentially a protest. The very fact that the 
 Councils are invited to concern themselves largely 
 with the adjustment of piece-work prices and with 
 the " need for securing to the work-people a share 
 in the increased prosperity of the industry," gives 
 ground for the fear that in this way, along with the 
 bribes (fallacious though they may be) of " Premium 
 Bonus " and other forms of appeal to the cupidity 
 of the individual wage-earner, the worker may be 
 seduced from his wavering allegiance to the ideals 
 of service and emancipation into a surrender to the 
 forces of Profit. There is the further danger, 
 aheady touched on at the opening of oiu: previous 
 chapter, that the Councils may inveigle the workers 
 into a subordinate share in those National Trusts 
 which are an alternative, as obvious as perilous, to 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 245 
 
 the National Guilds in which the workers' emancipa- 
 tion must be sought and preserved. There would 
 be plenty of opportunity for schemes to be hatched 
 between employers and Trade Unionists as anti- 
 social as any that could be attributed to Syndicalism, • 
 if the Trade Unionists entering the Councils did so 
 in a spirit of friendly co-operation with Capitalism. 
 Nor are we reassured by the suggestion somewhat 
 vaguely made in the Whitley Report that the 
 State (which " never parts with its inherent over- 
 riding power ") could, and should, intervene to 
 prevent such anti-social schemes. We have already 
 given our recisons for doubting the credentials of 
 the State of to-day as an impartial authority, and 
 we have no wish to see compulsory arbitration thus 
 introduced by a side-wind. 
 
 In addition to these major dangers, there are 
 some minor ones involved in the adoption of the 
 Whitley proposals, which are, however, serious 
 enough to demand that they should be taken iato 
 accoimt. There is, for instance, the difficulty of 
 deciding how the of&cials of Capitalism, the foremen 
 and under-managers, are to be fitted into the 
 scheme. Are they to appear at the Council table 
 side by side with the employers, and as their direct 
 representatives ? No other course would seem to be 
 open, since it would be next to impossible to discuss 
 questions of discipline and organisation — ^in "a 
 Works Council at any rate — unless they were present 
 
 * Tariff and price agreements offer two obvious examples of subjects 
 for such schemes. It is worth noting, moreover, that these agree- 
 ments might involve the Councils, and therefore the Trade Unions 
 connected with them, in confficts not only with the general public, but 
 with other Unions — a conflict to be at all times most carefully guarded 
 against. 
 
246 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 and could be interpellated by the workers' represen- 
 tatives, while, if they appeared, it could only be as 
 the. watchdogs of CapitaUsm. But the stereotyping 
 of castes among those who are, after aU, aUke in 
 being exploited as the hirelings of Profit, is a very 
 mistaken poHcy for Labour, and any step towards 
 it is an unfortunate one. If those whom we have 
 called the N.C.O.'s of CapitaHsm find themselves 
 continually ranged with their masters in opposition 
 to the workers' spokesmen on the other side of the 
 table,, it will become appreciably more difficult for 
 Laboior to win tKem to their true allegiance. 
 
 Another danger foreseen by some opponents of 
 the Whitley proposals is that Labour representatives, 
 becoming involved in permanent Joint Councils with 
 the employers, will find themselves outmatched and 
 outmanoeuvred by the superior adroitness and 
 more subtle intelligence of Capital. Mrs. Sidney 
 Webb, for instance in a lecture on " The Proposed 
 Organisation of Employers in State-aided Associa- 
 tions " deUvered to a Fabiai Research Department 
 audience in February, 1917 was reported to have 
 said that " the Trade Union leaders had not brains 
 enough to maintain their authority on Joint Boards." 
 She wrote immediately to disclaim " the implication 
 that individual Trade Union leaders have not 
 sufficient brains," and declared that the true meaning 
 of what she had sought to convey was that 
 
 The Trade Unions, as at present constituted, did not 
 provide a sufficient number of brain-Workers to under- 
 take this new task of helping the capitalists to administer 
 a trustified industrial organisation without seriously" 
 impairing Trade Union organisation.^ 
 
 I See the Herald, February 24th, 1917. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 247 
 
 But this version of Mrs. Webb's remarks is really 
 beside the point, as far at any rate as Guildsmen 
 are concerned, since they would never admit that 
 the administration of a " trustified industrial 
 organisation " covdd possibly be a legitimate function 
 of Trade Unionism. Nor does the question whether 
 Trade Union representatives would have " brains 
 enough " state the problem accurately, since the 
 doubt arises, not whether they would have enough 
 brains, but whether those brains would be of the 
 right type to protect Labour from being outwitted 
 by brains, not perhaps superior, but only more 
 practised, more ingenious, and — possibly — more 
 unscrupiilous. Indeed, it is doubtful whether the 
 problem can be expressed in terms of brains at all. 
 It is rather a question of " atmosphere " and of 
 morale. Is the morale of Labour's representatives 
 likely to be proof against the atmosphere, not merely 
 of profiteering, but of governing-class prerogative ? 
 The analogy of politics — admittedly incomplete — 
 is, at least, not encouraging. The experience of 
 negotiation machinery, it may be said, shows that, 
 in the industrial sphere at any rate, the Labour 
 spokesman can be trusted to keep his end up. Even 
 if this were completely true, it does Hot follow that 
 a man who is a sound judge of a definite issue with 
 the merits of which he is well acquainted can be 
 equally rehed on for good judgment of matters 
 concerning which both he and those to whom he 
 is accountable know very little. A passive and 
 muddle-headed assent by Labour to the projects 
 of its masters may be of great moral value to 
 Capitalism. Ambition to figure prominently as an 
 
248 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 industrial Parliamentarian may drive the Labour 
 leader into courses disastrous to the independence 
 of the workers. 
 
 We have indicated at some length the dangers 
 involved in the establishment of Whitley Councils ; 
 nor have we exhausted the hst, for there would be'no 
 difficulty in suggesting more. But though the Guilds- 
 man should decide, as well he may, that the perils 
 of the Whitley proposals outweigh their advantages, 
 and that the difficulties involved ia their application 
 neutralise the opportunities they offer, it is of no use 
 for him merely to wash his hands of the matter in 
 disgust or to wring them in impotent despair. He 
 must rather seek to exploit the situation, even 
 though he cannot command it. Two facts have got 
 to be reckoned with : Joint Councils are already in 
 some instances being set up, and, secondly, the 
 promotion of such Councils wherever possible is 
 now the official policy of the Government. The 
 first body definitely inspired by the Whitley Report 
 has been estabUshed in the pottery trade,' and is 
 distinctly ambitious in the scope of its proposed 
 activities. While its genertd object is, as might be 
 expected, the exemplary one of " the advancement 
 of the industry as a whole," its agenda wiU include 
 the technical education of apprentices, the condi- 
 tions and health of the workers engaged in the 
 industry, the regulation of production in correspond- 
 ence with the market, and the representation of 
 the industry on any local and industrial Councils 
 that may be formed.' Such a programme — and 
 
 1 A similar body has for some months been in contemplation in the 
 building industry, and its establishment may be expected shortly. 
 " The most remarkable of this body's specific objects calls for literal 
 
The Mirage of Beconstraction 249 
 
 we have quoted only its leading features — offers 
 undoubted opportunities to the workers concerned 
 to invade spheres of control hitherto closed to them. 
 Giuldsmen must not fail to point out that the 
 principal concern of Trade Unionism is not with the 
 " industry," but with the Guild which must control 
 it. The industry to-day does not belong to the 
 ■ workers engaged in it, nor even they to it ; it belongs 
 to its capitahst proprietors, as do the workers also, 
 along with the rest of the raw material and plant 
 which it represents. This scheme should enable 
 the pottery workers to control their own labour ; it 
 does not help them to control Capital, and it may 
 even bind them to the morals and purposes of 
 Capital more closely. It may do so — ^but it need 
 not, if Labour in this and every other instance 
 enters the Council resolved to seek its inheritance 
 and not its ease. 
 
 The Whitley proposals, then, are no longer merely 
 in the air ; they are coming down to earth and taking 
 shape under the distinguished patronage of the 
 State itself. " Bless you, my children," says the 
 Government in effect to Capital and Labour, the 
 objects of its busy match-making, adftionishing the 
 one to cherish and comfort, and the other to love, 
 honour, and obey. An essential part of the cere- 
 mony has been omitted, however ; Capital is not 
 enjoined to promise to its partner that " with all my 
 worldly goods I thee endow." The omission is fatal 
 
 quotation : " To assist the respective associations in the maintenance 
 of such selling prices as will afiord a reasonable remuneration to both 
 employer and employed." Apart from the acceptance of the wage- 
 system therein implied, the danger to the public interest involved in 
 this proposal is obvious. 
 
250 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to the honour and the happiness of the match, and 
 even the match-maker may Uve to regret it. For, as 
 the New Age has well pointed out, • the adoption of 
 the Whitley Report " represents a fresh triumph 
 of Capitahsm over both Labour and the State." 
 
 Under the Whitley scheme Capitalism has a double 
 defence. It might be represented as Capital supported 
 by the State and Labour rampant. In any dispute 
 between Labour and Capital, Capital will appeal to the 
 State for support. In any dispute between the State 
 and Capital, Capital wUl appeal for support to Labour. 
 Capital, in short, has compromised between the devil 
 and the deep sea by ensuring itself the support of either 
 against the other. 
 
 The suggestion is ingenious, and the capitalist 
 himself may not yet be conscious of its possibilities. 
 But it is important that Guildsmen should be aUve 
 to them, and press upon Labour more urgently than 
 ever the truth of the only social partnership at once 
 safe and honourable — ^the co-operation of the 
 democratic Guild with the democratic State. 
 
 In the meantime the Whitley Report has raised 
 in a new form the problem of how the workers 
 should stand in relation to the far from democratic 
 State of to-day. Should the employees in the 
 pubHc services consent to enter into Joint Coimcils 
 with their bureaucratic masters ? Or, to put the 
 question in a more practical form, shotild they 
 demand that such Councils, which have been so 
 urgently advocated by the Government where 
 profiteering industries are concerned, should be 
 established by the State itself, so that its employees 
 
 •See " Notes of the Week," November ist, 1917. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstniction 251 
 
 may enjoy their benefits, and private enterprise 
 profit by the spectacle? The postal workers' 
 have not been slow to remind the Government that 
 example is better than precept and an ounce of 
 practice worth a ton of theory. If it is essential to 
 offer to the employees of Capitalism proposals 
 which wiU " involve the enlistment of their active 
 and continuous co-operation in the promotion of 
 industry," may not those who work primarily for 
 the service of the community and not the enrichment 
 of shareholders hope for at least equal opportunities? 
 The inquiry was natural, and it has not been 
 confined to postal workers. It has been made in 
 varying forms by many branches of the Civil 
 Service. " In one case an appUcation was made to 
 the Treasury to have the Whitley proposals extended 
 to a certain Department. The reply was a refusal 
 on the ground that the " Civil Service is not an 
 industry." There is a certain haughty dignity in 
 the plea, but it caimot be said to-be conclusive. In 
 fact, it suggests exactly the reason why Joint 
 Councils have a special claim on the attention and 
 the interest of State employees : the element of 
 profiteering is absent, and the greatest danger 
 involved in the Whitley proposals is therefore absent 
 also. The point is well put in a pamphlet of the 
 National Guilds League already referred to' : 
 
 1 See the debate on the Post Office Estimates for 1917. A most 
 interesting scheme for the apphcation of " joint control " to the Post 
 Office, elaborated by Mr. A. E. Zimmem, appears in the volume of 
 Ruskin College Lectures, entitled The Reorganisation of Industry, and 
 is also printed as an appendix to the Garton Memoraridum. 
 
 ' See, for instance, the Customs Journal for December ist, where the 
 demand is made for the application of the Whitley Report to the 
 Waterguard and the Customs Jind Excise Department. 
 
 » Notes for Trade Unionists on the Whitley Report, p. 7, paras 26, 27. 
 
252 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 The fundamental -antagonism between employers and 
 employed offers an insuperable barrier to any " joint 
 control " of industry by them. The employers' motive 
 of profit-making is fundamentally inconsistent with the 
 Labour motive of commtinal service in a democratic 
 society, based on emancipation from the wage-system. 
 
 The position is not the same in services which are 
 pubhcly owned and administered, whether by the State 
 or by a local authority. Although these services are run 
 at present mainly upon capitalist hues, we beheve that 
 to some extent joint administration by the State and 
 Trade Unions is possible even to-day as a transitional 
 stage. In all pubUcly owned services we therefore urge 
 the Trade Unions to press at once for equal representa- 
 tion upon aU bodies, local and national, which are at 
 present in control of administration, or for the creation 
 of administrative bodies upon which Labour is equally 
 represented. 
 
 While we may agree broadly that it is essentially 
 sound for those who are in the State service to strive 
 for the transfonnation of that service from a bureau- 
 cratic autocracy into a democratic partnership, 
 " joint control " has its difficulties and its dangers 
 in public as in private employmeht. It is not easy, 
 for instance, in the case of a public service to say who 
 exactly is the " employer " ; or rather, it is not easy, 
 in the transition from the bureaucratic Department 
 to the civil Guild, to frame machinery of such a kind 
 that the essentials of the situation will not be 
 obscured and evils created worse than those it is 
 sought to remedy. For the higher grades of the 
 Civil Service are in no sense the employers, though 
 they may regard themselves as the superiors of the 
 lower grades ; that sundering and stereotyping of 
 castes which we have already seen to be a danger of 
 
The Mirage of Beconstmctiou 253 
 
 Joint Councils established in private industries 
 would be especially deplorable in the pubHc service, 
 where, for all their differences and jealousies, the 
 various grades have been accustomed to regard 
 themselves not as master and man, but as sharing 
 in a common service. The Whitley Report has 
 valuable morals for the State employee, and especially 
 perhaps for the postal worker ; but even here the 
 maxim of " Encroaching Control " is the only safe 
 one, and no Joint Council can be a substitute or a 
 whoUy reliable forerunner of the responsible and 
 self-governing Guild. 
 
 There is one class of workers, however, for whom 
 the Whitley Report has a special significance, and 
 they are the employees in those industries, now 
 " State-controlled," but clearly ripe for national 
 ownership, such a3 the mines and the railways. It 
 happens that the Trade Unionists in these industries 
 are already a step nearer the Guilds than their 
 fellows, since they have attained substantially the 
 Industrial Unionist structure which is a necessary 
 stage on the way. It behoves them, then, to be 
 extremely wary of the nature of the partnership 
 which they seek, and though, as we have pointed out, 
 the dangers attending their entrance to a Joint 
 Council with their capitaHst employers would be less 
 than would arise in the case of industries not so 
 well-organised and united, nevertheless there lies 
 open to them a more excellent way. Let them press 
 forward^ urgently the demand for control, and 
 translate it everywhere into practical schemes ; but 
 let them couple it with a demand for immediate and 
 complete pubKc ownership ! Guildsmen have often 
 
254 ^e nleacdng of National Guilds 
 
 urged the workers to accept nationalisation only if 
 it is accompanied by extensive grants of control. 
 But the time has come when miners and railwajrmen 
 should consider whether they may not make the 
 price of their acceptance of that joint co-operation 
 to which by the Whitley proposals they are tenta- 
 tively invited the eMmination of private profiteering 
 from the essential services of the country. Nothing 
 could be more public-spirited than to couple a 
 demand for responsibility for themselves with a 
 demand for the creation of a public service for the 
 nation ; we hope that the Miners' Federation and 
 the National Union of Railwajonen will be alive to 
 their opportunity to offer an example simultaneously 
 to Labour and to the pubhc. 
 
 Whatever advances Labour may hope to make 
 through a judicious handUng of the Whitley pro- 
 posals, these advances must be looked for at the bas& 
 of the industrial structure, not at its summit. It is 
 one of the gravest defects of the Report that it starts 
 from the wrong end ; it concentrates on the National 
 Council and tends to ignore the essential unit of the 
 workshop. Indeed, no definite reference to the 
 workshop, as opposed to the works, is to be found in 
 the Report. As regards Works Councils, we have 
 already pointed out that, these are only to be set up 
 if the Councils above them so decide, and that, even 
 when they are, the workers' side is not to be based 
 explicitly on Trade Unionism.' These defects are 
 damning to the Whitley proposals from the stand- 
 point of industrial democracy, which cannot tolerate 
 that it should be ignored by leaders or betrayed by 
 blacklegs. We have said enough in the previous 
 
The Mirage o£ Reconstruction 255 
 
 chapter to show how vital is the need for a policy of 
 " Encroaching Control " beginning in the workshop, 
 but there is one proviso on which it is necessary to 
 insist, namely, that no arrangement should be come to 
 in a works which falls below the national or district 
 standard of the Trade Union concerned. ' To guard 
 against this danger it is' essential that the Shop 
 Stewards movement, the significance of which has 
 been already explained, should be brought into 
 harmony with the established activities of Trade 
 Unionism, which can only be done by estabhshing 
 the workshop as the unit of organisation and develop- 
 ing a closer connection between the district officials 
 of the Union and the shop stewards directly appointed 
 by the men in the shop. In engineering, at any rate, 
 these changes are far more urgent than any premature 
 experiments in " joint control." 
 
 At the end of our survey of Reconstruction — 
 incomplete necessarily, but not, we hope, superficial 
 — we are forced back upon the conclusion that, 
 before the workers can hope to gain much from the 
 reconstruction of industry, they must put their hand 
 to the reconstruction of the structure and the policy 
 
 ' The verdict of a well-known Trade Union leader, Mr. Fred Bramley, 
 of tiie Furnishing Trades Association, is interesting in this connection. 
 In. a message to a conference held on the Whitley Report in relation to 
 Workshop Committees, he said that, while he was in favoiu- of giving 
 power to direct representatives from the shops in the direction of 
 dealing with shop management apart from general questions of hours 
 and wages, he was entirely opposed to shop agreements affecting the 
 working week, overtime rules, or standard wages or piece-work rates. 
 Bearing in mind the non-Union form, he held that it was exceedingly 
 dangerous to substitute shop bargaiuing for collective bargaining and 
 to give any employer the opportunity of making a^eements with his 
 own employees. He mentioned that^is own Association had learned 
 from over fifty years' experience the importance of this point. His 
 advice to Trade Unionists was : " Be democratic, but be careful." 
 
256 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 of Trade Unionism. "No, ambitious political pro- 
 gramme, no statesmanlike report on Reconstruction, 
 can suffice as a substitute for this essential task. In 
 a recent report submitted to the Labour Party 
 Congress for 1918 ^ we find, after a repetition of the 
 ancient homage to the servile superstition of a 
 National Minimum, a section headed impressively 
 the " Democratic Control of Industry." Unlike the 
 Conservative and Liberal Parties, we are told, the 
 " Labour Party insists on democracy in industry as 
 well as in government." We can only say that there 
 is precious Httle evidence of it in this report. 
 Throughout the half-dozen pages which deal with this 
 subject, though there is, much talk of Nationalisa- 
 tion, Municipahsation, State Purchase, and- even 
 " Temperance -Reform," Trade Unionism is not once 
 referred to ; the only sop thrown to the actual pro- 
 ducers is to be found in a couple of parenthetical 
 references to a " steadily increasing participation 
 of the organised worker in the management of 
 nationalised industries." 
 
 It is (the Labour Party holds) just as much the func- 
 tion of Government and just as necessary a part of the 
 democratic regulation of industry to safeguard the 
 interests of the community as a whole, and those of all 
 grades and sections of the private consumer in the 
 matter of power, as it is for the Factory and Trade 
 Boards Acts, to protect the rights of the wage-earning 
 producer in the matter of wages, hours of labour, and 
 sanitation. 
 
 If in truth the " Labour Party holds " nothing more 
 
 » Labour and the New Social Order, a Draft Report on Reconstruction 
 prepared by a Sub-Committee of the Executive for the consideration oi 
 the Party. 
 
The Mirage of Reconstruction 257 
 
 spirited than this as a programme of emancipation, 
 the " Democratic Regulation of Industry " will not 
 make much difference to the wage-slave at the pit- 
 head, on the railway, or in the workshop. The 
 " New Social Order," for all its magic capital 
 letters, seems strangely reminiscent of the bureau- 
 cratic Utopias of nineteenth-century Fabianism. 
 
 If we turn from the reconstruction of Labourism 
 to the reconstruction of Capitalism, we find not only 
 clearer aims and more audacious poHcies, but the 
 rapid creation of organisations capable of realising 
 them. The employers are in far less doubt than the 
 workers as to their proper place in society and how 
 they mean to attain it. State aid and State 
 guarantees, control over legislation, and complete 
 authority over Labour— these are the goals of 
 Capitalism, and means to reach them are not wanting. 
 We are not referring merely to the Tftists and Com- 
 bines that are becoming more and more a feature of 
 British industry, which has been so wont to boast 
 its innocence of them. It is the controlhng and co- 
 ordinating organisations, the Federation of British 
 Industries, the Employers ParUamentary Associa- 
 tion, the National Employers' Federation, and the 
 all-powerful associations of employers in the mining, 
 engineering, shipbuilding, and textile industries, 
 which supply the most powerful and significant 
 evidence of Capital's influence and initiative. It 
 is no part of the purpose of this book to give an 
 account of the aims and activities of these bodies. 
 But they offer a striking example of organised will 
 and conscious purpose from which Labour, if it is 
 to combat them successfully, has much to leam.^ 
 
 s 
 
258 The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 It may be objected that in seeming to throw the 
 responsibility for the emancipation of Labour so 
 completely on the workers we are underestimating 
 both the goodwill and the capacity of employer 'and 
 State ahke to assist in the true reconstruction of a 
 free and noble social order. Employers, we may be 
 told, are often sincei'e in their desire for such a real 
 reconstruction ; if they act as t3Tants, it is agaiast 
 their true nature ; if they flourish as profiteers, it is 
 against their will. The State, again it may be said, 
 is at bottom an organ of social justice, seeking on the 
 whole the common good. Since these things are so, 
 are we not short-sighted in refusing their aid and 
 precipitating a struggle which may engulf us all ? 
 
 It may be hoped that, for those readers who have 
 followed thus far the argument of the book, the 
 pathetic eagerness and transparent sincerity of such 
 questions as these will not obscure the fallacies and 
 misapprehensions concealed in them. Guildsmen 
 would be the last to assert that the Government of 
 the country or the activities of any of its citizens 
 are powerless to help forward the great changes by 
 which freedom in the Guild may come to replace 
 slavery in the wage-system. Let the State set its 
 face against the exploitation of the workers, support 
 everything that is a challenge to it, and set about to 
 create and foster social bodies based on the repudia- 
 tion of profiteering and the development in its place 
 of responsible self-government for all concerned! 
 Let the employer divest himself as quickly as may 
 be of his role of profiteer, set before his workers 
 clearly and courageously the ideal of the Guild, and 
 prepare them, by the grant of rapid and complete 
 
The Milage of Reconstniction 259 
 
 instalments of control, for its final realisation ! Let 
 the man or woman who is in no direct way concerned 
 with industry apply his time and his talents to the 
 understanding of the Issues which are at stake, and 
 seek by every means to frustrate the peril of a con- 
 firmed slavery and to help the Trade Unions to 
 realise their true destiny and to achieve it ! Thus 
 could the whole nation point the way to freedom, 
 and cut down the weeds and tangled barriers that 
 choke the path to* National Guilds. 
 
 Alas ! it is only necessary to state these possibili- 
 ties to perceive the folly of building high hopes upon 
 them. But even if all these efforts were exerted 
 to the fuU, it remains true that for the realisation of 
 the Guild idea there is one thing needful above all — 
 the exercise of initiative by the workers themselves. 
 Freedom can be stimulated ; it cannot be imposed. 
 The Guild can be fostered by ns all ; but it is by the 
 workers that it must be built. Its building will 
 mean a struggle, for it must perforce arise in opposi- 
 tion to the great power and interests of our time. 
 In the next chapter we shall trace the stages through 
 which the struggle may pass if the worker be not 
 vanquished in the course of it. But here let it be 
 said of that essential conflict of interests and ideals 
 known as the class-struggle that we do not " pre- 
 cipitate " it bedSuse we are frank in recognising the 
 plain fact of its existence. The shirking of that 
 plain fact can be excused by lack of intelligence ; it 
 can be explained by lack of courage ; but otherwise 
 there can be no escape from it. " I am the bread," 
 says a Hindoo proverb, "thou art the eater : how shall 
 we agree ? " Even so might the worker address the 
 
26o The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 profiteer who buys his labour and commands his life. 
 What hope can we have, then, that the employer 
 will lead the way to the Guild, in which he will but 
 share a power and a prospeiity he has been accus- 
 tomed to enjoy unchecked ? He may be caught for 
 a moment by the glamour of the Guild ideal ; but 
 when he perceives its challenge, he \vill turn away 
 sorrowful, having great possessions. Even if he 
 really embraces a policy so fatal to his interests and 
 so hostile to all the creeds and traditions of his class, 
 his opportunities may be few and his difficulties 
 enormous. Employers are seldom in supreme 
 control ; their fellow directors have to be considered, 
 their managers cpnsulted, and, moreover, they must, 
 in the majority of cases, " have regard to -the 
 interests of their shareholders." Bat if aU these 
 obstacles are overcome by a courageous capitalist, 
 his will may find a way to help his workers to their 
 emancipation. He may co-operate actively with 
 the Trade Union or Unions catering for his employees, 
 inviting the assistance of their shop committees in 
 every decision taken in the works, throwing respon- 
 sibility on them for every true function of industry 
 (as opposed to profiteering) as soon as they are 
 ready to accept it, handing over to them altogether 
 such experiments as " Welfare Work," smoothing 
 the way to every means by which his transition from 
 profiteer to servant of the Guild was Hkely to be 
 hastened. It may be objected that in doing so he 
 wiU be risking the prosperity of the business by 
 granting power to inexperience. A skilful devolu- 
 tion in the hands of a capable and democratic 
 employer could probably be carried out in such a 
 
The Milage of Reconstniction 261 
 
 way as to avoid this to any serious extent ; in any 
 case, there is a sense in which self-government, 
 in industry no less than in poUtits, is to be preferred 
 to good government. Despite difficulties on the 
 way, a point might eventually be reached when 
 managers and organised workers could approach the 
 State with the claim to be recognised, not as a 
 profiteering corporation, but as a responsible partner 
 in the national service of industry. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that we are not putting 
 forward this policy as the probable, or even neces- 
 sarily as. the most desirable, line of approach to the 
 Guilds. We are only attempting to meet the 
 inquiry, "How, can the employer help?" That 
 he can help if he would is clear, but he cannot call 
 a Giuld into existence where the workers are not 
 prepared to consider the prospect of estabHshing 
 one. His role in such a development must' neces 
 sarily be secondary to theirs. The same is true of the 
 State, though perhaps in a lesser degree, since the 
 State, by a pohcy of genuine nationaUsation, has 
 it in its power to cripple the greatest enemy of the 
 Guild" idea — ^the existence of private profiteering. 
 But nationaJisation in itself wiU do nothing to raise 
 the status of the worker or upset autocratic adminis- 
 tration. It is to be hoped and expected- that when 
 the nationalisation of any industry is proposed by the 
 State the Trade Unions associated with the industry 
 wiU press urgently for large instalments of control. 
 Even apart from such a demand, the State could do 
 much to establish a nationahsed industry on a basis 
 of industrial autonomy. It could approach every 
 grade of the workers concerned, from the manager 
 
262 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to the unskilled labourers, and demand that they 
 should form a Joint Coimcil to represent each one 
 of their associations from the " highest " to the 
 " lowest." That Council it would hold responsible 
 for the efficient carrying on of the industry, at rates 
 of pay to be agreed on between the Coimcil and a 
 Committee of ParUament and coming up for revision 
 at frequent intervals. With its internal discipline 
 the State would not be concerned further than to 
 encourage every democratic development within 
 the Council which offered guarantees of a reasonable 
 efficiency and broke down the barrier of caste. 
 
 Again, we are not proposing this course as the 
 best possible movement towards the Guilds, nor are 
 we suggesting that such a Joint Council would be. 
 equivalent to a perfectly developed National Guild, 
 though it would certainly serve for the rudiments 
 of one. We only desire to indicate ways in which the 
 State could prepare a real reconstruction of industry 
 with Service as an end and Freedom as a means. 
 Neither Service nor Freedom seems to us to be the 
 aims of the Reconstruction which has been so loudly 
 advertised, but which remains so httle understood. 
 As we approach it nearer, across the desert of our 
 modem industrial system, we see it to be but a 
 mirage ; and the worker, too, will find its visions of 
 democracy dissolve, its promise of responsibility 
 and freedom fade. Emancipation is nqt to be had 
 for the wishing, or for the asking. If Labour seeks 
 the noble end of its own dehverance from bondage 
 and dishonour, it must search out and follow against 
 all obstacles the ways by which that deliverance 
 may be won. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE TRANSITION TO NATIONAL 
 GUILDS 
 
In politics, democratic forms make constitutionalism 
 possible for the worker ; in industry, capitalist auto- 
 cracy makes a revolutionary policy essential for them. 
 The strategy of industrial revolution : three possible 
 alternatives : (i.) Parliamentary action : limitations 
 of this. Industrial action essential to industrial 
 emancipation, (ii.) Direct proletarian action. " In- 
 dustrial Unionism " as a programme of revolt : (a) the 
 hostihty to established Trade Unions ; (6) the pro- 
 jected assault on profits. Failure of thlis programme 
 in practice : reasons for this, (iii.) Trade Union 
 action as a path to the Guilds. The organisation of 
 a Labour monopoly. The Guildsmen's doctrine : 
 difierence as to its application. The " academic " 
 school : " negative control " and the veto. Practical 
 objections to the academic programme. 
 
 The pohcy of " Encroaching Control." Economic and In- 
 dustrial Power: which must the worker conquer first? 
 The control of production : steps to its attainment. 
 Result, the partial atrophy of CapitaUsm and the 
 foundation of the Guilds. The role of the State. The 
 later phases of the class-struggle. Pubhc opinion and 
 the Guild idea. " Encroaching Control " and " accept- 
 ance " of the Wage-system. 
 
 The final stages of transition. Possible alternatives. The 
 situation arising from a complete aUiance of the State 
 with Capitalism. How Labour may meet the menace. 
 The provocation of revolution from above : possibility 
 of this. Revolution would only precipitate the choice 
 which society' must some day Inake between National 
 Guilds and industrial slavery. 
 
VII 
 
 THE TRANSITION TO NATIONAL 
 GUILDS 
 
 There is, we are often told, a great deal of " loose 
 talk about revolution " in Trade Union circles. 
 Trade Unionists, it would appear, have wild notions 
 of overturning the State, the Monarchy, Parhament, 
 and the Church in favoiu: of amazing schemes of 
 communistic anarchy. It is to be noted that the 
 journalists and others who bring this . accusation 
 against Labour usually put themselves out of court 
 by indulging in " loose talk " about reaction. And, 
 indeed, nothing could be less true of the Trade 
 Union movement than a charge of this nature, 
 Especially in as far as Labour is concerned with 
 politics. Trade Unionists, as a body, no doubt prefer 
 a democratic form of government to an autocracy or 
 an oligarchy ; but this preference'' shows only that 
 Trade Unionism is politically in line with, British 
 tradition. After all. Great Britain is a democracy ; 
 sovereignty is supposed to lie mainly in the hands 
 of the people's representatives in Parliament. If 
 dark forces have undermined the democratic form of 
 government, and have set up irresponsible bodies 
 in opposition to, and to the detriment of. Parlia- 
 ment, it is surely a public-spirited act on the part 
 of Trade Unionism to oppose these dark forces and 
 to seek to restore the rights of the people. Such 
 efforts are clearly not revolutionary in aim, but 
 
 265 — 
 
266 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 purely reformative of abuses. Since this country is 
 a Parliamentary democracy, the only political 
 changes which might properly be called revolutionary 
 are such as would introduce another system of 
 government. In a word, it is propaganda not for 
 democracy, .but for autocracy, which is revolutionary 
 to-day in politics. If an infuriated mob of Morning 
 Post readers were to storm the House of Commons 
 in order to place sovereign power in the hands of 
 Lord Milner as dictator, this would be a real political 
 revolution. But to bring an accusation against 
 Trade Unionists of " loose talk about revolution " 
 is absurd, though they may certainly, to their 
 credit, plead guilty to plenty of straight talk against 
 reaction. 
 
 Trade Unionists are constitutional to-day. in 
 politics, because they are democrats ; but they 
 ought to be revolutionary in industry, also because 
 they are democrats. The solidarity of Labour 
 against the mischievous autocracy of the capitalists 
 in industry would be as admirable and as public- 
 spirited as any other union of democrats aga&st 
 autocracy. What actual talk of revolution there 
 is, however, comes rather from democrats outside 
 industry, men, for instance, as different as Mr. 
 H. W. Massingham and Mr. G. K. Chesterton, 
 who, seeing how the nation is being coerced into 
 pohtical reaction, suggest that the people of the 
 country may be forced into revolution as a protest. 
 Trade Union leaders, on the other hand, are remark- 
 able, not to say notorious, for their political for- 
 bearance, while doctrinaire Socialists, who are 
 acquainted with the practical difficulties that beset 
 
The Trajosition to National Guilds 267 
 
 « 
 
 any form of revolutionary propaganda in this 
 country, are the more inclined to dismiss any 
 suggestion of a deliberate political tevplution. 
 Indeed, what more than anything has lea to the 
 national apathy towards social difficulties is the 
 British workers' disinchnation to direct action. 
 The whole coimtry rose up to prevent Prussia 
 attaining the hegemony of the world ; but there are 
 few men who have the courage and the will to rise 
 up against the capitahsts' accompHshed hegemony 
 of industry. Hardly a voice is raised against this 
 amazing and degrading usurpation of authority. 
 The only question thought worthy of discussion is 
 how to compromise with Capitalism. The producers 
 are to make an industrial peace with the owners of 
 capital, which is to give the former a higher standard 
 ■of Uving, but to leave the latter with their industrial 
 sovereignty unquestioned. Such a peace, however, 
 would be as dishonourable as ineffective. Just as 
 there cannot be peace in Europe until political 
 autocracies are abolished, so there cannot be peace in 
 industry while the undelnocratic system of Capitahsm 
 remains. There is no question here of the rights of 
 the capitalist or the rights of. the wage-earners ; 
 we are concerned solely with the rights of the 
 community and the righting of industry. Only 
 when the control of industry is in the hands of public- 
 spirited National Guilds can there be industrial 
 peace. Industry must be democratised. In this 
 sense, Labour must be revolutionary ; and here the 
 Trade Unions should have the world behind them. 
 
 We propose to consider in this chapter the lines 
 upon which tie revolution in industry from auto- 
 
268 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 cratic Capitalism to democratic National Guilds 
 may be brought about. 
 
 The plans which are most commonly advocated 
 faU into three classes : Parhamentary action, direct 
 proletarian action, and Trade Union action. We 
 shall take these in turn. First we may see how far 
 the plan of Parliamentary action by the workers 
 is likely to succeed. It cannot be denied that, in 
 theory, Parhamentary action might be successful 
 in democratising industry. If everything went as 
 the advocates of this method desire, there might 
 come a time when the workers would fill Parhament 
 with Labour members, who would then use all the 
 powers of Parhament to establish democracy in 
 industry. But, against this, we must note that such 
 a time is imlikely to come soon ; meanwhile the 
 present tendency both in poUtics and industry is 
 flowing away from democracy. Indeed, long before 
 Labour representatives wiU be in a position to avail 
 themselves of the powers of Parhament, those 
 powers are likely to have vanished ; as Mr. Belloc 
 has insisted, the pohtics of the Servile State are 
 much nearer to us than those of the Sociahst State. 
 There are other fundamental objections to the 
 Parhamentary plan. We must remember that it 
 is not possible to democratise industry from above. 
 Unless the workers in an industry are prepared and 
 organised to control it, no Government ukase to this 
 effect can be successful. Thus the Parhamentary 
 method is plainly valueless unless it is accompanied 
 by a parallel democratic movement in industry; 
 this is no longer denied even by Labour members 
 of Parhament. Another important objection to the 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 269 
 
 overvaluation of Parliamentary action lies in the 
 fact that the Labour representatives in ParUament, 
 even when in an overwhelming majority there, 
 might turn out after all not to favour democracy 
 in industry. It is indeed known that most, if not 
 all, of the present Labour members of Parliament"^ 
 are in favour of State Socialism in industry — which 
 vests the control of industry not in the workers, 
 but in a bureaucracy. Can we hope that a Labour 
 majority in Parliament will seek to bring about 
 democracy in industry by means of National Indus- 
 trial Guilds or otherwise? It may indeed be of 
 value that there should be workers' representatives 
 in Parliament ; but it would be both an error and a 
 disaster if any great hope were placed in them as 
 inaugurators of a revolution in industry. Indeed, 
 too much energy has already been wasted by Labour 
 in electoral poUtics, which would have been expended 
 to far better purpose in industrial action. ^ 
 
 No matter where we look for a real improvement 
 in industrial conditions, we must always, come back 
 to direct industrial action as the basis of aU progress. 
 What form this direct action should take is another 
 question, very difficult to answer. Mr. Chesterton 
 has said that " any denial to-day of the divine 
 rights of the capitalist is in effect a revolution." 
 Evidently, ^then, there are two elements to be 
 considered in regard to an industrial revolution — 
 the wiU to this revolution,, and the power ; that is to 
 say, first, the denial that Capitalism is right, and then 
 the strength to overturn it and establish a better 
 system in its place. 
 
 1 See below, pp. 382-39*. 
 
270 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 At present we know that Labour has neither the 
 will nor the power to replace Capitalism. We have 
 seen that the Parliamentary method is far from 
 placing this power in the hands of Labour, and is 
 also utterly remote from developing in it the neces- 
 sary resolve. Turning to the doctrines of direct 
 action in industry, we find that there are two sharply 
 defined wings of opinion in revolutionary thought. 
 (For the last time we may repeat that we are using 
 the word " revolutionary " here wholly in regard to 
 its industrial and not its political significance, as 
 expressing the freeing of industry from Capitalism 
 and its democratisation.) 
 
 First we may consider the proposals of what is 
 called " Industrial Unionism." It is necessary to 
 point out that the phrase " Industrial Unionism " 
 is used in this connection to mean something different 
 from what it signified in our foregoing chapters.' 
 There it was opposed to " Craft Unionism," this 
 being the organisation of the workers in Craft Unions 
 according to the process on which they are engaged ; 
 whereas Industrial Unions are based on the product 
 and service their members are combined in rendering 
 to society. B)it as an industrial goal, and not as 
 an industrial means, it has a fiulher meaning. 
 Here " Industrial Unionism " means what is some- 
 times loosely termed nowadays " Syndicalism." It 
 envisages the '' co-operative commonwealth " of pro- 
 ducers, in which a '' central administrative industrial 
 committee . . . will represent every phase of social 
 activity," and the " capitalist political or geo- 
 graphical State will be replaced by the industrial 
 
 ' See chapter v., pp. 103-122. 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 271 
 
 administrative committee of Socialism."' This, 
 however, is by the way ; our present purpose 
 is to consider rather the nature of this school's 
 plan for the emancipation of the workers than 
 what it conceives to be the proper end of that 
 process.' 
 
 We must admit that this school has so far had a 
 larger influence on theory than on action. The 
 numbers of such Industrial Unionists are doubtless 
 small, but their earnestness and persuasiveness are 
 beyond question. The Industrial Unionist appeals 
 to the workers, or rather to the proletariat, somewhat 
 after this fashion : " You, the proletariat, are the 
 exploited class ; the capitalists are the exploiters. 
 Every product is the work of your hands, and of the 
 machines and tools made by you. But the product 
 is stolen by the capitahsts, and, instead of its true 
 price, you receive only a wage. ReaUse your posi- 
 tion and your strength ! Sweep away these para- 
 sites who are Uving on the wealth you produce ; 
 dispossess them of your rightful possessions — ^the 
 goods you yourselves have made and are making. 
 Drive the capitalists out of industry by every means 
 in your power, by every form of pressure undertaken 
 at every likely moment." The Industrial Unionists 
 have Uttle liking for the existing Trade Unions, 
 which they regard as mere mutual benefit societies. 
 They call upon the proletariat to cut themselves 
 loose from the moneybags of the established Trade 
 Unions, and to organise in new and vigorous fighting 
 units. These will set before themselves the single 
 
 » The State: Its Origin and Function, by W. Paul, p. 196. 
 • For a consideration of the Sjmdicalists' goal from a National Guilds 
 standpoint, see below, chapter ix., pp. 349-353. 
 
272 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 aim of so harassing the capitalists that the latter 
 will at last withdraw from industry altogether. 
 Industry wiU cease to be any longer profitable to 
 them, for the fighting forces of the proletariat will 
 take every possible opportunity and use every 
 conceivable method to reduce profits to a minimum. 
 For example, these fighting units will strike when 
 trade is prosperous, instead of when it is languishing. 
 The usual practice so far has been for Labour to wait 
 till trade is bad and wages low before taking hostile 
 action against the employers. But this is a mis- 
 taken policy. No employer minds a strike when 
 trade is bad, as he then has httle to lose by a stoppage 
 of work, and can indeed effect economies in his wages 
 bin. On the other hand, a strike when trade is 
 brisk is a serious matter, since it interferes with the 
 execution of profitable work. But at such a time 
 Labour is in demand, and is httle inclined to take 
 aggressive action. The Industrial Unionists wiU 
 change all this ; they wiU aim at the capitahst in 
 his tenderest spot — ^his profits^r-and so by constant 
 attacks drive him out of industry. 
 
 These, then, are the two weapons of Industrial 
 Unionist action : first, the substitution of proletarian 
 fighting organisations for the present Trade Unions ; 
 secondly, the driving of the capitalists out of 
 industry by making it unprofitable to them. 
 
 We are bound to say that both parts of this plan 
 must in practice meet with failure. Where these 
 methods have been adopted, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, neither has the Trade Union movement 
 been galvanised into insurrectionary activity, nor 
 have the capitalists been driven out of industry. 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 273 
 
 On the contrary, instead of the proletariat's forces 
 becoming united against the capitalists, they have 
 tended rather to disunion. And the capitaUsts, 
 instead of being driven out of industry, have com- 
 bined so actively in the face of their common foes 
 that they have made their own position more secure 
 than ever. 
 
 This is not an unfortunate accident, but the 
 inevitable result of the Industrial Unionists' methods. 
 In the first place, what is to be expected from their 
 appeal to the workers to disband their present 
 Trade Unions and to organise in new fighting units ? 
 Clearly, that, while the consciously revolutionary 
 Trade Unionistsjnay agree to do this, the less class* 
 conscious members will stand fast by the old associa- 
 tions. The original Trade Union, losing its leaven 
 of conscious revolutionaries, will become more 
 moderate and more reactionary than ever, and more 
 hopelessly immersed in the wage-system. Indeed, 
 the plan of the Industrial Unionists is wrong at the 
 outset. Their propaganda is avowedly based on th6 
 discovery that the Trade Unionists of to-day have 
 not an active will to revolution ; and yet the proposal 
 is made for them to combine in new revolutionary 
 bodies — ^whioh presupposes this very non-existent 
 wiU to revolution. Of course, the Industrial 
 Unictaists declare that the present form of Trade 
 Unions explains why the workers' revolutionary 
 aims are strangled. The Trade Unions, they point 
 out, are clumsy, imadaptable and conservative ; they 
 have huge benefit funds, which they are chary of 
 endangering by industrial aggression ; they are led 
 by industrial pacifists, and their moraUty is that 
 
 T 
 
274 The Meaning of l^ational Guilds 
 
 of the wage-slave. For are they not primarily 
 intended to improve the conditions of their members 
 under the existing industrial system ? 
 
 The fact is that, unfortunately, the Tjrade Unions 
 are fairly exact images of their members. It is not 
 simply the Trade Unions, it is the Trade Unionists 
 themselves who are so often industrially servile and 
 paeifist. Trade Unionists have the policy they 
 deserve; and we have to take their Unions as we find 
 them. As Mr. Chesterton implied in the phrase we 
 quoted, the workers have not yet to any considerable 
 extent become convinced of the need for revolutionary 
 action. When they become revolutionary in resolve, 
 they will certainly find the Trade Union a form of 
 organisation sufficiently plastic to be turned to 
 new and more aggressive activities. Meanwhile, if 
 those Trade Unionists who are revolutionary draw 
 away from the old Trade Unions into new bodies, 
 two results are certain. In the first place, instead of 
 banding the workers more closely together and reduc- 
 ing the number of Trade Unions, this propaganda has 
 an exactly opposite effect. The new associations rise 
 up beside the old, but not in their place; and they 
 are usually overshadowed by the original Unions, 
 instead of absorbing them. Thus, instead of less 
 Unions, there are more ! ' Secondly, the energetic 
 revolutionaries, by organising a rival and alternative 
 association, aUenate the sympathies of their former 
 fellow Unionists and lose the chance they previously 
 had of converting them to revolutionary ideas. 
 
 * A very clear instance of this may be observed in t£e building trade, 
 where the formation in 1914 of the " Building Workers' Industrial 
 Union " merely resulted in the addition of one more to the sixty odd 
 building Trade Unions already in existence. 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 275 
 
 The clear duty of revolutionary Trade Unionists is 
 to educate their Unions in the real function of Trade 
 Unionisni ; not to cast them off, thus losing''their 
 support and their real, if not at present consciously 
 revolutionary, strength into the bargain. ^ 
 
 The second part of the Industrial Unionists' 
 programme — to make industry tmprofitable to the 
 capitalist — ^will be as tmsuccessful as the' first. Let 
 us suppose that the miners should dehberately 
 set about obtaining wage increases, lowering the 
 output of the mines, and taking aggressive action 
 at moments when it was particularly inconvenient 
 and unprofitable to the owners. In a f6w cases they 
 might succeed finally in making some of the small 
 mines unprofitable to the owners. According to the 
 Industrial Unionists' theory, these owners would 
 then say, " Take over the mines yourselves ! " 
 Thus, with the voluntary relinquishment of the 
 mines by the owners to the miners, CapitaUsm would 
 be gradually driven out of industry and the co-opera- 
 tive commonwealth would dawn. More probably, 
 however, the mine-owners in these cases would 
 simply close the mines ; biit the workers would not 
 therefore come into possession of them. The 
 employers would not be reduced to destitution. 
 Combined against the common enemy, the mine- 
 owners would long, before the end of the process 
 
 ' Our criticism, while it applies particularly to those Industrial 
 Unionists who have advocated the formation of entirely new bodies in 
 direct competition with he established Unions, has some bearing also 
 upon those who seek to organise workshop committees in opposition to 
 " official " Trade UnionisaSfeind not rather as a stimulus to it. We 
 believe thoroughly in workshop organisation, but we hold that it 
 shonld develop as an essential^^form of Trade Union structure hitherto 
 neglected, not as something antagonistic to it. 
 
276 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 have banded together for mutual defence against a 
 direct threat. 
 
 The inevitable failure of the second part also of 
 the Industrial Unionists' plan shows that the capit- 
 alists have reaUy nothing to fear from it ; indeed, by 
 the fighting organisation which is forced on them by 
 circumstances, they are actually able to strengthen 
 their grip upon industry. Nor do the workers 
 benefit ; for industry is restricted, not liberated, 
 by the capitaUsts as a result of the workers' attacks. 
 And by the restriction of industry — ^in the case we 
 have mentioned, the closing of the less profitable 
 mines — society is deprived of the use of some of 
 its natural resources. 
 
 The weakness of Industrial Unionism is that it 
 is in too much of a hurry, and too impatient of- the 
 gradual evolution of the Trade Unions into respon- 
 sible bodies of producers. It concentrates on the 
 will to revolution, without sufiiciently considering 
 how the strength of the revolutionary alternative 
 to Capitahsm is to be built up. The Industrial 
 Unionist is right to be impatient of the slave- 
 morahty of the modern Trade Unions, but wrong to 
 despise their latent strength and potentialities. 
 It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Trade 
 Unions of to-day are to bear the burden of the 
 industrial administration of to-morrow. Whether 
 they will do this as the capitaUsts' wage-slaves or 
 as associations of free men depends very largely on 
 the activities of those Trade Unionists who are at 
 present attracted by the proposals of the Industrial 
 Unionists. If these men will turn their energy and 
 their eloquence to the task of transforming the 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 277 
 
 existing Trade Unions into National Guilds, we have 
 no doubt of their success. If, on the other hand, 
 they seek to draw oif the best and the most briUiant 
 of the yoimger Trade Unionists into a field whither 
 the vast mass of the worlcers will not follow them, 
 they will be unwittingly helping to dehver Labour 
 helpless and disimited into the hands of its enemies. 
 
 We have seen that industrial, notT'arliamentary, 
 action is the path to the workers' freedom ; also, that 
 this path leads through the perfection of the existing 
 Trade Union organisation, and not through new and 
 guerilla proletarian units. We now come to consider 
 a method of transition which brings us upon the 
 broad and beaten path of National Guilds theory. 
 
 The tmderlying argument of this plan is as follows : 
 Industry consists of two indispensable parts, Labour 
 and Capital. Labour is the sum of the human 
 energy expended in economic production ; Capital 
 comprises the instruments with which and upon 
 which production is effected. Each part is necessary 
 to the other, and useless by itself ; without instru- 
 ments men cannot produce, nor is anything produced 
 by instnmients alone without human direction. 
 These two parts being necessary each to the other, 
 whoever controls one can, by withdrawing it from 
 use, paralyse the other. But capital is effectively 
 controlled and monopolised by the capitalist class, 
 who therefore compel Labour to work for them at 
 their own terms, as the alternative to not working 
 at all. There is only one way for Labour to meet 
 the monopoly of capital, and it is by making a 
 monopoly of the other essential part in production, 
 to wit, labour itself. Thus to the capitalists' 
 
278 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 monopoly of capital is to be opposed the workers' 
 monopoly of their own labour. This is to be brought 
 about by the development of the existing Trade 
 Unions. When a Trade Union becomes so strong 
 in the monopoly of its labour as not to fear the 
 possibility of competition by non-Union workers 
 (" blacklegs ") under any circumstances — ^in the 
 event, say, of a strike — that Union is said to be 
 " blackleg-proof." Such Unions are bound to 
 become recognised as indispensable parts of their 
 particular industry. The next step is to amalgamate 
 and federate the " blackleg-proof " Unions into a 
 vast Trade Union army with a General Staff, 
 IntelUgence Departments, and proper lines of 
 communication. The task of the General Staff will 
 be to lay down the broad principles of action ; the 
 IntelUgence Departments wiU watch every move of. 
 the organised capitalists, both on a large scale and 
 in individual cases, and will show how to counter 
 it ; while the hues of communication will consist of 
 financial and commissariat arrangements, to be 
 worked in conjunction with the Co-operative 
 Societies, to which unimpeded resource can be had 
 in time of emergency. When aU the Trade Unions 
 of the workers in any- industry — ^both wage-earners 
 and salariat — become blackleg-proof and join forces 
 sufficiently to make themselves one in industrial 
 disputes, they are clearly strong enough to challenge 
 the capit|.list& in that industry. The two mono- 
 polies are opposed — the capitalists' monopoly of 
 capital, and the workers' monopoly of labour. 
 But these monopolies are of imequal strength ; 
 the workers will now have the advantage. Clearly 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 279 
 
 the workers are in a position to do either of two 
 things : to offer partnership to the -capitalists or to 
 the community. In the first case they will join the 
 capitahsts in exploiting the commimity. If the 
 second course is adopted, they will call upon the 
 State to dispossess the private capitahsts of the 
 instruments and control of industry, and to leave 
 its conduct in the hands of the workers. Partner- 
 ship with the capitahsts is unhkely, except as a 
 temporary measure, first, because the workers are 
 unhkely to permit this huge incubus to take toll 
 of their labour ; secondly, if there is any pubhc 
 spirit among the workers — and we have no reason 
 to doubt its existence — they will hardly be 
 willing to join the capitahsts in a vast system of 
 profiteering. The second alternative for the I'rade 
 Unions, when they achieve the monopoly of their 
 labour in any industry, is to offer partnership to the 
 State by means of that system of National Industrial 
 Guilds which is the subject of this book. 
 
 This is the doctrine of the path to the Guilds, 
 as set out in the editorial columns of the New 
 Age^ which first made the Guild ideas coherent, 
 and in the book National Guilds, the contents of 
 which were first pubhshed in the same periodical. 
 That this method is an ideal approach to the Guilds 
 is admitted on all sides, and in its broad outhne 
 it may be accepted by all Guildsmen. 
 
 It is, however, in the details of the process where 
 we find disagreement among its advocates. We 
 must remember that the struggle of the workers for 
 self-government is an uphill fight. The workers are 
 on the slope of a steeply inchned plane ; not only 
 
28o The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 have they the gigantic task of marshalling their 
 forces and "settling their internecine divisions and 
 quarrels, but all the time the capitalists are vigorously 
 attempting to push them still further down the slope 
 into utter industrial servitude. The workers are 
 like the fragments of a regiment rallying in the open 
 under the hot ,fire of machine-gims. They are 
 under fire the whole time, and those who try to 
 rally them are targets both to the enemy and to 
 malcontents in their own ranks. It is difhctilt 
 enough for Labour to stand fast even where it is ; 
 what an enormous effort is needed to rouse it to an 
 organised advance ! \ 
 
 The struggle for the control of industry being as 
 it is, a struggle in which all the weapons seem to be 
 on the side of the capitahsts, can the workers look 
 forward to the fulfilment of any so subtle doctrine 
 of attack ? This is the doubt that suggests itself 
 to critics of the foregoing doctrine of transition from 
 Capitahsm to the Guilds. The objectors agree 
 whole-heartedly that the method laid down by the 
 New Age — ^we shall, for convenience, call it the 
 " academic " method — is a path to the Guilds. 
 But, it is objected, is there any possibiUty of carrjdng 
 out a method at once so direct and so logical in the 
 face of the hostile and aggressive forces of capitalist 
 reaction ? Surely these hostile tendencies, hastening 
 towards the Ser\dle State, will break up the advance 
 of Labour and force it into dangerous and difficult 
 by-ways, if indeed they do not tu^nble it back head- 
 long into disaster? 
 
 To^this the academic school replies that Labour, 
 besides organising its labour-power, must mobilise 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 281 
 
 its intellect. The attacks of Capitalism, open or 
 masked, must be exposed and guarded against. 
 Labour must remain firm under temptation and 
 united in danger ; as long as it follows the straight 
 — and strait — path towards the Guilds, its progress 
 cannot be stopped. And the acg-demics picture 
 the immediate future of Trade Unionism somewhat 
 as foUows : As the strength of the Union increases, 
 it is to be anticipated that, the capitahsts will make 
 the workers various offers of partnership. The first 
 offer win presumably be made to isolated fractions 
 of the men, as individuals and not as members of 
 their Union. This rejected by the Unions, the 
 offer will be repeated, but now to the Union as a 
 whole.. But this too will be rejected, or accepted 
 only as a temporary measure, without prejudice to 
 the Unions' future action, since, by agreeing to a 
 partnership Afljith the capitahsts. Labour would be 
 conniving both at the continuation - of the wage- 
 system and at production for profit. But it is to be 
 all or nothiag for Labour — either all the responsi- 
 bility for production, or none ; there is to be no 
 active alhance with the profiteers, nor any positive 
 acceptance of the wage-system. 
 
 The immediate tactics suggested by the supporters 
 of the academic plan are that the Unions, in order 
 to escape the responsibiHty, even in part, for the 
 wage-system and the profiteering which active 
 association with the conduct of capitalist industry 
 would force upon theni, should exercise only a 
 negative control, in the form of the veto. Every 
 innovation initiated by the capitalists should be 
 considered by Labour on its merits, If harmless, 
 
282 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 it should be allowed to pass unchallenged ; if harmful 
 to their best interests, the Unions should veto it and 
 calmly face the consequences. Thus Labour would 
 neither lose its self-respect nor dull its aim by; active, 
 positive association with Capitalism. Meanwhile 
 its forces would be growing stronger and more 
 determined to achieve the emancipation they would 
 one day effect by a few decisive strokes. ' 
 
 The reader will see that several objections arete be 
 made to the academic method of overthrowing the 
 wage-system. The first is that too much reliance 
 seems to be placed upon the conscious impulse of 
 Labour towards revolution. We _ may seriously 
 doubt if Labour is prepared to play as long and as 
 deep a waitmg game as the academic method 
 implies. This strategy makes an obvious appeal to 
 the intellect, but the path is so strait and the way 
 so hard that one fears whether Labour's broad 
 coaches will be able to pass along it. It implies, 
 to nearly the same extent as " Lidustrial Unionism," 
 an absolutely clear-sighted class-consciousness on 
 the part of Labour, and joins to this the need of 
 incredible resolve and self-control. If we take all 
 these qualities for granted in the workers, are we 
 not assuming that the revolutionary change of 
 mind which Mr. Chesterton spoke of has taken place 
 among them ? But this, alas, is far from being the 
 case. Yet, even if Labour were far more resolute 
 than it is, and far more prepared to concentrate and 
 mobilise its forces, we must not overlook the fact 
 that there are serious objections in principle to the 
 
 '■ See the New Age, 1917, vol. xxi., Nos. 1, 2, 3 ; " Towards National 
 Guilds." 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 283 
 
 academic plan of campaign. Not the least is its 
 insistence upon negative action. This is fatal ; for 
 it does not enlarge Labour's faculties, but hmits them 
 to a single, narrow plan of action. Such a method 
 may be very weU for the leaders, but it will not 
 increase either the morale or the initiative of the 
 rank and file. 
 
 We have seen that the Parliamentary and the 
 Industrial Unionist paths to emancipation are for 
 all practical purposes hopeless at the outset. The 
 academic method of economic action also seems 
 to need a degree of resolve, self-control, and wisdom 
 that Labour has not yet attained, nor is likely 
 to attain in the near future. 
 
 It must not, moreover, be forgotten that Labour 
 win need much coaxing before it enters upon its 
 true destiny. For the practical purposes of Labour 
 there is the need for another course, less picturesque 
 perhaps, but not less inspiring. We propose to 
 consider it as a path to the Guilds which may succeed 
 where the academic method is likely to prove 
 impracticable. 
 
 This policy, which we cannot do more than 
 indicate in broad outline, is in the strict sense a 
 path to the Guilds ; a path, it may be, with many 
 milestones, but these wUl serve at least to mark the 
 way. If Labour sets out to find a tempting short 
 cut across country to emancipation — country, more- 
 over, which is in the occupation of its enemies — or 
 waits for -the prospect of some unforeseen Kft along 
 the road to freedom, then Labour's anxiety to reach 
 its journey's end quickly may well result in its never 
 
284 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 reaching it at all. It is true that in some societies 
 the worker is bom free, in others he must achieve 
 freedom, while in a third he may conceivably have 
 freedom ithrust upon him. But in a Britain under 
 the dominion of a wage-slave moraUty the third 
 alternative is only less impossible than the first. 
 It is only in the building of the Guilds that we shall 
 get the Guildsman, for the Guildsman (unlike the 
 poet) is made, not bom — though, in their making, 
 he will be born again. The appetite for industrial 
 democracy will grow by what it feeds on, and " a 
 taste of control will engender a taste for control."' 
 
 The keynote, then, of the worker's struggle 
 towards the Guild must be the maxim of " Encroach- 
 ing Control." We have seen in a previous chapter 
 what ambitious and far-reaching changes this must 
 involve in the principles, the structure, and the 
 poUcy of present-day Trade Unionism, and we shall 
 see in a future one how difficult are the problems 
 which the appUcation of this maxim may raise. 
 We will say nothing further here of the enormous 
 task of Labour organisation which is involved ; 
 though, in our search for a policy, we must never 
 forget how much has still to be done in this respect 
 before there is much prospect of entering upon a 
 spirited policy successfully, even when Labour has 
 adopted one. It is true, of course, as we have 
 already seen, that structure and poUcy go hand in 
 hand and that each is conditioned by the other. 
 
 • See Mr. Cole's chapter on " The Abolition of the Wage-system " 
 in Self-government in Industry. Without endorsing everything which 
 he says there, we strongly recommend it to the attention of our readers 
 as the most convincing and closely reasoned outline of Guild policy 
 for the workers that has appeared. 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 285 
 
 'There is no doubt that a clear understanding of the 
 goal will help the workers enormously in the perfec- 
 tion of the means by which that goal is to be attained. 
 That goEil, we may renaiind our readers, is the control 
 of production by self-governing Guilds of workers, 
 sharing with the State the control of the product of 
 their labour. The capitalist's industrial autocracy 
 must be destroyed by the invasion of the workers 
 themselves, organising their conquests on the 
 opposing principle of industrial democracy ; his 
 economic sovereignty must be shared between the 
 Guilds (with whom will lie initiative in the economic 
 no less than in the purely industrial sphere) and the 
 State (which stands by as guardian of communal 
 interests that might otherwise be lost sight of). 1 
 
 The goal thus clearly defined, it remains to decide 
 how we may most surely attain it. Is Labour to 
 assault the outworks of industrial control by seeking 
 to capture from the capitalist one sphere of produc- 
 tion after another, or is it rather to fling itself boldly 
 and at once upon his citadel of economic power ? 
 
 There is no doubt that it is from his economic 
 dominion that the capitaUst derives his main strength, 
 ^d that it is this which enables him to extract rent, 
 interest, and profits and to lord it over a satrapy of 
 wage-slaves. But it does not follow that it is best 
 for Labour to attack him first at his strongest point. 
 
 It may be true that the wage-system can be destroyed 
 only by a frontal attack upon the economic power of 
 Capitalism in the spheres of commerce and finance ; but 
 it is no less clear that the way to such an attack lies over 
 the front hne of Capitalism — the control of production. • 
 
 ' Self-government in Industry, p. 183. 
 
286 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 Let, then, the Industrial Unions of the future, 
 through their shop committees, extend their auth- 
 ority over one aspect after another of workshop 
 control ; let them securtf that no regulations are 
 made for the running of the workshop or the disci- 
 pline of the workers save such as these committees 
 themselves sanction, and that no foreman enters 
 the shop save with the approval of the committee — 
 such passive approval to be transformed at the 
 earHest possible moment into active election by the 
 workers themselves, so that the shop steward becomes 
 an officer not of the Union only, but of the industry ; 
 let these claims be extended from the workshop to 
 the works itself, and the works' manager brought 
 into co-operation with the Union, instead of remain- 
 ing merely a nominee and representative of the 
 profiteer. MoreoveF, let the Collective Contract 
 become increasingly recognised as the only terms 
 on which the workers will consent to sell their 
 labour, so that the responsibihty for performing a 
 job is undertaken by the Union, and the price paid 
 for it arranged for and the money distributed by the 
 Union to its members in accordance with conditions 
 democratically laid down. Let these aims become 
 the immediate programme of the workers and, 
 though the economic power of Capitalism may 
 remain to aU appearances undiminished, the employer 
 will none the less have sustained a grave defeat. 
 As his functions pass from him one by one to the 
 workers whom he exploits, his fundamental character 
 as a profiteer wUl become ever -more glaringly 
 obvious. To the C3mical outburst of their masters 
 that " they are not in business for their health," let 
 
The Transition to National Ghiilds 287 
 
 the workers reply that it is essentially for their 
 health and the health of society that they are in 
 industry, and that to the claims of health the disease 
 ©f Capitalism must give way. As the Unions 
 encroach upon those activities of the capitalist 
 which, though they are incidental to his purpose, 
 are of some real social value, nothing wiQ remain to 
 mask the truth that he is in business not for his 
 health, but for his wealth. The control of produc- 
 tion by the workers will leave the profiteer his 
 profits for the moment, but it will fatally impair 
 what is even more essential to his power — ^his 
 pr^tige ! 
 
 Thus the encroaching control of the worker over 
 the sphere of production will atrophy the power of 
 Capitalism in proportion as it expels his authority. 
 Moreover, it wUl provide a sure foundation for the 
 Guilds, which can be fully established only when the 
 money lord is driven from his economic castle. 
 Even though democratic sentiment or popular 
 indignation induced the State to attack the capitahst's 
 economic power and wrest from him his control of 
 the product, it would be difficult to- call into being 
 a system of National Guilds that had not been 
 already prepared for by the workers themselves 
 through the advance of their Industrial Unions to 
 the control of every circumstance of their working 
 Uves. But we need not labour the point. Not only 
 is industrial democracy in the workshop and the 
 works essential to the Guild idea, but not until this 
 is achieved is the capitahst in much danger of losing 
 his grip upon the eco»«mic machine. The State may, 
 it is true, regulate the operations of CapitaHsm and 
 
288 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 make claims upon it, but the " State control " of 
 Capitalism is more than balanced by the capitalist 
 control of the State. Even in war-time the interests 
 of the pubHc have not induced the State to imperil 
 the interest of the shareholder ; the War Of&ce could 
 not do more than grumble when a powerful con- 
 tractor suddenly discovered that a " reasonable " 
 percentage would be necessary for services originally 
 offered freely in the name of -patriotism. " Money 
 talks " ; when it will have its say, even the State has 
 got to listen. Just as money in the hands of a 
 capitahst class of merchants wrecked the old Guilds, 
 so it may frustrate the new. Labour, when it has 
 successfully challenged the employer in the workshop, 
 must confront him in the counting-house. Demo- 
 cratic control at one end and " State control " at the 
 other stiU leave the capitahst the control of the 
 product. He determines the conditions of its sale ; 
 he purchases the raw material (including the labour) 
 which is necessary for its production ; and he decides 
 by investment into what industries fresh capital 
 shall flow. The State, even though it wished to 
 strip these functions from him altogether in the name 
 of the community, would be Hkely to retire baffled 
 from the attempt, save on one condition. This 
 condition is that it acts in concert with an aggressive 
 Labour movement, determined to rid society of a 
 usurper whose claims it has already exposed. 
 
 The capitalist can, in the last resort, only be 
 driven out of his tyranny over society by a conscious 
 will and an economic power stronger than his own. 
 To-day the will of his adversaries is weak, hesitating, 
 and confused ; it makes itself heard only by feeble 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 289 
 
 stammers in Parliament, occasional grumbles from 
 public opinion, and in the vague and strangled pro- 
 tests of a Labour movement which has yet to 
 make up its mind. Similarly, the economic power 
 by which Capitalism must be supplanted, vast 
 though it be in potentiality, is dissipated and dis- 
 organised, capable certainly of inflicting injury on 
 the capitahst, but not capable of dislodging him. 
 But let that will and that power be concentrated on 
 winning the control of production and there is small 
 reason to think that it will be content to stop there, 
 with the half of its task (and that the most vital] 
 still to "be accompUshed. The State will find itself 
 no longer confronted by two powers and wills, of 
 which the one is alert, active, and positive, and the 
 other passive and diffident. It will be the witness 
 of a conflict between two powers, one tenacious and 
 formidable, no doubt, but on its defence and gravely 
 menaced by the other, confident and inspired by the 
 consciousness that its cause is the cause of health 
 against wealth and the truth of free service against 
 the corrupt ialsehoods of servitude and gain. 
 
 In stressing for a moment the incalculable forces of 
 truth ajid will, we do not lose sight of the fact that 
 Labour will be fighting also with material weapons. 
 As Mr. Cole shows in the chapter to which we have 
 aUuded, these may be three : industrial, poUtical, 
 and catastrophic action ; yet behind them all is the 
 force of economic power. An Industrial Union in 
 command of production is not only unlikely to 
 remain content to leave the business of purchase and 
 sale to the employers ; it would find this almost 
 impossible. If its authority over the works is to be 
 
 u 
 
290 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 in any way complete, it will be driven on to concern 
 itself with these matters more and more. There is 
 no logical reason why it should not, and every 
 reason why it should. By this time, however, the 
 industrial authority and influence of Labour wiU be 
 such as to give its poUtical influence economic 
 weight. The State wiU find that its permanent 
 hypothesis of the passivity of Labour no longer 
 works ; it may even welcome the co-operation of an 
 active force strong enough to allow it to advance 
 against plutocracy in the interests of society. Which 
 its impotence — even more, perhaps, than its corrup- 
 tion — ^has forced it to neglect so long. The State 
 and the Industrial Unions may between them force 
 the capitahst to abandon, one after another, his 
 functions as a merchant,' as the Unions will have 
 already forced him to abandon them as a producer, 
 leaving him only his manoeuvres as a money lord 
 in the field of investment and finance. At this 
 point, Mr. Cole thinks, catastrophic action will alone 
 suffice to win the final victory, since the capitahst 
 is pot hkely to be so foohsh as to allow the atrophy 
 of his most essential functions by their assumption 
 by the State through the nationaHsation of banking 
 and finance. The profiteer is never hkely to 
 surrender the administration of his spoUs, if only 
 because it is a job he thoroughly understands and, 
 as a rule, enjoys. 
 
 If, indeed, the great capitalists were to blunder by 
 
 ' For a consideration of how far Guildsmen shall welcome the assump- 
 tion by the State of the functions of purchase and sale which must 
 eventually pass over to the Guilds, see Self-government in Industry, 
 pp. t8o, 187, 188, and Guild Principles in War and Peace, by S. G. 
 Hobson, pp. 128-136. See below, pp. 367-373. 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 291 
 
 adopting complete State control in their own interests, 
 and so allowing their own class to be atrophied, catas- 
 trophe might be avoided, and triumph could certainly 
 be made easier. We cannot, however, afford to count 
 on capitalist blunders, even if we think them possible. 
 The idle rich class is not dangerous ; the busy rich class 
 emphatically is.* 
 
 Emphatically ; we cannot for a moment base our 
 calculations on the chance of the " busy rich " letting 
 go of either their business or their riches. If it is by 
 catastrophe and force that they can alone be dis- 
 possessed, then that catastrophe must be faced and 
 that force prepared. We are not industrial pacifists ; 
 we do not believe that the mere possession of power 
 gives to Capitalism any right to prolong a dominion 
 which the nation no longer desires and which the 
 workers are ready to replace. But we think that 
 Mr. Cole has omitted one factor which, though it may 
 be in the strict sense incalculable, is not therefore 
 to be left out of our calculations. This factor is 
 difficult to define, though it is not difficult to appre- 
 hend ; we may caU it a developed pubhc opinion, or 
 (more sentimentally) a change of heart, or, simply, 
 goodwill. We are convinced of the futility of " good- 
 will," if it be urged as a substitute for will ; we are 
 aware that a " change of heart " will not achieve 
 anything, unless it is accompanied by a change of 
 purpose and a change of mind. We are not under 
 the delusion that " pubhc opinion " can attain any- 
 thing which the workers themselves are not prepared 
 to struggle for. But if goodwill foUows upon>wi]l, 
 then it may make the attainment of that will 
 
 ' Self-government in Industry, p. 190. 
 
292 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 infinitely easier. To-day the assault upon Capitalism 
 is " against the grain " of society because it is 
 Capitahsm to which the nation's will is surrendered, - 
 however reluctantly. But, as Labour stirs to nobler 
 purposes and confronts the claim of Capitalism with 
 a claim of its own to the functions which Capitalism 
 so imperfectly fulfils, we may expect to see sub- 
 tracted from Capitalism much of the opinion and 
 influence which now passively support it, apparently 
 faute de mieux. We may expect, too, the allegiance 
 of many who are to-day functionaries of Capitalism 
 to pass over wilUngly to the cause of Labour when 
 the Lidustrial Union is seen to be the champion of 
 the true interests of the industry as against the mere 
 machinery of profit. The policy of " Encroaching 
 Control " may prove valuable not merely in under- 
 mining the pqwer of the adversaries of Labour, but 
 in subtracting from their power those who now 
 belong to them for want of any obvious alternative. 
 A taste of democratic control will not only give a 
 taste for control to the workers ; it will also open 
 up a vision of Guild control to the ofiicials whom 
 Capitahsm exploits, and to the pubMc whom it so 
 basely disserves. 
 
 " A- taste of control gives a taste for control " — this is 
 the key to the whole plan we have just set out. The 
 employer will at the outset be to a certain extent 
 disarmed, since the effect of this policy is to 
 save him the trouble of arranging the disciplinary 
 details of his works. If he does make a stand against 
 it, he finds himself opposed at once by a solid and 
 integral section of the workers. But it will be a bold 
 employer who tries to beard a workshop committee 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 293 
 
 in its native workshop ! The movement towards 
 control will go higher, step by step, never losing 
 ground, and alwa37s, hke a snowball, gathering 
 weight as it goes, until at last the whole industry is 
 swept clean of profiteering. The capitaUsts will 
 have their industrial functions stripped from them 
 until they become no better than parasites upon 
 industry — to be knocked off at last as easUy, it may 
 be, as a rotten apple from its bough. 
 
 The mau\ difference between this and the academic 
 method is, of course, that for immediate purposes 
 it seems to accept the wage-system, and, as it were, 
 to temporise with it. We may be permitted to 
 doubt whether this is reaUy such a moral crime 
 as its opponents suggest. If the workers were 
 deliberately helping to introduce the wage-system 
 into industries innocent of it, with the idea of after- 
 wards emancipating them, we should certainly deny 
 that the experience was worth the risk. But, since 
 Labour finds itself already horribly entangled in the 
 wage-system, it may perhaps not fear to temporise 
 with it in its progress towards emancipation. There 
 is, of comrse, the constant danger that the Trade 
 Unions wiU come to look upon improvements inside 
 the wage-system as the end and aim of their organisa- 
 tion. Unfortunately this is their present outlook ; 
 a taste of control is certain to flutter this obsession, 
 not to settle it more deeply. 
 
 This chapter has so far been devoted to a considera- 
 tion and a comparison of the means of approach 
 from wage-slavery to National Guilds. We may 
 now turn to the actual " moment of transition " — 
 that is to say, to those final and decisive means 
 
294 The Meaning of National Gtiilds 
 
 which are to be employed to throw off the old 
 sj'stem and bring in the new. 
 
 Needless to say, it is quite impossible to take up 
 any very definite attitude on this point. Every- 
 thing depends on the relative positions of Labour 
 and the capitaUsts at that time, on the condition of 
 society, on the state of industry, and, above aU, on 
 the methods adopted by Labour to bring about this 
 fundamental change in the conduct of industry. 
 If the method of ParUamentary action alone be 
 used, the logical end — which would, we think, 
 never come about in practice — is a Parliamentary 
 declaration that such or such is to be the manner 
 in which industry must in future be conducted, and 
 all the powers of the State would be exercised to 
 give effect to this declaration. If the Industrial 
 Unionists' dream could be reaKsed, there would be 
 a proletarian insurrection to dispossess the capitahsts 
 and place the control of industry in the hands of 
 the workers. 
 
 We have seen, however, that industrial action by 
 the Trade Unions is the only method that is likely 
 to be successful in carrying Labour to emancipation. 
 We have, therefore, to consider how this plan of 
 campaign can be brought to a triumphant conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 The plan outlined in National Guilds appears to 
 end in a treaty between Labour, the capitalists, 
 and the State. The Industrial Unions, imited and 
 blackleg-proof, wiU approach the capitalists with 
 an offer of joint partnership in the profits, as a 
 preUminary to a full expropriation under threat of . 
 an immediate strike ; by thorough organisation and 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 295 
 
 an understanding with the Co-operative Wholesale 
 Society they will be completely prepared for the 
 strike. » The State will then be obliged willy-nilly 
 to recognise the embryo Guilds as national bodies. 
 
 * See National Guilds, Part II., chapter xiv. It is interesting to 
 compare with this the following passage in " A Catechism of National 
 Guilds," reprinted by the National Guilds League from the New Age : 
 
 " As soon as a Union is practically ^blackleg-proof, the capitalists 
 of the industry will approach its leaders with offers of profit-sharing 
 and «o-partnership, in two successive forms. 
 
 " What are these two forms ? 
 
 " The first form is profit-sharing and co-partnership with the men, 
 not collectively as a Union, but individually. 
 
 " Is there any objection to this form ? 
 
 " Yes ; for every man so singled out is spiritually transferred from 
 the side of Labour to the side of Capital. His concern is no longer to 
 abolish the wage-system for himself, his fellows, and the nation at 
 large, but to obtain all the profit he can extract from it. 
 
 " What is the probable second form of the capitalists' offer ? 
 
 " The second form will be offered, as a rule, only when the first form 
 has been rejected by the men. The capitalists will offer partnership 
 to the Union as a Union. 
 
 " Are there any objections to this form ? 
 
 " There are several, (i) The Union would remain a Union of wage- 
 earners ; the wage-system, with its accompaniment of rent, interest, 
 and profits, would continue in a new form. The only change would be 
 that the workers, while remaining wage-earners, would bpcome at the 
 same time profiteers. (2) Relations between the Union, the salariat, 
 and the capitalists would be unstable, since in the actual management 
 of the same industry th^re cannot be two masters, and each of the 
 parties would be constantly trying to wrest control from the other. 
 (3) Finally, if they combined, the greatest objection of all would arise. 
 
 " What is that ? 
 
 " Together they would form a trust, including the monopoly of 
 capital with the monopoly of labour, by means of which they would 
 exploit society without check. 
 
 " What could be done to prevent the formation of such an anti- 
 national trust ? 
 
 " While the Trade Unions were winning to their emancipation, if the 
 intelligent public were with them, the public might at this point sub- 
 stitute itself for the capitalists, using as its organ the State. 
 
 " What motive could the public have for doing this ? 
 
 " The public would recognise that the national interest lay, not with 
 the profiteers, but with the Trade Unions in their struggle for emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 " What steps could the State take for this purpose ? 
 
 " Its first steps should be to ' buy out ' the capitalists of an industry 
 by offering them a reasonable sum, or, better, by guaranteeing them an 
 income for a period of years. Its next step should be, while retaining 
 ownership of the capital so acquired, to lease it to the Union (now 
 become a Guild by the inclusion of the salariat) to carry on the industry 
 on terms mutually fair and favourable. 
 
 " What, generally, would such terms be ? 
 
296 The Meauii^ of^National Giiilds 
 
 But suppose the capitalists refuse to abdicate, 
 and cast diplomacy to the winds ; what happens 
 then ? If the State is aUied with Labour, this is 
 not a very terrible matter. The capitaMsts must 
 either sell out or get out. Unfortunately circum- 
 stances may be such as to induce the State to look 
 for an alliance with the capitalists for the defeat of 
 Labour. In this case Labour will be forced to rely 
 on its own strength and its own weapons. What 
 will these be ? 
 
 When all is said. Labour must rely always on its 
 two great weapons — ^the strike and pubUc opinion. 
 If the State is hostile when Labour offers partner- 
 ship to it at the expense of the capitalists. Labour 
 must simply refuse to work on any other terms 
 than its own, until the State changes its mind. 
 The capitalists, puUing the strings of the State, 
 will have two weapons to oppose to Labour — 
 forced labour and, secondly, force of arms. The 
 capitalists may induce the State after the War to 
 adopt some sort of miUtary organisation which will 
 empower it to call up the workers as soldiers to 
 break their own strike. This plan, however, is 
 hardly Ukely to be effected behind the backs of the 
 Trade Unions, and certainly they will not permit 
 such a step to be taken openly. 
 
 Far more probable is it that the Regular Army will 
 be thrown against the strikers. It may be objected 
 that no Army, however strong, can force men to 
 
 " In return for its national monopoly of the industry and for its 
 internal self-government, the Guild would undertake the responsibility 
 for producing the commodities required for it of good quality, in the 
 necessary quantity, and at a fair price. It would also undertake to 
 provide its due share of the national revenue by paying a tax, or quasi- 
 rent, in accordjiuce with its net income, to the State as owner." 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 297 
 
 work against their wills. But if violence results, the 
 workers may be stampeded back to work. It is 
 difficult to see how violence can be avoided if the 
 capitaHsts are determiiied to provoke it. The 
 ■yvork of agents-provocateurs may be nullified by 
 strict Trade Union instructions to the workers to 
 maintain order. But how will the strikers obtain 
 food? Markets may be closed and the purchases 
 of the strikers commandeered by^the Army until the 
 end of the staike. Even if the strike is undertaken 
 after a complete understanding with the Co-opera- 
 tive movement, and even if we admit the possibility 
 of the strikers doing" a certain amount of com- 
 mandeering on their own account, the result of a 
 conflict so provoked might prove disastrous to 
 Labour. 
 
 _ Labour's final weapon against armed violence is 
 the force of public opinion. A reactionary Cabinet, 
 a corrupt, irresponsible Parliament — these might 
 sanction the use of the Army by the capitalists 
 against Labour. But is it credible that a public, 
 itself consisting (as journalists so often forget) 
 largely of industrial workers, if it were clearly 
 informed of the aims and ideals of the Trade Unions, 
 would allow the powers of the State to be abused in 
 this manner by the " old regime " in industry ? We 
 do not think society will permit the deliberate pro- 
 vocation of civil (isorder, even if by provoking it 
 the capitalists are able to prolong their term of 
 authority by a few years. 
 
 We do not anticipate, however, an outlook quite 
 as desperate as this. The nationalisation of certain 
 industries — ^in itself, of course, no remedy for the 
 
zgS The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 wage-system' — may serve somewhat to modify the 
 shock of the aboUtion of the system. It would 
 perhaps blunt one of the capitalists' present 
 weapons ; this is the power to reply by a general 
 lock-out to any strike in one industry which is likely 
 to be successful. This manoeuvre, which forces 
 Labour to fight all along the line instead of concen- 
 trating at one point, was very successful in Sweden 
 in 1909." But Labour stands a far greater chance of 
 success by vigorous action in one industry or one 
 group of industries than in dispersing its energy in 
 larger fields. It is, indeed, probable that a National 
 Guild wiU come about at first in one or two pro- 
 fessions or industries — medicine, mining, or railway 
 transport — and the example be followed in others. 
 But this time alone wiU show. 
 
 There is one last point to be considered. We have 
 denied the existence of any desire among the workers 
 for a political revolution. But there is just the 
 possibility that such a disaster may be forced upon 
 this country. Mr. Sidney Webb recently said that 
 any reduction in wages after the War would lead to 
 a revolution. This may or may not be true ; in any 
 case, why should profiteers risk the dangers of 
 reducing wages when prices can be raised in and out 
 of proportion to the rise in wages ? Suppose, 
 however, that the employers, in pursuit of their 
 ideal of industrial servitude, were to succeed in 
 having laws passed — or repealed — ^which would make 
 
 * For a full discussion of Nationalisation and the problem of Expro- 
 priation, see chapter ix., pp. 373-382. 
 
 ' Cf. The World of Labour, 3rd ed., pp. 183-204, for an authoritative 
 treatment of the whole subject of the General Strike and General 
 Lock-out, ~ 
 
The Transition to National Guilds 299 
 
 the funds of the Trade Unions a security for the 
 good behaviour of their members ; and suppose that 
 the funds of any Union were actually seized ; what 
 would be the effect upon Labour? There can be 
 no doubt that there would be such a wave of popular 
 anger as has never been known in recent times in 
 this coimtry. A political revolution, which is at 
 present unUkely, would then be dangerously prob- 
 able. If a Government could be found so ill- 
 informed or so careless of results as to take such a 
 step, it would be a miracle that would avert a 
 revolution. If this miracle occurred, another similar 
 act would certainly precipitate an insurrection. 
 We do not look forward to any such event, but the 
 foUy of reactionaries passes aU bounds. There are 
 many people in the country at this moment who 
 woidd, if they could, brutally and openly endeavour 
 to crush the workers' Trade Unions. If any mis- 
 chance should set lunatics Uke these in authority, 
 the catastrophe we have suggested might well come 
 to pass. 
 
 We are not concerned in this book with the Hnes 
 along which such a revolution would be Mkely to 
 move, but only with its probable effects upon 
 industry. A period of revolution would bring all 
 sorts of grievances to the surface^" it would enor- 
 mously precipitate action in the industrial sphere, 
 and might — ^indeed, almost certainly would — over- 
 throw the last vestige of the capitalists' moral 
 authority. If the revolution were successful. 
 National Guilds would be the only Ukely alternative 
 to industrial anarchy ; if the revolution failed abso- 
 lutely, the industrial result must be the suppression 
 
300 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 of the Trade Unions as active and autonomous 
 bodies, and, in consequence, the definite estabUsh- 
 ment of industrial slavery. Thus the revolution only 
 precipitates the choice that is before society to-day. 
 Let us decide in the calm of civil peace rather than 
 in the agonies of civil war that we prefer Uberty to 
 slavery — National Guilds to the Servile State ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 NATIONAL GUILDS IN BEING 
 
Apology for the chapter-heading. " National Guilds " : 
 justification of the term. Truth and value of the 
 ■analogy with mediaeval Guilds. The spirit of the 
 Guilds. And of the Guildsmen. 
 
 The Guilds from within. Entrance to the Guilds. The 
 question of expulsion. The Guildsmen's pay. -The 
 basis of remuneration ; the wrong way and the right 
 way. Equality of pay as between Guilds, but not 
 necessarily as between Guildsmen. Self-government 
 in the Guild. Election and ratification of officials. 
 Craft representation. Vigilance Committees as a 
 safeguard against " politicals " in industry. 
 
 The structure of the Guilds. Provision for local autonomy 
 and initiative essential. Inter-Guild relations. The 
 Guild Congress : its functions of arbitration. The 
 case of the recalcitrant Guild. The Guild Congress 
 and the State. The Joint Committee and its functions : 
 (i) in relation to foreign trade ; (2) as regards the 
 provision of fresh capital ; (3) in determining taxation. 
 The fixing of prices and the role of the consumer. 
 The Distributive Guild. Its function as the successor 
 of Co-operation. Its relation to foreign imports. 
 
 The individual Guildsman : his standpoint essential through- 
 out. Individual producers (i) outside Guild organisa- 
 tion ; (2) as Licentiates of the Guild. 
 
 A final point. And a note upon the Judiciary. 
 
VIII 
 
 NATIONAL GUILDS IN BEING 
 
 We intend in this chapter to sketch the outUne of 
 National Guilds as they are likely to be. Purist 
 readers, however, may take exception to our appear- 
 ing to treat of National Guilds as if they were 
 bodies already in existence ; we may be told that 
 every one of our sentences should be moulded in the 
 conditional mood — ^that " would " and " should " 
 should take the places of " is " and " will be." The 
 objection is justified ; but we hope that we shall be 
 allowed, for our readers' sake no less than our own, 
 to dispense with cumbrous pedanticisms and (always, 
 of course, with a mental reservation) to speak of 
 National Guilds, when necessary, in this chapter as 
 if they really were " in being." 
 
 Before we go on to outHne their organisation, we 
 may deal with objections that have been made to 
 their title. It is said to be meaningless or, at best, 
 misleading. It is meaningless, we are told, because 
 the words " National Guilds " present no clear 
 image of the industrial structure they represent ; and 
 it is misleading, because the only Guilds known to 
 history are mediaeval associations, of masters as a. 
 rule, situated within the Hmits of a city. In spite 
 of these objections, we may doubt if the title can be 
 bettered. Many industrial organisations, indeed, 
 are known by names only broadly descriptive of 
 
 303 
 
30^ The Meaning of National Gkiilds 
 
 them. For example, no one ignorant of the nature 
 of a " Trade Union " would be helped to realise its 
 present form by the name alone. A " Trust," again, 
 hardly lives up to its name on close acquaintance. 
 We cannot hope to find a word or a couple of words 
 which will sum up a complete industrial organisation ; 
 nevertheless, we deny that the word " Guild " is 
 inaccurate. If thOse who object to it were more 
 famihar with the mediaeval Guilds, they would no 
 doubt see the huge generic resemblances between 
 them and National Gtiilds. It is true that a mediaeval 
 Guild was confined to a city ; but so also was mediae- 
 val industry. By the growth of communication, 
 industry is now no longer bounded by city walls, 
 but organised on a national scale ; the Guilds, 
 therefore, must also be national and not limited to a 
 city. Yet in many and by far the most important 
 respects the Guild idea remains constant in National 
 Guilds. The title of Guild has implicit in it several 
 unique industrial attributes : it means that pubUc 
 recognition is accorded to the body, that the mono- 
 poly of its particular trade is vested in it, that aU its 
 members have an equal and free status as associates 
 in it ; also, that the Guild spirit in work is revived. 
 The first of these conditions is reaUy a measure of 
 reciprocity ; the State acknowledges the fvmctions 
 of the Guilds, because the Guilds acknowledge the 
 functions of the State. Neither of the parties to this 
 social partnership can claim absolute sovereignty 
 or enforce subjection, and the independence of 
 each will be hmited only by their interdependence. 
 The demarcation of these functions and the division 
 of authority, ultimate and immediate, we must 
 
National Guilds in Being 305 
 
 defer for a space ; it is sufficient to emphasise here 
 the social significance of the Guild's statutory 
 position. 
 
 We come to the second characteristic of a Guild — 
 monopoly. This has an evil sound, but only when 
 it can be abused for the private advantage of the 
 monopoHst over the rest of the community. This 
 consideration, however, apphes only to industrial 
 structures in which profiteering has a part. The 
 necessity to each National Guild of complete 
 monopoly in the working of its particular trade is 
 obvious enough, for purposes of control, discipline, 
 and seciirity against outside interference. The 
 leaven of competition within the Guild is not 
 affected by the prevention of competition with the 
 Guild from outside. Nor does this monopoly forbid 
 the activities of the individual craftsman, who 'may, 
 as a Licentiate of the Guild, own his own workshop 
 and supply his goods to the public, subject to the 
 conditions of his arrangement with the Guild. 
 Monopoly in the Guild sense is rather autonomy ; 
 its most important impUcation is the right of each 
 National Guild to govern itself. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to emphasise the third 
 point, that all members of a Guild would, as Guilds- 
 men, have the same status. Position and privileges 
 would be accorded to GuUdsmen according to their 
 abUities ; but there would be no servile class, like the 
 wage-earners under Capitalism, whose only duty in 
 industry is to supply another class with labour. 
 Every GuUdsman alike would receive remuneration 
 and privileges as a Guildsman,, and he would be 
 entitled to these in all seasons and under all 
 
 w 
 
3o6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 circumstances. The profound difference in this 
 respect between National Guilds and the capitalists' 
 wage-system is evident. The notion now disappears 
 that the wage-earner is a " hand," to be engaged when 
 work is plentiful and dismissed when it is slack ; to 
 be paid when he is well and working, but to be thrown 
 on the dustheap of charity when he is without work 
 or Ul. Labour ceases to be regarded as a commodity, 
 the market price of which, called " wages," is 
 reckoned as merely one of the costs of production ; 
 Labour in the Guilds would be recognised as the 
 human element in industry, and, therefore, as 
 unmarketable and unpriceable. As a Guildsman, 
 every worker has the right to share in the govern- 
 ment and control of his Guild, nor would any Guilds- 
 man have authority over others except in those 
 matters of working and discipline that require the 
 election of such leaders. National Guilds would be 
 democratic and fraternal bodies. 
 
 The Guild spirit in work would be revived. Every 
 Guildsman, having once been entered in his Guild, 
 would be entitled to its privileges; and while he is thus 
 materially secured, he would be no less spiritually 
 at an advantage over the worker imder Capitalism. 
 The wage-earner is working, as he knows, primarily 
 for the profit of his employers ; the Guildsman 
 knows that his Guild, whereof he is an active 
 and responsible member, is a body engaged in the 
 pubUc service. He is working for the conmumity, 
 as a member of a Guild which he and his fellow 
 Guildsmen control — ^not for the capitalists, nor under 
 the external control of a political authority and its 
 bureaucratic officers. With this knowledge and 
 
National Guilds in Beii^ 307 
 
 under Guild conditions of freedom and security, 
 tlie worker would find in National Guilds a happy 
 release from the horrors of Capitahsm and its wage- 
 system. Industry and production mean more to 
 the world than they do imder Capitalism. The old 
 Guildsmen looked on their trades in another spirit ; 
 they saw that society needed the things which they^ 
 produced, and that they owed it the duty and 
 themselves the joy of making these things in the best 
 possible manner. The work was often a drudgery, 
 but it was a drudgery which Guildsmen were 
 content to do and proud to do weU. If a thing is 
 worth making at aU, says the Guildsmaji, it is worth 
 making weU ; this is the spirit in which GuUd work 
 is done. The worker who can take pride and joy in 
 his work sees a new importance in his trade ; for he 
 knows that he is worthily fulfilling a social need. 
 Thus the National Giuldsman would find a new 
 dignity in the work ; the consumer of GuUd products 
 would know that he is assured of good work and 
 quality in all he uses ; and the community that 
 entrusts its industry to National Guilds wiU find itsfeU 
 possessed of a new race of citizens, looking upon the 
 world with other eyes than those of greed alone. 
 Indeed, the GuUd idea, if not the GuUd organisation, 
 is, as we have seen, already impUcit in several profes- 
 sions, where the interests of society and the responsi- 
 bility of the service are put above the thought of gain. 
 When we regard the Churches, Medicine, and the 
 Army, we see bodies in which the thought of personal 
 gain is, as a rule, subordinate to better aims. There 
 is no reason whatever why Industry should not take 
 its place beside these others as a public service, Th§ 
 
3o8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 advantage of the community and the upholding of 
 craftsmanship would then be regarded as the main 
 purposes of its existence ; while the fear of the 
 workers for their Uvelihood, and their employers' 
 greed for personal gain — the characteristics of 
 Capitahsm — ^would be removed by the provision of 
 industrial self-government, equal status, and secure 
 remuneration. 
 
 We must never forget when we speak of National 
 Guilds in being, first, that the Guildsmen would be 
 the men and the sons of the men who had fought and 
 won their battle from wage-slavery to industrial 
 democracy ; secondly, that they would be enabled to 
 look -upon their work, its purposes and its conditions, 
 with a nobler outlook than any we know of in 
 industry to-day. Only if we bear these two facts 
 well in mind can we hope to examine the organisation 
 of the National Guilds with sympathy and under- 
 standing. It is not our purpose in this chapter to 
 attempt to lay down hard-and-fast rules for the 
 Guilds of the future ; the most that can be done at 
 this stage of Guild propaganda is to sketch, as well 
 as past and present indications allow, the limits 
 within which a stable Guild constitution must lie. 
 To this attempt we now turn. 
 
 We have already pictured a National Guild from 
 the outside. It is, we saw, a democratic and self- 
 governing association, consisting of all the workers 
 _ of all grades engaged in any given industry and 
 carrying on that industry in conjunction with the 
 State. Applying this idea to the great industries 
 of the nation — ^mining, land and marine transport. 
 
National Guilds in Being 309 
 
 engineering, textiles, building, and the rest — and to 
 the professions, such as medicine, law, education, 
 and the" Civil Service, we can easily envisage the 
 sort of Guild structures that will arise. Each Guild 
 will be organised on a national scale ; the supreme 
 Guild authority wiU be the Guild Congress, upon 
 which all the National Guilds will be represented. 
 But the working of the Guilds will depend not so 
 much on their national organisation as on their 
 decentraUsation. The Guild starts in the work- 
 shop and finishes in the Guild Congress, not vice 
 versa ! Thus there will be Local, and also District, 
 Guild Councils, upon which representatives of the 
 vatrious Guilds will meet, and which, by reason of 
 their close contact with local industry, will tend to be 
 the recognised centres of Guild Ufe and authority. 
 Each separate Guild will build up its organisation, 
 storey by storey, from the local branch to the national 
 authority ; later on we shall see how this may best 
 be done without swamping the Guild spirit in the 
 whirlpool of the large organisation. But if we stay 
 too long to look at the Guild structure from the 
 outside, we shall not get much further on the path 
 towards attaining it. We must seek rather to 
 examine the Guilds from the inside, from the point 
 of view of the Guildsman himself. He, after all, 
 is the man who wiU' make them, and for the good of 
 whom and whose work they are to be made. 
 
 We shall, -then, start our sketch of the National 
 Guilds from inside with the first question of all that 
 affect the Guildsman, namely, entrance to the Guild. » 
 
 '•Some years ago a group of National Guildsmen drew up privately 
 a Syllabic upon matters of Guild propaganda. It dealt largely with 
 the organisatioivpf the Guilds and their relations with each other and 
 
3X0 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Entrance to the Industrial Guild wiU not presuppose 
 any qualifying examination. Each man will be free 
 to choose his Guild, and actual entrance will depend on 
 the demand for labour. In fact, the principle will be 
 that of first come, first served. In the event of there 
 being no vacancy, it will be open for the apphcant either 
 to apply for entrance to another Guild, or during his 
 period of waiting to take up some occupation of a tem- 
 porary character. He wUl then secure the option of 
 entering the Guild of his choice when a vacancy occurs. 
 
 To the occupations requiring technical knowledge 
 there will be a double system of entry. One way will be 
 by apprenticeship in the Technical Colleges, followed by a 
 qualifying examination for entrance to the craft ; but it 
 will also be open for any working member of the Guild 
 who passes the qualifying examination to enter any craft 
 without apprenticeship, and so, whatever his method of 
 entry to the Guild, to rise to any position in it. 
 
 Labour in " dirty industries " — scavenging, etc. — 
 wiU probably be in the main of a temporary character, 
 and wiU be undertaken by those who are for the time 
 imable to obtain an entry elsewhere.' 
 
 The question of expulsion from the National Guild 
 arises naturally at this point. It is clear that the 
 right to expel an undesirable inember must be 
 reserved to the Guild, but it is obvious also that this 
 right must be most carefully regulated. There is 
 the danger to be guarded against, on the one hand, 
 that a Guildsman might be liable to expulsion at 
 the will of the Guild officials. But this is incom- 
 patible with the Guild ideas, since it might easily 
 
 with the community. This Syllabus has never been published, nor 
 was it intended for publication ; but the authors of this book have 
 consulted it throughout the present chapter, and, as will be seen, often 
 quoted it verbatim. They wish to notify their debt to the authors of 
 the Syllabus, and to congratulate them on the fact that so few of iti 
 conclusions have been rejected by later Guild writings. 
 * From the Syllabus (see preceding note)'. 
 
National Guilds in Being 311 
 
 degenerate into an intolerable tyranny, similar to 
 that now exercised by the employer over " his 
 hands. " It is clear that an unsatisfactory Guildsman 
 ought to be judged, in the first instance, by the men 
 who are working beside him ; this alone, however, 
 will not be enough to justify expulsion. A man 
 might become disagreeable to his associates for 
 many reasons which would not, however, dishabili- 
 tate him as a Guildsman ; in such cases there would 
 have to be machinery for offering the man a transfer 
 into a branch of the Guild in another district. The 
 extreme step, however, of expulsion is far too serious 
 to be settled off-hand by any one section of the GuUd, 
 and it must not be resorted to without the definite 
 decision of the GuQd as a whole. For this purpose 
 courts might be estabhshed to try the offenders ; 
 but no step as drastic as the expulsion of a member 
 shotild be undertaken unless there is an overwhelm- 
 ing majority in its favour. Among the causes 
 rendering a Guildsman hable to expulsion would be 
 the deUberate lowering of GuUdT standards, breaches 
 of GuUd discipline, or conduct that reflected 
 adversely on the Guild as a whole. (This would 
 correspond with the " infamous conduct " for which 
 nowadays a doctor or a lawyer may be struck off 
 the register of his profession. The Guilds, however, 
 would probably narrow their interpretation of this 
 phrase to exclude some of the social offences which 
 are repugnant to the somewhat snobbish dictates 
 of the professional mind of to-day ; but doubtless the 
 leniency of the Guilds to the Guildsman in this 
 respect would be balanced by greater strictness 
 about offences committfed by him as a worker.) 
 
3X2 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 We may turn now to the question of the Guilds- 
 man's remuneration. Is the GuUdsman to be paid 
 according to what he does, or according to what he 
 needs, or according to the position he occupies ? 
 
 The first alternative is out of the question. In its 
 crude industrial form, " payment by results " 
 brings with it aU the abominations of systematic 
 speeding-up, and of the scamped and bad work that 
 are especially the faults of industry under the wage- 
 system. Such a system, based on the output of 
 the worker, tends sooner or later to ignore both the 
 quaUty of his work and the conditions imder which 
 he produces it. Even if an attempt is made to 
 consider also the quality as well as the quantity of 
 the output, the position is little bettered. We must 
 hope to appeal to something better in the worker as 
 an incentive than the interest of personal profit 
 alone. It might seem at first sight as if the second 
 alternative, to pay the Guildsman according to his 
 needs, were the right one. The arguments in its 
 favour are obvious and plausible. The first diffi- 
 culty arises when we come to consider what a 
 Gmldsman's needs really are. Clothing and a bed 
 he clearly needs ; but only the wise men of Gotham 
 know if he needs an vmibreUa and an eiderdown. 
 If we are going to decide what the worker really 
 needs and what is not absolutely necessary for him, 
 we shall be perpetuating a most sinister aspect of 
 the tyranny of the large employer to-day. He says 
 that his workmen need this, that, and the other — 
 and includes even a certain projiortion of recreation 
 and cheap luxury in the list — ^but he does not desire 
 the workers to make the dioice for themselves. He 
 
National Guilds in Being 3x3 
 
 is aided in this attempt to issue rations of life to 
 them by the general tendency of public action to-day. 
 It is everywhere agreed that wage-earners must be 
 allowed a certain standard of comfort, calculated 
 to keep them in working order and their children 
 after them. Thus there are public regulations for 
 the housing of the wage-earners and their famihes, 
 for their schooling, their employment, their holiday- 
 making, their drinking, their healing, their being 
 bom, and their dying — ^indeed, for the whole of their 
 imhappy existence. By virtue of these public 
 restrictions and allowances, it is possible for the 
 wage-earner in normal times to Hve in a certain 
 standard fashion. The injustice of the arrangement 
 is that, while the wage-earner has to live in this way, 
 his employer is permitted to live however he himself 
 prefers. It might be tolerable if the whole of a 
 community put itself on rations, so ordering its Hfe 
 that nothing it consumed v/as wasted and that there 
 was no useless luxury. Short of this, however, 
 any attempt to standardise the conditions under 
 which one section of the community Mves, while 
 leaving the rest free to Hve as they choose, reduces 
 the standardised class to a condition of virtual 
 slavery. Indeed, the whole tendency towards the 
 Servile State has been made extremely evident by 
 the half-vindictive, half-philanthropic efforts of the 
 emplo3dng classes to standardise the Hves, pleasures, 
 and pains of the workers. The invariable tendency 
 of any powerful class of men to claim the right to 
 dictate to their weaker fellows is a warning that it 
 win not be safe to seek to standardise the hfe of the 
 Guildsman by standardising his pay according to 
 
314 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 what are considered to be his needs. A free man 
 wUl share this right with none but Nature. 
 
 Different is the question whether Guildsmen should 
 be paid according to their position in the Guild, or 
 whether all the members of the Guild should be paid 
 equally. To the capitalist tj^e of inind the question 
 is ridiculous. Who will trouble to excel, the capital- 
 ist asks, unless he knows that by so doing he wUl be 
 improving his material position ? But this attitude 
 is quite alien to the spirit of Guild work. A crafts- 
 man who loves his craft will aim always at executing 
 good work, regardless of any additional monetary 
 reward. If he is also an ambitious man, the 
 admiration of his fellows — and even their envy — 
 means more to him than money. It may be 
 suggested, however, that the assumption of especial 
 responsibilities entitles a Guildsman to especial 
 remuneration, or at least' to especial privileges. 
 The last must certainly be admitted ; privileges 
 should be apportioned according to responsibihties 
 — among free men they always are ! The matter of 
 actual monetary remuneration, however, is not 
 covered by this. It will be difficult to grade 
 men in the new Industrial Guilds as simply as they 
 were graded — as apprentices, joumejonen, and 
 masters— in the old Craft Guilds. What, then, 
 is to be done ? 
 
 It is clearly impossible dogmatically to lay down 
 any rules at present for the payment of individual 
 Guildsmen. We may, however, suggest the follow- 
 ing as incontrovertible points of Guild doctrine. 
 First, the amount apportioned to each National 
 Guild for the remuneration of its members should 
 
National Guilds in Being 3^5 
 
 be in exact proportion to its membership. For 
 example, each of two Guilds of equal membership 
 should have the same amount for distribution in 
 pay ; and a Guild of half the membership of the 
 foregoing should have the half of the amoimt to 
 divide. Secondly, the manner of distributing pay 
 to its members should be at the discretion of each 
 National Guild, as a democratic and self-governing 
 body. It is, after aU, no business of the miners how 
 the transport workers decide to apportion their pay. 
 One Gmld may decide to grade the pay of its mem- 
 bers, and another to pay them all equally. Both 
 these methods are unobjectionable from the Guilds- 
 man's point of view. 
 
 We must remember that the total amount of pay 
 to be allotted for distribution by the Guilds will not 
 be standardised. The governing consideration in 
 arriving at this sum will be -not so much the fixing 
 of an arbitrary " standard of hfe " for the Guildsman, 
 after guaranteeing which the State will feel justified 
 in appropriating the rest for public purposes ; 
 rather will the position be that the State wiU ascer- 
 tain its needs for the year and present its statement 
 to the Guild Congress (of which we shall speak in a 
 moment), and the Guild Congress, on its side, will 
 have to take into consideration the economic needs 
 in capital and plants of the various Guilds. These 
 considerations settled,^ the rest of the Guilds' 
 income, whatever its amount, will belong to the 
 Guilds. In order, however, that no individual 
 Guild shall dehberately increase its prices in order 
 
 ' The provision of fresh capital has also to be taken into account. 
 See below, pp. 327-8. 
 
3i6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to increase its income, it is necessary that all Guild 
 moneys should be pooled in the Guild Congress, 
 which will insist on the operation of the first rule of 
 National Guild remuneration, namely, that all the 
 Guilds shall receive money for their members' 
 remuneration on a basis of numerical membership. 
 The basis, then, upon which the individual membgr 
 of a National Guild will be paid is " neither what a 
 man's labour wiU fetch, nor what a man is supposed 
 to need, nor what a man's service is estimated to be 
 worth to the State, but the fact that he is a member of 
 a Guild. As such, he will be entitled to fuU pay both 
 when he is working and when he is unemployed, and 
 to a pension when he ceases to produce." Should a 
 Guild decide to institute equality of pay among its 
 members, the decision must come spontaneously 
 from the Guild and must not be the result of dicta- 
 tion from without. This equality of income does 
 not, of course, preclude the possibility of a differ- 
 entiation of the hours and conditions of the members 
 of the Guild, according to the character of their 
 occupation. As for the Guildsman's savings : 
 
 The individual will be free to save or bank such portion 
 of his earnings as he may choose, but no interest will be 
 paid on such savings. The present method of individual 
 saving will be no longer necessary to the reproduction" 
 of capital, since this reproduction will be arranged for 
 by the Guilds themselves.* 
 
 We have now seen, in broad outline, how a 
 Guildsman would enter his Guild, how an unworthy 
 member might be expelled from his fraternity, and 
 how the Guildsman is to be remunerated. We shsdl 
 
 • From the Syllabus. 
 
National Guilds in Being 317 
 
 now proceed to discuss the administration of the 
 Guild as it will strike the Guildsman, our intention 
 being always to work from the individual Guildsman 
 upwards to the GuUd Congress rather than vice 
 versa ; for, indeed, the National Guilds will be based 
 as certainly on the individual members and their 
 common purpose as a nation depends on the indi- 
 vidual citizen -and his morale. 
 
 On entering his Guild, the Guildsman will find 
 himself able to influence its administration in a 
 double respect. His first voice will be in the work- 
 shop where he is actually working (we use the work- 
 shop as a convenient example of the smallest distinct 
 unit in the structure of any industry) and in the 
 works of which this is a part ; his second voice will 
 be through his craft organisation. * 
 
 The main principle of National Guilds in regard 
 to administration is that every official in the main 
 framework of a Guild should be chosen, not by a 
 general election, but by the men best qualified to 
 judge of his ability for the position, and that every 
 such choice must be ratified by the workers who 
 are to be affected by it. The Guild would build 
 up in this way a pjnramid of officers, each chosen 
 by the grade imniediately below that which he is 
 to occupy. The lower the grade, the shorter the 
 period for which the ofiicial would be elected. 
 
 The second form of organisation within the 
 National GtuM would be by craft representation. 
 Over againsti'and in addition to, the structure of 
 
 * In some Guilds, as, for instance, Engineering, it may be necessary 
 to provide for a third form of representation, for the Department or 
 " Sub-industrial Grouping " to which the worker belongs, e.g., the 
 foundry, or the shipyard (should shipbuilding, as seems probable, fall 
 within tlie scope of tke Engineering Guild). 
 
3x8 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 officials (each grade rising by election out of that 
 beneath it) there will be also a vast organisation 
 by craft. All those members of a National Guild 
 who are engaged in the same craft wiU have the 
 right of separate craft representation in addition to 
 the direct election of officials. This form of craft 
 (or professional) representation, running horizon- 
 tally across the Guilds, provides another means by 
 which the individual Guildsman will direct his own 
 working hfe ; for the craft representatives, chosen 
 by their feUow craftsmen, wiU take their place in the 
 administrative structure of the Guild, side by side 
 with those representatives whom the worker has 
 elected, not as a craftsman this time, but as an 
 industrial worker. » It may in certain cases be 
 desirable that the grades above — ^instead of those 
 below — should suggest suitable candidates for 
 posts ; it is essential, however, to the safety of the 
 Guild that the actual election of these officers should 
 rest with the grade below, and that it should 
 in every case be ratified by the workers most 
 closely concerned. (These rules, of cotuse, need 
 not always apply in cases where the office in question 
 is wholly advisory and does not entail any authority 
 over other Guildsmen.) The craft organisation 
 would also, where necessary, have to decide if the 
 technical qualification of the candidates entitled 
 them to seek election ; indeed, it would in such cases 
 be necessary for these to pass the craft tests before 
 standing for office.' The common aim of the Giiild 
 
 ' It may in some instances be both possible and desirable to combine 
 these two principles of local and craft representation in a single 
 electoral process; see, for example, the constitution of the N.U.R, as 
 quoted above, p. 121, n. 
 
National Guilds in Being 319 
 
 in its choice of officers must be the "finding and 
 keeping of the right administrative talent in the 
 right ofi&cial places ; the methods here outlined 
 seem to us the best adapted to secure this. 
 
 The objection might, however, be raised that the 
 officials as a whole-^from the shop stewards and 
 Workshop Committees to the general managers and 
 the Gmld Executive — ^might combine, with the 
 "never-ending audacity of elected persons," in a huge 
 conspiracy against the rank and file, and turn their 
 official positions into one vast vested interest — ^in 
 short, that they might become poUticals in industry. 
 To this we wo\ild reply that, if the workers have the 
 sense to get rid of the wage-system and to found the 
 Guilds, they will be sufficiently intelligent to form 
 vigilance committees within the Guilds, should these 
 be necessary to prevent the officials, who are elected 
 to carry out the administrative work of the Guilds, 
 from degenerating into rogues seeking only their 
 own individual interests. 
 
 The foregoing wiU have given the reader a rough 
 idea of the administration of a National Guild from 
 the individual Guildsman's point of view, and have 
 shown incidentally the path by which capable and 
 trusted men would rise to office in their Guild 
 and in their craft association. We may now tmn 
 to a consideration of the structure of the Guilds. 
 We shall perforce deal with outline rather than 
 detail, since it is not possible to take any one industry 
 and to apply the results to aU the others. Nor, to 
 be sure, are National Guilds intended as machines 
 for the stereotyping of industry ; on the contrary, 
 
320 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 If the Guild is not to fall into mediocrity, it must 
 preserve the distinctness of works from works, of locality 
 from locality, and of nation from nation.* 
 
 We may quote, also, from the Syllabus of which 
 mention was made above : 
 
 The system of National Guilds does not involve a 
 highly centrahsed and universally sovereign national 
 authority, and it is essential to avoid either stagnation 
 in the methods of production or excessive standardisa- 
 tion of the product. The local branches of each Guild 
 will, therefore, be free to adopt and apply new inventions, 
 to speciahse on certain products, and in general to adapt 
 production to their own ideas and local needs. This 
 freedom will, however, be subject to the observance of 
 the regulations laid down by the National Guild authority 
 and to the national fixation of general conditions, e.g., 
 hours and factory amenities, etc. 
 
 The amount of local autonomy in the Guild will vary 
 according to the type of industry concerned, e.g., the 
 transport and railway system will be far more highly 
 centralised than the building industry, which produces 
 for a local market. Though orders will to a great extent 
 
 * Self-government in Industry, pp. 253-4. Mr. Cole compares this 
 with the " cartel " system in capitalist production : " In the public 
 mind, rings, cartels, and trusts are too often lumped together without 
 distinction ; but the difference between them is of the greatest import- 
 ance for Guildsmen. The ' ring ' may be only a trust in process of 
 formation ; the fully developed ' cartel ' is a distinct»type, and Is 
 Capitjilism's latest and best form — from the capitalist point of view. 
 Briefly, the cartel, instead of destroying difference, aims at retaining 
 it. It leaves the management of every ' works ' in separate hands, 
 and only co-ordinates their forces in face of the consumer. It regulates 
 sale, supply, and demand, and keeps a watchful eye on efficiency, and 
 often on labour conditions — all, of course, from the capitalistic stand- 
 point ; but the methods of production it leaves, generally speaking, to 
 each separate factory. In this way it does undoubtedly secure a 
 higher degree of efficiency than the complete trust ; It standardises 
 price, but it avoids the standardising oj production. The CoUectivist 
 Utopia would be a world of publi: trusts ; the Guild Utopia will be a 
 world of producers' cartels, worked in the interest of the whole com- 
 munity. ... It is the organisation of human diliferences on the basis 
 of human identity," 
 
National Guilds in Being 321 
 
 continue to be placed with and pajmient made to the 
 local GuUd authorities, these authorities will act solely 
 as receivers for the National Guild, to which all moneys 
 wiU belong. Competition of quaUty wUl thus continue 
 between the various branches of the Guild, but the 
 incentive to better workmanship wiU not be financial. 
 
 And Mr. Cole points out that 
 
 It is, in fact, not production, but trading, that must be 
 under a national control. . . . Let each works be in the 
 first instance self-governing where production is con- 
 cerned ; but let the organisation of exchange be carried 
 out by a national authority acting in co-operation with 
 local authorities. . . . The preservation of a high standard 
 of craftsmanship will be a function of the national and 
 district authorities ; but the works wiU be self-governing, 
 and intervention from without will come only by way 
 of occasional criticism, and in answer to an existing 
 grievance.* 
 
 National Guilds will be based upon national 
 industries. There will, therefore, be as many 
 National Guilds as there are main industries suscep- 
 tible of Guild organisation ; and their structure will 
 be conditioned by the, nature of their functions. 
 The number of National Guilds cannot at present be 
 accurately determined, since much depends on the 
 manner in which the Guilds come into bdijig. 
 For example, it may be academically desirable that 
 the railwajonen should merge with the other trans- 
 port services and should form with them one inclu- 
 sive Transport Guild ; it is, however, quite possible 
 that, if, as is probable, the Guilds come gradually 
 into existence, one of the first will be a Railway 
 Guild, concerned only with that form of transit. 
 3ut there cannot be a smaller division than this ; 
 
 * §?lf-government in Industry, pp. 272-4. 
 
 X 
 
322 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the railwayraen cannot have two Guilds. Thus 
 the number of National Guilds may be supposed to 
 Ue somewhere round about a score. This is not, 
 however, a matter that need detain us. 
 
 We wish now to consider, first, the relations of the 
 National Guilds with each other, and afterwards 
 their relations with the community as a whole and 
 with the individual in it. Modem industries are so 
 interwoven that it is often difficult, sometimes even 
 impossible, to find the exact point of demarcation 
 between two industries — and thus between their 
 respective Guilds. A certain body of men may be 
 laid claim to both by the Railway Guild (or will it be 
 the Transport Guild ?) and by the Engineering GuUd. 
 There are, for example, the men working in the rail- 
 way shops who may find themselves in this position. 
 One solution of the demarcation difficulty would be 
 that the two Guilds should; with the approval of 
 the men concerned, come to a decision about them 
 one way or the other ; better stiU, the men might be 
 considered members of both Guilds, with special 
 conditions applying to them. ' This is an interesting 
 point, but, again, not one of great importance ; we 
 mention it here as an example of the inter-Guild 
 problems that may arise. The chief industrial 
 relations, however, of one Guild with another will 
 arise in the supply and consumption by the one of 
 the products of the other. 
 
 The interaction of the Guilds will be determined 
 by the extent of the interdependence of their 
 industries. There must be local, district, and 
 
 ' The system of transferable cards of membership between two 
 Trade Unions is already in existence in some cases. 
 
National Guilds in Being 323 
 
 national arrangements, according to the nature of 
 the matters involved. With the quickening of 
 individual expression that we expect from the 
 Guilds, and the consequent development of local 
 interests, it is to be anticipated that the bulk of the 
 inter-Gmld relations will be centred in the Local 
 and the District Guild Councils. To the National 
 Councils wiU be submitted only such matters as are 
 of national importance ; otherwise, as in all Guild 
 activities, decentrahsation wiU be the rule. 
 
 As one Guild will in many cases consume in its own 
 production the produce of another, and as many problems 
 connected with demarcation, transference of member- 
 ship, and the dovetailing of seasonal industries will arise, 
 it will be necessary that there should be some machinery 
 for the discussion of such questions. For this purpose 
 the Guilds wiU probably set up Joint Committees, local 
 and national, temporary or permanent, responsible to 
 the executives of the two or more Guilds concerned.' 
 
 A distinction should be drawn between the pro- 
 ducts needed for the work of the Guild and those 
 needed for consumption by its workers privately — 
 for example, between the supply of coal by the 
 Mining Guild to the Railway Guild for use in running 
 the railways, and that for burning on the railway- 
 men's family hearths. With the latter question of 
 private supply we shall deal later ; we are here 
 speaking only of those suppUes needed by the Guild 
 for industrial purposes. This particular instance, 
 of the supply of coal for the raiTways, happens to be 
 one that would directly concern two Guilds only ; 
 many such questions, however, will closely and 
 simultaneously affect several Guilds. The obvious 
 
 1 From the Syllabus. 
 
324 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 machinery for dealing with these matters is to set up 
 Joint Committees (permanent or temporary, accord- 
 ing to the nature of the work), on which wiE be 
 delegates of each of the Guilds concerned and, in 
 many cases, representatives of craft associations as 
 well. 
 
 The circle expands, and matters arise which 
 concern in some degree all the Guilds. If the matter 
 is a local one, it is clearly one for decision by the Local 
 Guild Council or by a special committee appointed 
 by this body ; if it concerns a whole district, the 
 District Guild Council will deal with it. Industrial 
 matters of still greater importance will be dealt with 
 by the National GuUd Congress, on which every 
 Guild wiU have representation. We must now 
 consider the nature of this important body. 
 
 There are several functions that belong peculiarly 
 to the Guild Congress, and for the settlement of 
 which it will no doubt establish permanent com- 
 mittees.' Indeed, every question that is the affair 
 of all the National Guilds as a whole is clearly a 
 matter for decision by the Guild Congress ; but it 
 must' be remembered that the working out of any 
 decision arrived at is, as far as any individual Guild 
 
 ' The precise constitution of the Guild Congress is in dispute among 
 Guildsmen. Some argue that it should include representatives of all 
 those who are rendering services, whether in Industry, in the Educa- 
 tional, Medical, and Legal Guilds, or in the Administrative Guild of the 
 Civil Service, since all these are (in the widest sense) " producers." 
 Others contend that the Guild Congress should cover Industry only, 
 and prefer, therefore, to speak of the " Congress of Industrial Guilds." 
 In their view, the relation to the State of each Civil Guild is a question to 
 be decided on its own merits, and is entirely distinct from that of the 
 relation of all the Industrial Guilds to the State. Accordingly, they 
 foresee a number of " Second Chambers," each dealing with a special 
 function of Government and elected ai hoc, e.g., an " Industrial Senate," 
 or Joint Committee of the State and the Industrial Guild Congress ; an 
 " Educational Senate," representing the State and the Teachers' Guild, 
 etc. 
 
National Guilds in Being 325 
 
 is concerned, largely the affair of that Guild alone. 
 Most factory laws and similar industrial regulations 
 wiU be the province of the Guild Congress; also, 
 disputes between Guilds must, in the last resort, be 
 brought before the Guild Congress for settlement. 
 Indeed, a query often brought to confound 
 National Guildsmen is this : What would happen to 
 a National Guild that began to work wholly accord- 
 ing to its own pleasure, without regard to the other 
 Guilds and the rest of the community ? We may 
 reply, first, that this spirit would be as unnatural 
 among the Guilds as it is natural nowadays with the 
 present anti-commimal, capitalist system of indus- 
 try ; secondly, if it did arise in any Guild, this 
 contempt for the rest of the community would be 
 met by the concerted action of the other Guilds. 
 The dependence of any individual Guild upon the 
 others would be necessarily so great that a recalci- 
 trant GuUd would find itself at once in a most diffi- 
 cult position ; with all the other Guilds against it, 
 and the State as well (for it is to the interest of the 
 State to see industry harmoniously conducted), a 
 Guild that pressed forward demands that were 
 generally felt by the rest of the community to be 
 impossible or unreasonable would soon be brought 
 back into line again. A Guild, however, that 
 thought itself ill-used by its fellows would be able to 
 signify its displeasure by the threat of a strike ; but 
 it is to be hoped that there would be sufficient 
 machinery for the successful settlement of- inter- 
 Guild dealings that occasion for this would seldom 
 arise. The further objection may be made that 
 other considerations besides that of personal profit 
 
32d The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 might lead a Guild to take high-handed action. 
 However, it may justly be answered that the 
 establishment of the Guilds and the Guild Congress 
 means the end of irresponsibility among the workers 
 and ensures their determination to avoid internecine 
 differences. Such conflicts, it must be remembered, 
 as at present occur between two Trade Unions are 
 almost invariably due to their centraUsed constitu- 
 tion ; were the local hfe of the workers quickened 
 by the rise of the Local Guild Councils, the interested 
 feuds of Labour's high officials would never be able 
 to affect, as they do now, thousands of their fellows. 
 The main duty of the Guild Congress, besides its 
 being the supreme authority for the decision of inter- 
 Guild differences,concems the income andthetaxation 
 of the Guilds. Here we come into direct contact with 
 that aspect of society which hes outside the Guild or- 
 ganisation. The exact nature of the relations between 
 the Guild Congress and the State is a subject of discus- 
 sion amongst National Guildsmen. There is the one 
 party that insists that the State is entitled to claim 
 ultimate authority over the Guilds. Another school 
 points out that this claim, without the power to 
 enforce it, is empty, and suggests that the sovereign- 
 ties of the Guilds and the State should be equal and 
 opposite ; that neither of the parties to this social 
 partnership can claim absolute sovereignty or enforce 
 subjection, since the independence of each will be 
 hmited only by their interdependence. We shall 
 not enter into the philosophic discussion that 
 rages between these two schools. The problem of 
 sovereignty is fascinating in the extreme, but 
 it is not necessary to pursue it here. From our 
 
National Guilds in Being 327 
 
 standpoint, the essential and basic thing is that 
 initiative in industry should he with the producers 
 themselves through the Guilds ; this no Guildsman 
 will dispute. • It will be sufficient for our immediate 
 pur|)ose if we lay down the following broad rule : 
 The Guilds [through the Guild Congress) shall be the 
 final authority in all purely industrial matters, while 
 the State {through its Parliament) is to be the final 
 authority in all purely political affairs; matters of both 
 political and industrial importance are to be deter- 
 mined by joint committees of the Guild Congress and 
 Parliament. 
 
 This rule may be appUed, fpr example, to the 
 questions of foreign trade and foreign affairs. So 
 closely connected are these two functions that 
 neither Parhament nor the Guild Congress could 
 hope to control them without mutual co-operation. 
 
 For the conduct of foreign affairs a body representing 
 both the geographical State and the industrial Guilds 
 will be necessary, since it is impossible to separate 
 economic from national problems in foreign relations, 
 and since the connection between them will become even 
 more intimate in a democratic system. 
 
 International barter will be a function of the Guilds. 
 That part of our overseas trade which now represents, 
 not the direct exchange of commodities or services, but 
 the investment of a portion of the national wealth, will be 
 carried on while it continues by the State.* 
 
 ' See above, chapter ii., pp. 15-25, where it is shown how this stand- 
 point differs fundamentally from that of the Collectivist. 
 
 « From the Syllabus. While touching here (if only to exemplarise 
 another point) upon the matter of foreign trade, we may take the 
 opportunity to reply to a question sometimes asked of Guildsmen : 
 Would the Guilds be able to maintain our national position in foreign 
 markets, especially, for instance, in the vital markets of raw materials ? 
 We should reply that, if it is possiljle for our private firms, with or 
 without the active assistance ^-the State, to maintain their position 
 
328 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 The formula we suggested above for the demarca- 
 tion of State and Guild authority applies equally 
 clearly to the matter of providing capital for new- 
 undertakings or new forms of industry — as, indeed, 
 to aU questions where both political and industrial 
 interests are directly concerned. Thus, for example, 
 with regard to taxation and revenue, we find the 
 following procedure suggested : The Guild Congress 
 wiU be the repository of all moneys received by the 
 Guilds in payment for their products, and it will 
 determine annually, upon the representation of the 
 various Guilds, what sums should be set aside for 
 depreciation and development. The State also will 
 draw up an annual budget, stating the amount it 
 requires from the Guilds for communal purposes. 
 These two budgets — ^the State's and the Guilds' — 
 should then be discussed and the result*ratified by 
 the Joint Committee of ParUament and the Guild 
 Congress, and the sums apportioned. The rest of 
 the Guilds' income should then be allotted by the 
 Guild Congress to the various Guilds in proportion 
 to their membership, to be concentrated or distri- 
 buted, equally or otherwise, according as each 
 separate Guild determines its own practice.' 
 
 in these markets, it is all the more posable for a National Guild, working 
 in conjunction with the State, to fulfil all that has to be effected there 
 in the national interest. And since it is by the quality of British wares 
 rather than by their multitude and cheapness that we must hope to 
 maintain our position in the world's markets in the future, the Guilds, 
 with the revival of good work that they \yould necessarily bring, would 
 prove to be the best possible instrument for the successful conduct of 
 our foreign commercial relations. 
 
 * " In the event of large sums of new capital being necessary for the 
 development of any particular industry, such sums will be provided 
 either by a remission of the tax due from the Guild in question to the 
 State, or, in the event of that sum being insufficient, by t^e grant of a 
 sum ... to the Guild concerned. The normal stimulus to' the expan- 
 sion of productive enterprises will come from demand ; and the Joint 
 Committee which fixes the taxation due from the various Guilds will 
 
National Guilds in Beii^ 329 
 
 This effectively prevents profiteering by a Guild, 
 since the money it receives from the consumer does 
 not remain its own property, but goes, together with 
 the incomes of all the other Guilds, into the treasury 
 of the Guild Congress. The price of commodities 
 may, therefore, be established by the Guilds and 
 the consumers jointly, partly on an economic, partly 
 on a social basis. ' In order to effect this, the con- 
 sumers must be organised in representative local 
 and national bodies. Whether the latter wiU 
 coincide with the local and national machinery of the 
 State, i.e., the municipal bodies and ParUament, or 
 whether the consumers' associations will grow up 
 beside these, need not be discussed in this chapter." 
 
 The consumers' associations will draw up their 
 " budget " of demands for commodities for the 
 coming year, or a less period. If the Guild Congress, 
 through its various industrial committees, agrees 
 that the demands are reasonable, the Guilds will 
 arrange to produce them. Needless to say, this 
 budgeting will tend to be far more on a district basis 
 than on a national scale, and wiU in practice, perhaps, 
 never come before the GuUd Congress at all, except 
 for formal ratification. The District or Local 
 Council of each Gmld will, no doubt, determine the 
 amount of commodities that each of its component 
 works shall produce.* 
 
 see to it that each Guild makes adequate provision for normal develop- 
 ment, as well as for depreciation." — From the Syllabus. 
 
 ' In the majority of cases the governing factor would undoubtedly 
 be the cost of production. 
 
 " See below, pp. 353-367. 
 
 • The following quotation from Mr. Cole's Self-government in Industry 
 (p. 273) is interesting in this connection : " The works will supply its 
 products to .the District Committee for purposes of distribution, and 
 the District Conimittee will pay it according to the price-lists fixed by 
 
330 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 We come now to the important question of 
 distribution. This part of the Guild theory has 
 been very thoroughly discussed by National Guilds- 
 men, and we cannot do better than quote the 
 following* : ^ 
 
 Retail trade wiU be partly in the hands of the produc- 
 ing Guilds, and partly in the hands of the Distributive 
 Guild. Where the maker of the goods is, from the nature 
 of the commodity, also naturally the retailer, as in the 
 case of clothing, the producing Guild should organise 
 distribution through its own shops. Where the retaUer 
 is naturally divided from the maker, retailing should be 
 controlled by a Distributive Guild, with shops in evgry 
 locality. (TMs Guild wiU succeed to the fimctions of the 
 private tradesman and the co-operative store of to-day.) 
 
 The Distributive Guild . . . will sell its products at the 
 prices at which it buys them from the producing Guilds 
 or from foreign producers. This apphes except where, 
 in the case of imported products, a different selling price 
 is fixed by the joint committee of consumers emd pro- 
 ducers. . . . There will thus not be two standards of 
 price, the one wholesale and the other retail. The 
 Distributive Guild, Mke other non-productive Guilds, 
 wiU receive (for the payment of its members) a sum 
 calculated according to the number of persons whom it 
 employs. Both the producing Guilds and the Distribu- 
 tive Guild will have wholesale warehouses. (In this 
 aspect, the Distributive Guild wiU succeed to the 
 
 the National Guilds for what it produces, quality as well as quantity 
 being, oi course, taken into account in fixing the price. By this means, 
 a check will be put upon any attempt by a works to do bad work or 
 to ' scamp ' its tasks." This would appear to introduce into the Guilds 
 the method of payment by results, and this even as a coercive method ! 
 It is probable, however, that this reading of the passage quoted is due 
 rather to its careless wording than to the real intention of its writer. 
 If Mr. Cole simply means that a district might suffer financially for 
 failure to supply goods equal in quantity or quality to what it had 
 covenanted to produce, without reasonable ground ot excuse, then we 
 can agree with him ; but we think that the point might have been more 
 plainly stated. As it stands, the passage is inconsistent with Guild 
 theories, and, indeed, with all the rest of Mr. Cole's work on the subject. 
 * From the Syllabus. 
 
National Guilds in Being 33X 
 
 distributive functions of the Co-operative Wholesale 
 Society.) 
 
 Foreign products which compete with the products 
 of the producing Guilds wiU be imported through the 
 Distributive Gujld, subject to the right of the Guild 
 Congress to exclude any product made under unfair 
 conditions by the foreign producers. Wholly imported 
 commodities ready for distribution to the individual 
 consumer will be imported by the Distributive Guild. 
 Such articles as form either the raw material or the 
 instruments of production of a productive Guild wOl be 
 imported by the Guild concerned. 
 
 In order that the individual consumer may have an 
 opportunity of making his demand effective, there will 
 be associations of consumers among the buyers connected 
 with the local branches of the Distributive Guild. 
 
 All . . . freight charges shall be abohshed for home 
 traffic ; there would then be no variation in the selling 
 price of commodities according to the varying cost of 
 transport to the districts in which products cLre to be 
 consumed. 
 
 It is with regret that, from the point where we 
 began to speak of inter-Guild matters and of those 
 which' iaffect both Guilds and State, we have ceased 
 to view the Guild society from the standpoint of the 
 individual Guildsman. But we wish emphatically 
 to declare that we do not regard any of the matters 
 we spoke of as being in a sphere removed, as it were, 
 from the understanding of the mere Guildsman. 
 On the contrary, it is to be hoped that all these 
 problems can be brought into the ken of the smallest 
 units in the Guild. Another way, also, in which the 
 individual Guildsman wiU be able to interest himself 
 in the larger problems of industry will come through 
 his craft organisation, since not only will this elect 
 arid nominate a portion of the members of any 
 
332 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 committee dealing with matters that intimately 
 concern it, but it wiUalso be in a position to certify 
 that those Guildsmen who satisfy its tests are 
 sufficiently qualified to enter, in the capacity of 
 experts, the service of other Guilds who consume 
 largely the products of the experts' own Guild. 
 Such a "foreign" position, which wiU, of course, 
 exist as much in the district as in the national 
 relations of the Guilds, will particularly enable the 
 Guildsman who occupies it to take a larger view of 
 industrial problems. 
 
 While we are speaking of the individual Guilds- 
 men, we may consider a question, often raised, 
 concerning producers who would remain outside the 
 Guilds or are engaged in forms of production that 
 are not susceptible of Guild organisation. With the 
 latter, at least, the Guilds wiU clearly not claim to 
 interfere, unless they interfere with the Guilds.' 
 With regard, however, to individuals engaged in an 
 industry that is administered by a National Guild 
 of which they are not members, it is obvious that 
 the Guild must claim a certain authority over their 
 activities. With the decentraUsed " cartel " organi- 
 sation of the Guilds,* it is unUkely that there will be 
 many individual enterprises which wiU npt wilUngly 
 seek the shelter and protection of the National 
 Guilds. But where, for some reason or another, 
 there may be good causq, why such men should 
 
 • There is a well-known equivoque in the Catechism of National Guilds 
 (published by the National Guilds Le«gue) as follows : 
 
 " Outside both Civil and Industrial Guilds would be a number of 
 occupations insusceptible of Guild organisation — journalism, art, 
 literature, etc. How would the members of these callings live ? " 
 
 " They would live, as they do now, by their wits." 
 
 • See above, pp. 320-1. 
 
National Guilds in Being 333 
 
 remain outside the main organisation, the Guilds 
 will, no doubt, institute a system of licences, which, 
 granted for a certain period, will permit the licen- 
 tiate to diverge in some respects from the general 
 rules of the Guild. This is perhaps the choice that 
 will be set before small owners — in agriculture, for 
 example : they will have the choice of remaining as 
 single-handed and self-contained Ucentiates of a 
 , National Guild, or of joining forces with their 
 neighbours as fully fledged Guildsmen in the local 
 organisation of the Guild. 
 
 A final point, and we are done. A capable and 
 practical supporter of National Guilds, discussing 
 once the possibility of forming a Guild upon the 
 railways,' set out a few of the amazingly compli- 
 cated tasks that are imdertaken daily in the admin- 
 istrative work of the railways, and said that 
 
 The genius that has evolved and made possible the 
 smooth working of such arrangements could, if released 
 from the solving of these and similar complex problems, 
 initiate a National Railway Guild, and be as successful 
 in overcoming dif&culties yet unforeseen, but of a far less 
 dif&cult character. 
 
 We may 'apply this remark to other industries, 
 and to the maintenance as well as the foundation 
 of National Guilds in them. The administrative 
 genius manifested nowadays in industry wiU not 
 disappear with the coming of the Guilds ; it is likely 
 rather to be quickened with the general resiuxec- 
 tion of the Guild spirit. We are led to emphasise 
 this on account of the nature of some questions 
 
 " Mr. " Henry Lascelles," in his " Towards a National Railway 
 Guild," reprinted from the New Age as an appendix to National Guilds. 
 
334 The Meaning ol National Gtiilds 
 
 frequently put to National Guildsmen. A typical 
 example of the kind of question to which we refer 
 is the following : What would happen to a body of 
 men whose occupation, for one reason or another, 
 ceased suddenly to exist ? Would they become non- 
 working pensioners of their original Guild ; or, if not, 
 how would it be possible to transfer them to anotlier 
 Guild which was in need of members ? This " how 
 would it be possible " — when, indeed, the ques- 
 tioners even anticipate that National Guildsmen 
 will admit the possibility at all — ^leaves entirely out 
 of account the enormous administrative abihty 
 exercised by the managerial grades in industry 
 to-day. It would not be insuperably difficult, even 
 in the present unnatural and inefficient conditions 
 of the wage-system, to deal with such a body of men 
 as those referred to in the question. With National 
 Guilds, their redistribution in other industries would 
 be a matter of skilled arrangement. Moreover, 
 the GuUd Congress and the Local and District inter- 
 Guild Councils would provide admirable machinery 
 for the adjustment of precisely such difficulties. 
 
 A NOTE ON- THE JUDICIARY 
 
 The following letter from Mr. H. H. Slesser appeared 
 recently in the New Age. We are grateful for the 
 opportunity to reproduce it here : 
 
 To dispute the sovereignty of the King in Parliament 
 is to incur the penalties of praemunire ; nevertheless, 
 it would appear that the consequences of National 
 Guilds, more especially in the creation of a paramount 
 Producers' GuUd Congress, are hkely to involve some of 
 
National Guilds in Being 335 
 
 its advocates in the criminal act of setting up a collateral 
 Sovereign alongside of that which has its material being 
 in the Palace of Westminster. 
 
 The analysis of sovereignty in the Guild society, as 
 foreshadowed by Messrs. Cole and Ewer, would appear 
 to favour the retention of the word " State," though the 
 edicts of that authority would be confined to the interests 
 of citizens and consumers ; but, to my way of thinking, 
 as a matter of terminology, it would be better to describe 
 this legislative as the Civic Congress, and either abandon 
 the use of the word " State " altogether in this connec- 
 tion, or, in the alternative, confine it to that joint 
 assembly of consvimer and producer which would deter- 
 mine matters in dispute. It would probably be objected, 
 and, with some force, that the latter suggestion would 
 tend to give to the joint assembly a more permanent 
 recognition in the community than is desirable, and, 
 therefore, perhaps, on the whole, it is more accurate to 
 speak of the Gmld State as a divided State, and to 
 abstain from attempting to achieve an artificial unity 
 which wUl have no relation to the facts of GuUd existence. 
 
 When, however, we pass from terminology to a more 
 critical examination of the poUtical consequences of a 
 divided State, many fresh problems force themselves 
 upon our attention. We may assiune at the outset that 
 the whole notion of sovereignty is a legahstic one ; to 
 assert sovereignty in an Authority is really to do no 
 more than to afford an indication to judiciaries as to 
 which of several competing ordinances they are to obey. 
 The mystical notions of State which some SociaUsts, 
 alas, confuse' with the corporate recognition of society 
 can have no attraction for the Guildsman. 
 
 The representative system is and must be defective 
 enough in any case ; all representation is apt to prove a 
 fetter on individual will ; to elevate it from expediency 
 into a cult is a prime heresy. 
 
 Let us assume sovereignty, therefore, to reside not 
 in that authority to which obedience is accorded, for 
 that is a question of fact only, but in that authority 
 
336 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 whose mandates the Judiciary will construe as law, and 
 it will at once be seen that there is no inherent reason 
 why sovereignty should not be distributed among a 
 whole people. 
 
 Theoretically, there is no reason why a Judiciary 
 should not refuse to acknowledge an edict unless it has 
 the unanimous consent of all the citizens. In such a 
 case, it wiU at once be observed that the Sovereign and 
 Society have become coterminous. On the other hand, 
 the will of a monarch, without Council or Parliament, 
 may command judicial acknowledgment ; and here the 
 Sovereign would become the antithesis of Society. 
 
 In every case, it will be noticed, the Judiciary remains 
 outside and independent of the Sovereign body ; for the 
 Judiciary in the last resort interprets the law and gives 
 that acknowledgment by which alone an Authority can 
 become a Sovereign. This is most obvious in the case 
 of a federal State ; but it is also the case with a single 
 Sovereign Parhament. Is it less true of a Guild Society ? 
 
 In the Guild Society, it^will be remembered, we have 
 assumed two authorities at the least, the Congress of 
 GuUds and the Congress of Citizens, each possessing 
 legislative functions. In certain cases of disagreement 
 they meet to form the whole State, and, presumably, 
 only under certain circumstances ; but, in every case, 
 the edicts can only be given a value by the Judiciary 
 to which they must appeal. 
 
 Thus, it may be argued, that a particular Guild Con- 
 gress law is ultra vires, or that a citizens' law is beyond 
 the civic authorities' powers. Assume a law affecting 
 the employment of young children in factories — ^is this 
 a matter for Guild or Civic Congress ? Presumably, 
 certain principles of demarcation wQl have been estab- 
 lished ; but who can determine their appUcation except 
 the Judiciary ? 
 
 Again, a joint session may be held which may decide 
 a matter not competent to it ; the essential preliminary 
 disagreement may not have occurred, or some other 
 reason may invaUdate the proceedings. What other 
 
National Guilds in Being 337 
 
 method of settling the matter besides a recourse to the 
 Courts is possible ? 
 
 Thus, while it is perhaps true to say that a Judiciary 
 is not a Sovereign body, it is necessary that every 
 Sovereign Authority should erect a Judiciary to reaUse 
 its acts ; and from this conclusion foUows a further, that 
 the more the Sovereign Authority is divided the greater 
 becomes the power of the Judiciary as arbiter of its 
 disagreements. 
 
 That a Judiciary in a federal State is more potent 
 than in a single ParHamentary one is obvious. It is 
 my contention that the Guild Society, by dividing its 
 sovereignty, must inevitably exalt its judicial organ. 
 Judges, therefore, in a Guild State must tend to become 
 powerful ; and, for this reason, a corrective to judicial 
 arrogance will have to be discovered. 
 
 Perhaps this will best be achieved by rendering the 
 Judiciary elective, not perhaps directly by the citizens, 
 but by that joint body of GuUd and Civic Congresses of 
 which I have spoken. The judges must be parsons 
 imbued not only with law, but also with the Guild out- 
 look. Collectively, they may come to be represented in 
 a Judicial GuUd, and so find their way as workers into 
 the Guild Congress itself. This, however, is specula- 
 tion. My purpose here is to draw attention to the fact . 
 that the divided Guild State must be a trinity andnot a 
 dualism. > 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 PROBLEMS AND POLICY ■ 
 
" National Guilds " or " Guild Socialism " ? Reasons for 
 choice of former title. Will the Guilds be aristocratic 
 or democratic in nature ? And in structure ? 
 
 Three revolutionary critics of National Guilds : (i) the 
 " Syndicalists " ; (2) Mr. Penty and the Local Guilds- 
 men ; (3) Mr. Belloc and the Distributivists. 
 
 (i) Syndicalist objections to National Guilds. " In con- 
 junction with the State." The State not merely 
 " bourgeois " in its true functions. Should the State 
 resign industry to the Guilds, or meet them as represen- 
 tative of the consumers ? The consumers' need of 
 representation : 
 
 (i) as individuals, for purposes of choice (a) in 
 the purchase of goods, (6) in the use of services ; 
 (2) as the public, through Joint Committees, for 
 purposes of co-ordination. 
 State purchase and "control" : an encroachment upon 
 private Capitalism, but a possible step towards State 
 Capitalism. NationaUsation : its dangers and advan- 
 tages for National Guildsmen. The basis of Expro- 
 priation in the transition to a Guild society. Parlia- 
 mentary action : its fascination for Labour, and its 
 danger. Not Parliament, but industry, the right sphere 
 for Trade Union action. 
 
 (2) Mr. Penty's position. " The enemy, not Capitalism, 
 
 but Industrialism." Indifference to Trade Unionism. 
 Weakness of this attitude. For National Guildsmen, 
 Capitalisin the enemy. Mr. Penty puts the cart 
 before the horse. 
 
 (3) Mr. Belloc's criticisms. Their basis, distrust of owner- 
 
 ship by the State, i.e., by the " politicians." Mr. 
 Belloc's remedy : the redistribution of property. 
 Practical objections to this, and to private ownership 
 of the means of production, etc. A fundamental 
 difference between Distributivists and National Guilds- 
 men. 
 
 341 
 
342 The Meanii^ of National Gtiilds 
 
 Matters at issue amongst National Guildsmen : — 
 
 Women in industry : their effect in weakening Trade 
 Unionism. Remedies suggested : (i) refusal by men 
 to work with women labour ; (2) joLat Trade Union 
 organisation. The first alternative now impossible. 
 Industrial Unionism essential for both men and 
 women workers. Women in the Guilds : all labour 
 not their province. The professions, and the clerical 
 and crafts sides of industry, open to tSem. 
 
 Unemployment : should it be made a charge on the indus- 
 try ? Advantages of this, and methods of efEecting it. 
 Its danger : " industrial autonomy " a possible menace 
 to the autonomy of Trade Unionism. 
 
 Joint Control : must it be " exclusive contiol " ? Or may 
 it be " divided " with the employer ? A matter of 
 expediency, not of principle. The case for Exclusive 
 Control. The case for Divided Control. The spirit 
 behind the workers' claim for control more important 
 than its form. 
 
 The fundamental question. 
 
IX 
 
 PROBLEMS AND POLICY 
 
 It is a sound instinct that has led so many of those 
 who have been concerned with the working out and 
 propaganda of the principles of National Guilds to 
 seize upon a brief phrase to cover and to express the 
 whole, and to write andUspeak of the Guild idea. 
 It is, as we insisted in our introduction, rather as an 
 idea than as a creed that National Guilds challenge 
 the assumptions and the practice of capitalist society. 
 In order to fulfil our purpose of making clear the 
 meaning of National Gmlcis and the essentials of 
 the programme and poUcy which are involved in its 
 reaUsation, we have had necessarily to cast our 
 previous chapters in a dogmatic form. Indeed, 
 there is much in what we have sought to make clear 
 which could not be stated otherwise ; it is the very 
 gospel of the Guildsman. At the same time the 
 reader must already have discovered how numerous 
 and how important are the problems which the Guild 
 idea raises the moment we seek to embody it in a 
 programme or to apply it by formulating a poUcy. 
 With some of those problems we have dealt aheady ; 
 with others we shall not seek to deal, since they axe 
 outside the range of this book. What we propose 
 to do in this final chapter is to recall some of the 
 main controversies which have arisen, for the most 
 part among Guildsmen themselves, not so much with 
 
 343 
 
344 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 a view to disposing of them by any pretended ex 
 cathedra judgment, but rather with the object of 
 setting our readers at work to think them out for 
 themselves. For the more people who accept the 
 task of thinking independently along the lines of 
 Guild principles, the nearer we shall come to the 
 truth about them and the problems they raise.' 
 
 For it is no derogatic&i of the truth and vilue of an 
 idea, or even of a dogma, to suggest that its full 
 impUcations remain to be seized even after it has 
 been accepted. It is in the pursuit of a truth seen 
 afar off that we may best hope to achieve the full 
 revelation of it ; this is true of social no less than of 
 religious matters. It is especially true of the Guild 
 idea, which, as we suggested in our introduction, 
 may be arrived at from so many starting-points. 
 It is like a mountain which reveals itself in different 
 aspects according to the angle from which we gaze 
 upon it, and those who seek to chmb wiU find their 
 knowledge of it incomplete until they meet and 
 exchange experiences upon the summit. An illus- 
 tration of this different method of approach to Guild 
 principles is afforded by the different titles which 
 those who accept them would choose to express the 
 propaganda. 
 
 "National Guilds" or "Guild Socialism"? 
 
 There are still many who prefer to call them- 
 selves " Guild Socialists." After aU, they argue, 
 because Socialism has been led astray by the 
 
 * To think " independently," however, does not mean in isolation, 
 and it is to be hoped that whenever possible Guild thinkers will exchange 
 their ideas by discussion, and so test and improve them. It was partly 
 to this end that the National Guilds League was founded. 
 
Problems and Policy 345 
 
 Collectivists, that is no reason for deserting her. 
 The Guild society will be based on the Socialist 
 principles of State ownership of the means of 
 production and communal absorption of surplus 
 value ; the Guildsman's analysis of the wage-system 
 is fundamentally Marxian and the advocacy of 
 nationalisation is a part of his programme. More- 
 over, to cut oneself off from the great Sociahst 
 movement in aU countries is to risk the danger of a 
 bourgeois " superiority " and to weaken one's 
 influence with the workers for whom its views and 
 traditions have still a value and may even serve as 
 an inspiration. 
 
 There is a good deal of truth in aU this ; and Guilds- 
 men would be fooHsh as well as pedantic to deny it. 
 But there are other considerations to be taken into 
 account, and these induce us to support the New Age 
 writers in their decision to substitute, for the sec- 
 tarian designation " Guild Sociahsm," the wider 
 and, to many, more compelling description " National 
 Guilds." We do not propose to repeat here our con- 
 viction of the essential failure of the SociaUst agita- 
 tion in this country, or the Umitations which that 
 failure must, in our view, necessarily impose on all 
 efforts put forward as part of the SociaUst move- 
 ment. Our objections to the term " Guild Social- 
 ism " as a sufficient description of the idea of 
 National Guilds go deeper than this. Though, in 
 our opinion,. Socialism is certainly one of the con- 
 stituents of that idea, it is only one of them. 
 National Guilds involve what is true in Socialism ; but 
 Socialism does not by any means necessarily involve 
 National Guilds, as is shown by the way in which 
 
346 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 prominent Socialists, mostly of the extreme bureau- 
 cratic and political type, are accommodating them- 
 selves (as they believe) to a prevailing tendency by 
 calling themselves " Guild Socialists," while display- 
 ing few or none of the signs of grace which a true 
 conversion would produce. We do not deny that 
 Guild propaganda has made great headway among 
 the SociaHst rank and file — ^we rejoice that 
 such headway has been made. But the gospel of 
 National Guilds has to be pleached to a wider circle 
 t9ian SociaHsm is now Ukely to reach ; we have to 
 call not merely the righteous, but sinners to repent- 
 ance. The wage-system is a national curse — ^indeed, 
 a national sin — and it is as a national challenge that 
 the Guild idea must go forth. 
 
 The Guilds Aristocratic or Democratic? 
 
 It is curious, to be sure, that, just as the Socialists 
 have attempted to cast their broad and tattered 
 skirts over the Guild idea, so have their sworn 
 enemies, the upholders of Aristocracy. Mr. A. E. 
 Randall, a regular contributpr to the New Age, 
 suddenly hurled a bombshell into the Guild camp 
 by claiming that the Guilds neither had nor need 
 have any association with the specious principle of 
 Democracy. First, he said, it is illogical to suppose 
 that the Guilds will necessarily be democratic, 
 because, in fact, they will be aristocratic bodies, 
 by virtue of their privileged position in society. 
 Secondly, Mr. Randall argued, the internal structure 
 of the Guilds should preferably be aristocratic than 
 democratic. Coming down to the details, he said : 
 
 I propose the election of a certain number of the 
 
Problems and Policy 347 
 
 officials of the Guild from the ranks of the manual or 
 clerical workers. But the hierarchy of officials must 
 itself have some power of determining its membership, 
 so I propose that it have the power to co-opt a certain 
 nimiber ; and the State, having as much interest in the 
 welfare of the Guild as anyone, will retain the power of ' 
 appointing certain officials in its own interests, or, at 
 least, of confirming them in their appointments.* 
 
 Mr. Randall also made a reference to the principle 
 of heredity, but without much enthusiasm. In 
 various letters subsequently addressed to the New Age, 
 it was pointed out that Mr. Randall's suggestion, as 
 quoted above, was not really very far removed from 
 the democratic principle of which he was so scornful. 
 For example, Mr. T. W. Pateman wrote " : 
 
 If [Mr. Randall] admits democratic election of Guild 
 officials by Guild members, together with State appoint- 
 ment of others under a presumably democratic poUtics, 
 plus co-option of still further officials by the elected 
 ones, he has not got desperately far away from the much 
 abhorred democratic principle. If he has some method, 
 other than popular election,, whereby a hereditary ruling 
 caste could get into power, we have not yet heard of it. 
 
 And Ml. " Henry Lascelles," writing in the same 
 paper, said' : 
 
 A principle of the Guilds should be that, if positions 
 of responsibility are to be filled by experienced experts, 
 these should be elevated from amongst themselves to the 
 positions they are qualified for, by their colleagues who 
 know them, but by those colleagues only who do largely 
 understand the particular class of work to be undertaken 
 and supervised. 
 
 We quote these two statements in reply to Mr. 
 
 ' See the New Age, March 4th, 191 3. 
 ^ Ibid., March i8th, 1915. 
 - Ibid., April 29th, 1915. 
 
34^ The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 Randall (who received no outside support whatever) 
 as typical of the general outlook of National Guilds- 
 men. Mr. Randall's proposal that the Guilds should 
 definitely adopt an aristocratic in preference to a 
 democratic constitution is hardly to be taken 
 seriously. It ignores the whole history and 
 psychology of the Trade Unions that are the obvious 
 bases of National Guilds ; nor does there appear 
 either the hkehhood or the desirability of grafting 
 so ahen a theory as Aristocracy upon the consciously 
 democratic stem of Trade Unionism. Moreover, 
 Mr. Randall's statement that the Guilds would be 
 aristocratic bodies by virtue of their privileges is a 
 quibble. The privileges of the Guilds would be the 
 pubUc rights to which their functions entitled them 
 — ^no more and no less ; and this principle of " rights 
 according to function " is rather a democratic than an 
 aristocratic one. In any case, however much we might 
 approve the idea of Aristocracy in the abstract, we 
 cannot view without amazement the attempted 
 miscegenation of it with Trade Unionism. Aris- 
 tocracy is a voice in the wilderness ; but the idea 
 of National Guilds inspires an ever-growing chorus 
 in the street of to-day 
 
 Three Critics of National Guilds 
 
 When, however. National GuUdsmen assert — ^as 
 in practice they do and must — that National Guilds 
 would be democratic in aim and form, they have 
 promptly found themselves reproached with not 
 being democratic enough. This charge has been 
 brought against them by three separate schools of 
 the Left : first, by the Industrial Unionists, more 
 
Ih^oblems and Policy 349 
 
 commonly, but less correctly, known as "Syndical- 
 ists " ; secondly, by Mr. Penty's followers, the 
 Local Gnildsmen ; and, thirdly, by Mr. Belloc's 
 " Distributivists." The S57ndicaHsts — ^we shaU use 
 this term for convenience — complain that National 
 GuUdsmen propose to acknowledge the State, which, 
 in their opinion, is unnecessary and even dangerous ; 
 the Local GuUdsmen object to the large-scale national 
 organisation of the National Guilds ; and the 
 Distributivists are aghast at an industrial system 
 which socialises the means of production and ex- 
 change instead of encouraging the rise of small 
 property-owners in them. We propose to take the 
 criticisms of these three schools in turn, commencing 
 with the Syndicalists. 
 
 The " Syndicalists," and the State. 
 
 The SyndicaUst objection to National Guilds is 
 to the suggestion that the Guilds would conduct 
 industry "in conjunction with the State." What 
 is the " State," the SyndicaUsts ask, and what is its 
 function ? ' And they answer that the State is an 
 instrument of the possessing classes, used invariably 
 by these to dominate the dispossessed workers. 
 The Ssmdicahsts see no need for the retention of 
 the State in a society wherein the Industrial Unions 
 would have the monopoly and control of then- 
 respective industries ; and they claim that the 
 desire for its retention is proof positive of the innate 
 " bourgeois " mentality of National GuUdsmen. They 
 suggest that National GuUdsmen look forward to 
 
 • The Syndicalist attitude on this whole subject will be tound 
 thoroughly stated in The State : Its Origin and Function, by W. Paul 
 (Socialist Labour Press}. 
 
350 The Meaning of National Ghiilds 
 
 the " State " as to a bureaucracy in which they and 
 the rest of their bourgeois class will always be able 
 to secure comfortable posts, while the workers, 
 segregated and oppressed, go on toUing with only 
 the shadow of industrial freedom to cheer them. 
 These critics admit that National Guildsmen may 
 be unconscious of their own wickedness ; but, they 
 assert, this very miconsciousness is the clearest 
 possible proof of their ingrained and ineradicable 
 bourgeois ideology. 
 
 " Bourgeois " is a term which is susceptible of 
 many interpretations. National Guildsmen, how- 
 ever, may safely plead innocence to the charge that 
 their preservation of the State is only an attempt to 
 secure the permanent advantage of their class. 
 To National Guildsmen — and they are found in all 
 social classes — ^the function of the State is not the 
 preservation of an " upper class," but the preserva- 
 tion of society as a whole. We cannot~agree with 
 the Syndicahsts that a group of industrial organisa- 
 tions, organised in an Industrial Council, is fitted to 
 safeguard all the civil functions of modem Ufe. 
 Industry is only a part of society, and its controllers, 
 whether they be autocratic capitalists or democratic 
 associations of producers, are in no wise fitted by 
 their outlook, by their experience, or by their 
 environment, to direct the other activities of civil 
 Ufe. 
 
 Far, then, from the emancipation of society 
 rendering the State superfluous, it is only with this 
 emancipation that the true nature and purpose of 
 the State will exist, for three ends — political, 
 industrial, and national. It will exist to serve as a 
 
Problems and Policy 351 
 
 balance to the organised economic power of the 
 Guilds, and thus prevent society from falling a 
 victim to the dangers of an imdiluted industrial 
 sovereignty — ^the Leviathan of an omnipotent Guild 
 Congress, dominating all life from its golden throne. 
 It will exist — as we shall further explain — ^to formu- 
 late and represent tTie view of the buyer and con- 
 sumer of things, and vidU thus intervene in industrial 
 affairs in an important, although essentially a 
 secondary, capacity. And it will exist, further, to 
 co-ordinate and express those common purposes 
 and tasks of a nation which affect aU its citizens 
 " equally and in the same way " : e.g., the determina- 
 tion of its destiny in the world ; its relation to other 
 states ; the protection of the hves of its' members ; 
 the administration of justice ; the determination 
 of the ends (but not the means) of education. The 
 State responds to an instinct to be found in nearly 
 aU men of Western culture for some organisation 
 to link them with the history and traditions of the 
 land in which they Uve, and to associate them with 
 its fortunes in the future. The War has shown how 
 even our industrial proletariat, stripped of honour 
 and exiled from responsibiUty, will respond to the 
 call of a country which, despite aU the base and 
 spurious patriotism of their master-class, they still 
 feel to be essentially their own. How much more, 
 then, will national sentiment represent- when the 
 State has thrown off its bondage to plutocracy for 
 a free alliance with -National (auilds ! Short of 
 International Communism — and we are very far 
 short of it — ^there is not even the possibility, to say 
 nothing of the desirabihty, of the disappearance of 
 
352 Ihe Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the State as the executive instrument of a nation. 
 National Guildsmen would willingly wrest some of its 
 present functions from the State— indeed, it is the 
 propaganda of National Guilds which, more than 
 any other set of ideas, has challenged and defeated 
 Collectivism as an intellectual force — ^but we do not 
 contemplate or desire the disappearance of the State 
 organisation from its proper sphere. If Capitalism 
 has temporarily captured the State, we need not — 
 indeed, we must not — surrender to it this vital form 
 of human grouping. 
 
 It is not difficult for the Guildsman to carry the 
 war into the S37ndicalists' country. Where, except 
 in their own vocabulary, shall we find words strong 
 enough to denounce the centralisation of function 
 and the inevitable tjoranny of the Industrial Council, 
 which they would vest with the final authority of 
 society ? For industry to attempt to take over the 
 control of the State is as intolerable as the attempt 
 of the Collectivists to make the State the sole 
 authority in industry. The Syndicalist State would 
 be " simply the Collectivist State standing on its 
 head, and just as tyrannical in that position as it 
 would be right end up."* 
 
 We deny, then, the claim of the Syndicalists that 
 the Guilds shall control the State ; and we insist, 
 on the contrary, that, while initiative must certainly 
 lie with the Guilds, the State has the duty no less than 
 the right to intervene in the industrial sphere. The 
 
 • Mr. J. L. Sabisten, in the Guildsman, October, 1917. Incidentally, 
 it is to be noted that, despite the desperate efforts of the Syndicalists 
 to eradicate the State, a very colourable imitation of it generally 
 appears in S3nidicalist scljgities in the strange guise of a " Central 
 Statistical Bureau." 
 
Problems and Policy 353 
 
 basis of the National Gmld theory is that in industry 
 and professional \york the " how " is for the producer 
 to determine, whereas the " what " is essentially a 
 matter for the consumer. In this way only can there 
 be established a balance of powers between the 
 producing Guild and the outside world, which is the 
 only sure safeguard against industrial tjnranny. We 
 need the producers' GuUds to save us from the 
 consumers' CoUectivist State, but it is also true that 
 we need the protection of the State against the 
 possible tyranny aiid probable incompetence of an 
 unbalanced supreme Industrial Council. 
 
 The State as Representative of the Consumer 
 
 In stating thus dogmatically our view of the 
 essential nature of the State and of its tasks in an 
 emancipated society, we are aware that many 
 Gmldsmen would not subscribe to our precise formu- 
 lation of the case against the SyndicaUsts. Guilds- 
 men are united in af&rming absolutely their faith 
 in the State as a legitimate and essential organ of 
 society ; they are united, further, in insisting that 
 it should not be entrusted with the administration 
 of production or permitted to interfere in the self- 
 government of the Guilds. But outside these basic 
 dogmas, ■ which are the kernel of the Guild idea, 
 there are differences — ^important and not esisily 
 reconcilable-^amongst National Guildsmen in their 
 theorising upon the function of the State. While 
 some regard the principal apology for the State to 
 lie in the fact that men instinctively desire it as the 
 embodiment of national feeling and tradition, others, 
 while convinced of the need for the State, regard 
 
 z 
 
354 l^e Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 nationalism in any form almost in the light of a 
 superstition, destined to fade away with man's 
 gradual progress towards a cosmopohtan soUdarity. 
 While some foresee the State of to-morrow as partner 
 with the Guilds in a social sovereignty essentially^ 
 divided, others, conversely, would regard it as the 
 sjnnbol of sovereignty allotting functioiis to associa- 
 tions appropriate to the proper discharge of them. 
 Again, while some Guildsmen desire the State's 
 intervention in industry as normal and necessary 
 to the proper representation of the " consumer's " 
 interest, others, while admitting that such inter- 
 vention will have in certain circumstances to be 
 provided for, would not countenance it save as an 
 exceptional act, prompted, moreover, not by regard 
 for the consumer's interest (which they conceive to 
 be mainly imaginary in the case of a Guild com- 
 munity), but rather by considerations of " pubHc 
 poUcy." 
 
 Of these typical controversies, we propose to touch 
 only upon the last, conceiving the other two to be 
 outside our range in this volume. But we would 
 take this opportunity of saying in regard to these 
 debates amongst Guildsmen, and to others discussed 
 in this chapter, that, far from deploring their 
 existence, we rejoice that men united by the essential 
 link of the Guild idea, with its repudiation of pro- 
 fiteering and its demand for industrial self-govern- 
 ment, should have courage to prefer the frank 
 exchange of differences to any mechanical uniformity 
 of creed. Setting out upon the track of truth by 
 devious routes, Guildsmen return to their common 
 base with valuable discoveries of which they can 
 
Problems and Policy 355 
 
 make most useful exchange, even though time alone 
 reveals the true lessons of the quest. It is only 
 those who prefer catchwords to principles who have 
 need to hunt in packs. The very differences in 
 which Guildsmen can afford to indulge, reveal the 
 strength of that bond of truth that is the Guild idea. 
 The discussion upon the relation of the State to 
 the outlook of the consumer, which has recently 
 engaged the attention of several Guild writers, is 
 one of some complexity, and for a fuU understanding 
 of it we must refer our readers to a study of the 
 original sources. ■ We can only outhne here a few 
 of its more important aspects. The emergence of 
 the controversy is reminiscent of the somewhat 
 different paths by which writers on the Guilds have 
 arrived at their solution of the industrial issue. 
 Mr. S. G. Hobson, in his original New Age articles, 
 was seeking above all to present National Guilds as 
 the sole alternative to the wage-system consistent 
 with the public interest. This solution appeared 
 to him to have the double value that it put an end 
 to the spiritual bondage of the worker, and, by 
 entrusting industry to those who were essentially 
 concerned with it, set at liberty not only the worker 
 but the State also, which, released from the necessity 
 of interfering to patch up the ravages of Capitahsm, 
 could devote itself to its true spiritual tasks. Mr. 
 Cole, on the other hand, was concerned in The World 
 of Labour rather to discover what truth lay in 
 the Syndicalist claim to overthrow and replace 
 Capitahsm by the organisation of the producers-; 
 
 * See the New Age, vol. xxii. passim, and many articles in the 
 Guildsman ; alio Self-government in Industry, chapter ix. 
 
356 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 he found its flaw to consist in the fact that man as a 
 user of things looks at matters from a point of view 
 very different from that natural to him when he is 
 making them. Accordingly, to Mr. Cole the sole 
 vaUdity of Collectivism lay in its reminder of the 
 existence of the consumer, which, if overlooked 
 altogether, involved the risk of industrial tyranny 
 and confusion. Mt. Hobson was seeking to release 
 statesmanship by subtracting industry from it ; 
 Mr. Cole was seeking to rationaUse SyndicaUsm 
 by adding the consumer's outlook to it. To the 
 former, National Guilds would seem to arise from 
 the discovery by the State that economics was none 
 of its business, and its consequent decision to confide 
 it to the workers who would purify it by the repudia- 
 tion of the wage-system. To the latter, a community 
 based on National Guilds would develop from the 
 discovery by the emancipated Industrial Unionist 
 that his organisation was not competent to represent 
 every interest of society or even every economic 
 function. Mr. Hobson's State called in the Guilds, 
 to rescue it from economics and the workers from 
 wagery. Mr. Cole's State appeared as coming to 
 the aid of a triumphant but bewildered Industrial 
 Unionism, and setting out with the victorious 
 workers to arrange the details of a social partnership 
 between them. 
 
 The fact that Mr. Hobson was satisfied that no 
 modification of industrial autonomy was necessary, 
 save what pubUc poUcy might occasionally dictate, 
 suggests the reason why it did not occur to him to 
 treat in his original articles certain subjects of 
 cardinal importance to the co-ordination of economic 
 
Problems and Policy ' 357 
 
 life. Nothing was to be found there, for instance, to 
 elucidate the question of how prices were to be fixed, 
 or the Guildsman's pay apportioned as between 
 Guild and Guild ; and the relation of the State to 
 industry was only very generally indicated, as in 
 the following passage : 
 
 ,*Whilst the separation of the political and economic 
 functions gives eqtiipoise and stability to the State, 
 nevertheless the pohcy and the destiny of the State, in 
 the final analysis, depend upon its economic processes 
 being healthy and equitable. For this reason amongst 
 others, the State, acting in the interests of citizenship as 
 distinct from Guild membership, must be adequately 
 represented upon the governing bodies of the Guilds.* 
 
 It is clear that the provision here made is for the 
 safeguarding of the public interest and not for the 
 expression of the consumer's outlook ; and this is 
 consistent with the standpoint that Mr. Hobson has 
 maintained in recent controversy. 
 
 In other quarters, however, Guild principles ► 
 were being differently interpreted. It was held that, 
 while the actual government of the Guild should be 
 free from all interference from the State, neverthe- 
 less the intervention of the State and the munici- 
 pality in industry was essential, as the normal and 
 most obvious means by which the standpoint of 
 those who purchase commodities and make use of 
 services could express their views upon the nature 
 and the cost of them. While the organisation of 
 industry and service was entirely the concern of the 
 Guilds, the public was interested both in the choice 
 of commodities and services, and in the price of them. 
 These being matters of pubUc interest, pubhc bodies 
 
 • National Guilds, pp. 258-9. 
 
35^ The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 )srould have occasion to discuss them with the GuUds, 
 both nationally and locally, and State and municipal 
 organisation would provide an appropriate medium 
 for this. 
 
 To this Mr. Hobson has opposed strong objections. 
 He has quarrelled with the description • of " con- 
 sumer" being indifferently appHed to the purchasers 
 of commodities and to those who enjoy public 
 amenities and services. To apply the word thus 
 indiscriminately obscures, he contends, an essential 
 distinction, and, further, tends to blur the vital 
 and basic fact of citizenship, with which alone the 
 State is concerned. 
 
 Citizen rights and consumer's interests are in different 
 categories. To bring them , under one denomination 
 spells confusion of purpose and gratuitous friction 
 between the State and the Guilds. » 
 
 Normally, Mr. Hobson continues, the representa- 
 tion of the mere consumer's outlook can be arranged 
 inside the Guild organisation. Matters of pubhc 
 pohcy may arise, however, to demand the State's 
 intervention — especially in respect of such services 
 as transport and the Post Office. But even here 
 State intervention would be the exception, not the 
 rule. 
 
 I would keep the State from any qfash -with the Guilds, 
 except when public policy unites us as citizens .against 
 anti-social action on the part of any Guild or group of 
 Guilds. Personally, I think any such contingency 
 would be extremely remote.' 
 
 This rapid summary does scant justice to Mr. 
 
 ' Mr. Hobson, in the Neie Age, February 7th, 19 18, p. 285. 
 * Ibtd., January 24th, 1918, p. 247. 
 
Problems and Policy - 359 
 
 Hobson's closely reasoned arguments, * but it must 
 serve to illustrate the essentials of his point of view. 
 Mr. Cole's reply reveals the curious fact that, while 
 he is inflexibly hostile to Mr. Hobson's conception of 
 the ultimate sovereign authority of the State as the 
 sole interpreter of " pubHc policy," he is no less 
 determined in insisting on a far wider extension of 
 State action than Mr. Hobson would admit. He 
 refuses to ass^t to Mr. Hobson's sharp distinction 
 between " consumer " and " enjoyer," since, he 
 urges, however possible it may be to contrast the 
 two in theory, in practice they so shade into each 
 other that there are numerous instances in which it 
 would be impossible to distinguish between a purely 
 economic and a purely civil function. 
 
 There is a civic element in all acts of use, consumption, 
 or enjoyment ; and, in a free society, this civic element 
 would be far more prominent than to-day. • 
 
 Fmther, Mr. Cole denies that to insist on a 
 distinction between the outlook of producer and 
 consmner involves a beUef in a conflict of interests 
 between them, once the element of profiteering is 
 eliminated. 
 
 The real point at issue becomes clearer if, for the 
 ambiguous word " interests," with its inevitable sugges- 
 tion of profiteering, we substitute the word " stand- 
 points " or " attitudes." The standpoints of producer 
 and consumer are differentiated,' not as opposed, but as 
 complementary. » 
 
 1 We have made no reference, for instance, to his elaboration of Mr. 
 W. Anderson's dictuni that " The capitalist is the protagonist of the 
 consumer." See Guild Princtples in War and Peace, chapter xiii. 
 
 •Mr. Cole, in the New Age, December 6th, 1917, p. 109. 
 
 ' Ibid., December 6th, 1917, p. no. 
 
360 The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 The representation of demand necessitates quite 
 separate organisation from that of supply ; further, 
 the co-ordination of the two cannot be accomplished 
 without the constant interaction of associations 
 representing each. To achieve this co-ordination, 
 men organised as makers must co-operate with men 
 organised as users. In practice, this means the 
 conjunction, for probabl economic purposes, of thee 
 Guilds (centrally and locally) with the State and the 
 municipaUty. 
 
 It wiU be clear from both this and our foregoing 
 chapter that we are more in agreement with Mr. 
 Cole's attitude in this matter than with Mr. Hobson's. 
 But the latter has done a valuable service in illustrat- 
 ing afresh how a free organisation of industry wiU 
 essentially depend on the initiative of the producer ; 
 the intervention of the consumer in industry must 
 in any case be secondary and subsidiary to the action 
 of the Guild. It is necessary to provide an c^por- 
 tunity for the consumer to exercise his choice ; but, 
 even so, it is very largely the producer's initiative 
 which is the principal factor, since it is the experience, 
 the art, and the ingenuity of the man who makes 
 things that dictate the alternatives between which 
 the purchaser is able to exercise his choice. It is 
 true (psychologically, at any rate) that in the 
 majority of cases supply creates demand ; the Guild 
 will only need to know in general outline the sort of 
 wants it wiU be expected to satisfy and their extent, 
 to be able to put its best work in the task, free from 
 the arriere pensee of profit or the temptation to 
 appeal to the eye at the expense of the true canons 
 of the craft concerned. 
 
Problems aad Policy 361 
 
 We consider, however, that Mr. Cole has estab- 
 lished what we take to be his main point, namely, 
 that the outlook of the user does require to find 
 expression in a form of organisation essentially 
 separate from that in which the maker of things and 
 the Tenderer of services are enrolled. While it may 
 appear somewhat rash and doctrinaire to seek to 
 outline" in advance the means by which a society 
 released from Capitalism would secure the co-ordina- 
 tion of its economic Ufe, it is justifiable, we think, 
 to be dogmatic upon the general principle enunciated 
 above. Th^ old objection that, since in a free 
 society every producer wiU be also a consumer, there 
 is no need to provide for their separate representa- 
 tion, is more specious than substantial. The illustra- 
 tion, almost equally old, of the different outlook of 
 the same individual to-day as Trade Unionist on the 
 one hand and Co-operator on the other, helps to 
 demonstrate that no single form of representation 
 can suffice to standfor every side of a man's activities, 
 even in industry. The consumer does need further 
 representation than can be provided for " inside the 
 Guild orgamsatioh " ; the means by which this may 
 be developed involves a brief consideration of the 
 Guild organisation for distribution, and its relation 
 to the Co-operative movement of to-day. 
 
 At the outset of this discussion it is necessary to 
 emphasise one fact which, though it seems apparent 
 enough when it is stated, is often lost sight of in this 
 connection. The Distributive Guild (whose func- 
 tions have already been outhned in the preceding 
 chapter^), however close its connection with the 
 
 ' See abovBj pp. 3Jo-i. 
 
362 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 consumer, will, from the very fact of its being a 
 Gtiild, be governed by its members who carry it on. 
 This is not the case with the Co-operative move- 
 ment ; on the contrary, it offers perhaps the most 
 striking example of control by consumers to be 
 found to-day. As such, while essentially a workers' 
 movement and at present developing an ever-closer 
 connection with other democratic movements, 
 it must inevitably come into eventual conflict with 
 a Trade Unionism seeking to obtain a control of 
 industry by the workers themselves. While Co- 
 operation and Trade Unionism seek only to palliate 
 the wage-system, it will not be impossible to effect 
 an accommodation between them; but if they set out 
 definitely to replace it, one of them wiU have gradr 
 ually to yield to the other. The relation of an 
 employee to the Co-operative Society that engages 
 him is not fundamentally different from that of the 
 ordinary worker to a capitaUst firm which bujra his 
 labour-power. > If the Distributive Guild is to 
 develop out of the Co-operative movement of to-day, 
 it can only do so if the attitude of the committeeman 
 to the employee alters from one of chilly patronage 
 to one of generous partnership. 
 
 This conflict of interests between the consumer's 
 outlook and the producer's demands is already 
 exempUfied, of course, in the disputes which con- 
 stantly arise between the Co-operative Societies 
 and the Trade Unions which cater for the workers 
 employed by them. These disputes are by no means 
 confined to wages — ^indeed. Co-operators seldom 
 
 * It has to be remembered, further, that, if Co-operative Societies do 
 not, strictly speaking, make " profits," they do in the majority ot 
 cases aim at accumulating dividends. 
 
Problems and Policy 363 
 
 refuse to recognise the standard rate — they extend 
 also to questions of discipline and management. 
 Here the attitude of Co-operators is, for the most 
 part, no more democratic than that of private 
 employers. We quote the following fronx a private 
 memorandum on the subject drawn up by one who 
 knows the Co-operative movement thoroughly from 
 close personal experience : 
 
 It might be considered that the Co-operative move- 
 ment, with its close relations with the working class, 
 would be a sxiitable ground for experiments, at any rate, 
 in joint controifand that such projects might be initiated 
 by the management committee or the consumers. But 
 anyone who knows the psychology of the average 
 Co-operative committeeman, even if that committeeman 
 be a Trade Unionist, will realise that the movement as 
 it is at present controlled is the least likely place for 
 voluntary experiments in this direction. . . . Broad- 
 minded and keen Trade Unionists find more attractive 
 spheres for their talents than the Co-operative Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 It seems clear, then, that the Distributive Guild 
 cannot be directly developed out of the Co-operative 
 Societies, but that it will arise rather from the 
 pressure of an encroaching control from the Trade 
 Unions in which Co-operative employees are organ- 
 ised, similar to the encroaching control of the Trade 
 Unions upon the functions of the capitahst employer. 
 But tliis demand for control, as it becomes articulate 
 and defined among Co-operative employees, should 
 be far more easily susceptible of adjustment to the 
 claims of the present managers than where it is 
 confronting a definitely profiteering interest and a 
 governing caste. Especially should this be so in 
 
364 The Meaiung oi National Gxdlds 
 
 respect of the 'distributive, as opposed to the pro- 
 ductive, aspect of Co-operation, on account of the 
 nepessarily close relation of distribution to the 
 consumer. The share which the consumer now 
 takes in the control of the distributive store under 
 Co-operation must be very considerably modified 
 before the workers reach the Distributive Guild ; 
 but it need not be eUminated altogether. Just as 
 initiative nowMes with the Co-operative Committee of 
 Consumers, but a certain Mmited right of representa- 
 tion is sometimes permitted to the worker, so, 
 in the Distributive Guild, initiative must pass to the 
 producer, but the representation of the consumer 
 will not altogether disappear. _,- 
 
 It is of such representation, doubtless, that Mr. 
 Hobson was thinking when he spoke of the possi- 
 biUty of providing for the consumer's outlook 
 " inside the Guild organisation." He has suggested, 
 for instance,' that 
 
 Every consumer ought to be a member of this Guild 
 by the pa3niient of a nominal fee. Representation upon 
 the local and central authorities of the Guild would, I 
 suggest, derive from the business meetings of these 
 consumers. 
 
 We shall see in a moment that, even if such represen- 
 tation be adequate to provide for the consmner's 
 interests as an individual purchaser of goods— which 
 would seem to be doubtful — it certainly does not 
 exhaust the sphere in which the consumer's outlook 
 must necessarily be considered. But, so far as goods 
 (as opposed to services) are concerned, local initiative 
 
 ' In the course oi-two Interesting articles on " Distribution," forming 
 part of a series on " Quilds and their Critics " in the New Age for 
 February 28th and March 7th, 1918. 
 
Problems aud Policy 365 
 
 is as essential to the purchaser as it is to the pro- 
 ducer, if the evil of standardisation is to be avoided 
 and a reasonable degree of flexibiUty secured. The 
 point has been well brought out by Mr. W. N. Ewer 
 in an artic],e' from which we quote the following : 
 
 What the individual as consumer requires is not so 
 much that he should have a small and indirect share in 
 determining what the nation as a whole shall produce, 
 as that he shall have a large and direct share in determin- 
 ing what he himself shall be-aWe to consume. He does 
 not so much desire that his representat'ives shall assist 
 in determining how many pairs of boots shaU be pro- 
 duced in all England, as that they — or he — shall have a 
 say in deciding what boots he himself can buy. He is 
 concerned with pairs, not with millions of pairs. . . . 
 
 If the individuals can effectively look after their 
 pennyworths, the natioucd pounds will look after them- 
 selves — ^with the aid of a certain amount of book-keeping. 
 
 When we pass, however, from the purchase of 
 goods to the use of services, we pass also from the 
 sphere of the Distributive Guild to a state of things 
 in which the individual cannot hope so completely 
 to indulge his personal preferences. Again the 
 analogy of production is valuable in reminding us 
 that the control of the local imit in the case of rail- 
 ways, for example, cannot be as complete as ia the 
 case of furniture ; similarly, the consumers' interest 
 cannot be individually expressed, but must be 
 represented through centralised machinery. It is 
 true that some services, such as public health, 
 education, and road transport in as far as it is con- 
 fined to locaUties, can be organised locally ; but in 
 
 ^ " Cbnceming the Consumer," in the Guildsman, Decemher, 1917, 
 the first of a series continued in subsequent issues. 
 
366 ~ The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 these cases it would seem obvious that the outlook 
 of those who use them would find its natural repre- 
 sentation through the municipaUty, and not through 
 direct representation on the Guild. 
 
 This representation of the buyer and the user with 
 which we have been dealing does not exhaust the 
 consumer's need for intervention in industry. It 
 provides for choice ; but it does not provide for 
 co-ordination. As far as the first point is concerned, 
 we are right to seek for as complete a decentralisation 
 as the nature of the case allows ; but when we come 
 to the second aspect, it is centralisation that is abdve 
 all necessary, since we are dealing with the interests . 
 not of any group of consumers, but of the consumers 
 as a whole and as such. It is here, we think, that 
 it will be found necessary to act through that Joint 
 Committee of the Guild Congress and the State which 
 we discussed in the foregoing chapter:' It wiU be 
 the duty of this committee to 4ecide what proportion 
 of the nation's resources shall be devoted to the 
 production of the various goods and services, a 
 matter in which the consumer has clearly a right to 
 be heard. This committee, as we have seen, wiU 
 further have to concern itself with the matter of 
 foreign trade, the provision of fresh capital for the 
 development of existing industries and the launching 
 of new ones, the settlement of taxation, and a part 
 at any rate of the fixing of prices. However we 
 define these tasks, whether as matters of " public 
 pohcy " or as subjects for " economic co-ordination," 
 they do require the joint consultation of the Guilds 
 and the public authority. If that joint consultation 
 
 ' See above, pp. 527-!. 
 
IProblems and Policy 367 
 
 be not provided for, industry is likely to fall into 
 confusion, and, as a resxilt, society also. We must 
 demand for the GuUds economic power, the fullest 
 rights of self-government, and the initiative in every 
 industrial function ; but, when these have been 
 secured, the workers can safely and naturally look 
 upon the democratic State as a partner co-operating 
 with them for the good of society and not as an ahen 
 authority to be suspected or deposed. 
 
 State Purchase and " Control " 
 
 The Syndicalist's challenge having led us to affirm 
 our behef in the validity of the State and to examine 
 its true nature and functions, it will be convenient 
 at this point to discuss what the Guildsman's 
 attitude should be in regard to the extension of 
 State action and control to-day. Nor is there any- 
 thing in the least academic about such a discussion 
 at the present time, when the emergency of the War 
 has precipitated the State into all sorts of functions 
 and activities with which few but State Soc-ialists 
 had ever expected to find it concerned. There can 
 be no question that this enlargement of bureaucratic 
 action raises important issues for Guildsmen, and 
 may even force them to define a poUcy on matters 
 which, but a short while ago, seemed so far off as to 
 justify only a superficial consideration. Amongst 
 these may be counted the purchase of raw materials. 
 An essential part of the employer's prerogative, it 
 was not to "be imagined that he would be induced to 
 abandon this to the workers untU Trade Union 
 development had gone much further, both in economic 
 strength and certainty of aim, tlian it has to-day. 
 
368 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Biit the State has stepped in under compelling 
 urgency and robbed many employers of all or part 
 of this prerogative at a moment's notice. While in 
 some cases allowing merchants to continue as buyers 
 under its directioia and with strict regard to the 
 primacy of its own requirements, the State has in 
 other instances entered th^ market itself through 
 the medium of GovemmSot buyers. The raw 
 material purchased, it has then been " rationed," 
 the State as a rule entrusting the allocation of 
 suppUes to Boards representative of the employers 
 concerned and, sometimes, of the workers also; 
 but such allocation has, of course, only taken place 
 after the needs of the State have been completely . 
 satisfied. While these drastic measures have been 
 justified by the Government purely on the ground 
 of their necessity in the prevailing emergency, and 
 promises have been given that they will at the 
 earUest opportunity be discontinued, it is by no 
 means certain when the emergency will be at an end, 
 or, at any rate, deemed to be so. There is Mttle 
 doubt that circumstances will dictate the mainte- 
 nance of a large measure of State control for some 
 time after the actual conclusion of the War. 
 
 It may be asked why Guildsmen should trouble 
 themselves particularly to define their attitude to 
 what are emergency measures, and measures, too, 
 which are essentially matters of financial adjustment 
 amongst the governing classes. We would reply, 
 in the first place, that, if we were convinced that 
 such emergency measures were of a kind to render 
 the transition to the Guilds less difficult, we should 
 pjress for their retention on their merits, not 
 
Problems and Policy 369 
 
 admitting the right of profiteers to injure the pubUc 
 interest more in normal times than is permitted to 
 them in times of emergency. As far as the second 
 point is concerned, we ought not to assume that, 
 because an industrial function remains beyond the 
 reach of the workers, it is a matter of indifference 
 in whose hands it may be placed. The control of 
 raw materials isva vital and essential part of indus- 
 trial control, and it must ultimately pass under the 
 authority of the Guilds. In the meantime, while 
 the Trade Unions have as yet neither the will nor 
 the organisation to assume this function, what 
 Guildsmen have to consider is whether at a later 
 stage it wUl be easier for the workers to subtract 
 the control of raw materials from the employers or 
 from the State. 
 
 Surprise may be expressed at our seeming to 
 couple the State with the employers as a force 
 antagonistic to the advancing claims of the workers. 
 Why, it may be asked, should the State not be ready 
 to devolve industrial functions upon the Unions, 
 cis soon as they prove themselves fitted to assume 
 them, in the same way that the British Government 
 is credited with acting in the case of its daughter 
 nations ? The question is naive, and cynicism 
 might dictate the reply that no Government — not 
 even the British — abandons power of any kind until, 
 in the face of overwhelming claims with organised 
 force behind them, it finds it more politic to veil 
 surrender in the form of a graceful concession. 
 Without subscribing to so sweeping a generahsation, 
 we can only suggest that for" a Government per- 
 meated by capitalist conceptions to confer large 
 
 AA 
 
370 The Meanii^ ol National Gxiilds 
 
 instalments of power and authority upon bodies of 
 workers, for no other reason than that they ask for 
 them, is in fiat contradiction to what either theory 
 or experience would lead us to expect. Economic 
 frfedom, at any rate, does not broaden down amongst 
 us from precedent to precedent, however slowly ; 
 it chmbs painfully from one difl&cult achievement 
 to tjje next. Until the circumstances of our society 
 radically alter, the State is more likely to stand in 
 the way of such achievements than to assist them. 
 That this should be so, is not due solely to the fact 
 that the State is the servant of CapitaUsm ; for", if 
 this is nothing but the truth, it is not the whole 
 truth. It results largely from the natural desire 
 of aU Governments to preserve the appearance of 
 stabiUty ; and it is just this superficial stability- 
 it can only be superficial until the class-struggle has 
 issued either in slavery or emancipation — ^which the 
 advance of Labour upon the preserves of Capitalism 
 tends to threaten. In order to maintain it, the State 
 will, as things are, often be thrown into aUiance with 
 the cajHtalist, rather by force of circumstances than 
 as the result of any sinister conspiracy between the 
 parties. The matter is becoming further compli- 
 cated at the present day by the actual appearance 
 of the capitalist, with his attendant train of satellites 
 reared in an atmosphere of profiteering, in the very 
 stronghold of bureaucracy. The modem industrial 
 magnate may well exclaim, " L'Etat, c'est moi!" 
 Even though he renounces his directorships, he does 
 not renounce his creed. For these reasons, then, 
 until the economic power of the workers has trans- 
 formed out of all recognition the political character- 
 
Problems and Policy 571 
 
 istics of the State, we must reckon on it rather as an 
 opponent than a champion of any development 
 towards Guild control. 
 
 Even when this is admitted, however, it does not 
 follow that State control of raw material is barren of 
 any value from the Guild point of view. Anything 
 which subtracts from the authority of the profiteer 
 is valuable in preparing the atrophy of his functions' ; 
 and, though the State may be hostile to the emanci- 
 pation of the worker in the circumstances of to-day, 
 it is not so of its nature, as the capitaHst is. In 
 fighting the workers for the retention of its industrial 
 prerogative. Capitalism will be fighting for its life ; 
 whereas the State, in resisting the advancing claims 
 of the Trade Unions that are struggling towards 
 their destiny as Guilds, will be doing so on the less 
 compeUing and very unconvincing ground of the 
 " pubHc interest." For these reasons, Guildsmen 
 might advocate the transfer of the function of 
 purchase to the State, wherever possible, with the 
 fuU intention of pressing for its eventual surrender 
 to the Guilds as soon as the workers grow strong 
 enough to demand and, if need be, to enforce this. 
 
 The danger that some GuUdsmen see in such a 
 course is the creation of a strong, conscious, and,, it 
 might be, impregnable State Capitalism, in which 
 the alliance of bureaucracy and capitalist, acting 
 nominally in the pubHc interest, would be formally 
 arranged and confirmed. While not denying this 
 danger, we think that there are several factors in the 
 situation which make in an opposite direction. One 
 is the instinctive dishke which the employer has of 
 
 * See above, cbapter vii., pp. 286-7. 
 
372 The Meaning of National Gxiilds 
 
 bureaucratic control. So strong is this aversion 
 amongst those employers who have at heart above 
 aU the eificiency of their businesses, which they find 
 hampered and interfered with in a hundred ways by 
 the incompetence and often caUous indifference of 
 the bureaucrat, that they may be led to prefer 
 alliance even with the Red Flag of their own revolu- 
 tionary workers rather than rescue from these by the 
 forces of Red Tape, in which aheady they find 
 themselves choked and strangled. 
 
 A further ckcumstance that would seem to suggest 
 that the peril of State Capitalism may be somewhat 
 exaggerated is the necessity under which the State 
 finds itself even to-day of taking into consideration 
 the workers themselves. An. example is afforded by 
 this very matter of the purchase of raw material. 
 On the Boards by which the business of allocating 
 suppHes is undertaken the Trade Unions concerned 
 have sometimes obtained representation, even to the 
 extent of an equal proportion with the employers. 
 This " joint control " of so essential a part of indus- 
 trial management is a proposition far different from 
 the illusory baits of a " share in the control " of 
 production which we examined in our cliapter on the 
 proposals of Reconstruction ; it may^ indeed, be 
 deemed a significant invasion of a sphere hitherto 
 jealously guarded as a capitalist preserve. Even, 
 so, however, it is sometimes urged that Labour, 
 thus participating as a subordinate caste, gives 
 a tacit consent to profiteering. There are, we 
 know, Guildsmen who regard any sort of divided 
 control between capitalist and worker as - in the 
 nature of a compromise with Guild principles. We 
 
Problems and Policy 373 
 
 shall examine their view later in this chapter ; 
 meanwhile, we would point out that, even if it be 
 adopted as far as production, pure and simple, is 
 concerned, it does not necessarily apply equally to 
 other spheres of industry. 
 
 While it is, , perhaps, too soon for GuUdsmen to 
 come to a final decision on the matter of State 
 control over raw material, it is not too soon for them 
 to begin seriously thinking about it.' But State 
 control diiring War-time has not been , confined to 
 purchase ; it has extended also to production, ancl 
 has raised in a new and acute form the question of 
 what attitude GuHdsmen should take up to National- 
 isation. To that question we shall now turn. 
 
 Nationalisation 
 
 " When you are ready to nationaUse, we are ready 
 to Guildise ! " — this old maxim of the New Age sums 
 up very aptly the standpoint of National Guildsmen 
 towards nationalisation. Two main conclusions 
 may be drawn : first, that nationahsation is not a 
 matter of the first importance for Guildsmen ; 
 secondly, that Guildsmen are nevertheless prepared 
 to take advantage of nationalisation, when it occurs, 
 to advance their own work of developing the Guilds. 
 For we must remember that nationalisation is not 
 really a democratic device, although SociaHsts have 
 for years advocated it as such ; rather may it be 
 regarded as the capitaUsts' last hope. 
 
 ' It is important to realise that tliis problem is not an isolated one, 
 but involves also the consideration of other developments of State 
 action, the most obvious of wliich is State control over transport. 
 This is the more urgent since, as the vast majority of our raw materials 
 come from overseas, control over them to be complete must include 
 control of shipping. 
 
374 ^6 Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 Confronted with the risk of having their profits 
 filched from them by the workers, the possessing classes 
 wiU unload on the State. They will demand to be 
 nationalised in order that their dividends may be 
 guaranteed by the Government.* 
 
 The work of controlling an industry that is ripe 
 for nationalisation, of maintaining its supply of 
 labour, of disciplining, manipulating, and generally 
 making use of the workers in it — aE these tasks, 
 when they become too difficult for the private 
 employer, he may seek to devolve upon the State. 
 As a result, the workers, in their struggle towards 
 emancipation, will find themselves faced by all the 
 strength and stubbornness of the Government 
 Department which has taken the place of thek 
 previous employers. The workers, with their 
 experience of State-owned and State-controlled 
 enterprises, both national and mimicipal, have no 
 reason to hope that nationalisation wiU bring them 
 any substantial benefit or genuine improvement in 
 status. To extract even a war bonus from a Govern- 
 ment Department has proved a considerable task 
 for the State employee, and this has doubtless proved 
 an instructive experience — if any more were needed 
 by the workers concerned — of the blessings of State 
 administration. • 
 
 Yet, from the Guildsman's point of view, even if 
 nationalisation represents nothing good in itself, it 
 may nevertheless create a weak place in the armour 
 
 ' Self-government in Industry, p. Z20. 
 
 ' It is interesting in this connection to observe that nowhere has the 
 reaction amongst the workers against Collectivism gone further than 
 in the case of,the Post Office employees, with the consequent develop- 
 ment of a strong movement towards producers' control. 
 
Problems and Policy 375 
 
 of the wage-system into which his weapons could find 
 good occasion to penetrate. Under private Capi- 
 talism the workers are Uable to be detached from 
 their class by the " benevolent employer," who, by 
 securing to his human beasts of burden agreeable 
 and unusually advantageous compounds and com- 
 forts, is able to induce them to surrender all thoughts 
 of a rise in status and responsibiUty. Not so the 
 State ; the bureaucrat never displays " benevo- 
 lence " until the time for it is past, and it appears 
 to the workers as only a confession of weakness — as, 
 indeed, it is. It is not a very daring forecast, and we 
 feel we are safe in assuming that the bureaucrat of 
 the future, placed at the head of a nationalised 
 industry, will prove no less stupid and irritating 
 than he is to-day in his restricted sphere at the head 
 of a " controlled." one. 
 
 The first advantage, then, the Guildsman may 
 snatch from nationalisation is that the bureaucrat is 
 certain to sting the workers to a sense of the 
 absurdity _and injustice of a system which places' 
 such a man in charge of their industry. This may 
 prove especially the case with highly placed members 
 ' of the sdariat who are thrown into frequent contact 
 with him. The second reason we have for looking 
 forward with some degree of confidence to the results 
 of nationalisation upon the psychology of the workers 
 is that it involves unity of control ; and a unity of 
 external control tends invariably to produce a unity 
 of the workers in their struggle towards control. 
 It is, indeed, in the nationalised and semi-nationahsed 
 industries and services in all industrial countries 
 that the workers' claim for control is most clearly 
 
37^ The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 recognised and expressed, as, for example, in the 
 postal services, on the railways, and in the mines. 
 
 Nothing tends so greatly to promote the idea of control 
 as unified management. Where an industry is split 
 up among a number of wholly or almost wholly separate 
 managements acting on different principles and with 
 very little co-ordination, the twin demands for recogni- 
 tion and control cannot so easily be made as where a 
 whole industry is gathered up under one supreme 
 direction. For . . . with divided management Trade 
 Union activity tends to be concentrated on the attempt 
 to bring the worse employers up to the level of those who 
 axe better. . . . Where questions of disciphne or 
 management arise, they are usually in this tjTpe of 
 industry questions affecting [only] a single management.' 
 
 We have seen, then, two ways in which the 
 nationalisation of an industry may react upon those 
 engaged in it with results favourable to the develop- 
 ment of a Guild spirit amongst them. By the 
 introduction of bureaucratic control, it removes all 
 danger of the "personal touch " of the benevolent 
 employer creating for the workers a false allegiance, 
 and, at the same time, it awakens the demand for 
 producers' control by establishing the impersonal, 
 irritating, and almost certainly incompetent admin- 
 istration of the Government official. Secondly, by 
 providing a completely unified management, it is 
 likely to prove valuably in developing a unified 
 organisation of the workers to cope with it. There 
 is abo a third way in which nationalisation may 
 indirectly be of service in stimulating the Guild idea. 
 The worker, finding himself an employee in the 
 
 ' Self-goxiernment in Industry, p. 209. The whole of chapter vii. of 
 Mr. Cole's book, dealing with " State Ownership and Control," is of the 
 greatest interest. 
 
Problems and Policy 377 
 
 / 
 
 nation's service, may be expected to reflect upon the 
 status that a national servant has the 'right to 
 demand. As long as he remained the tool of the 
 capitalist, the wage-slave might have felt his status, ^ 
 degraded as it was, to be natural enough. But, 
 enHsted directly in the service of his country, the / 
 worker will be likely to demand a role more appro- 
 priate to his altered circumstances. Serfdom is 
 consistent enough with profiteering ; but partnership 
 is the only honourable condition for the worker in 
 the national service. 
 
 Thus, while Guildsmen have no reason to throw 
 themselves into the task of promoting nationalisa- 
 tion — ^which may just as well prove a step in the 
 direction of the Sefvile State as a move towards the 
 Guilds — there is every reason for them to take 
 advantage of the undoubted weaknesses it exposes 
 in the system we aim at destroying. If the capital- 
 ist, by seULng out to the State, thinks that he is 
 parrying the thrust of the workers for self-govern- 
 ment, he must be shown that he is parrjdng quart 
 while they are thrusting tierce. Mr. Cole has 
 excellently summed up the position of Guildsmen 
 in this respect, and we shall not attempt to improve 
 upon his words. » 
 
 The nationalisation, therefore, which capitalists will 
 bring about in order to save their dividends, and reformers 
 urge upon us in the interests of sociar peace, we may 
 accept, at least in certain industries, because we believe 
 that it will bring, not peace, but a sword ! . . . For 
 Guildsmen, the whole question should appear secondary. 
 Their first business is to forward the idea of working-class 
 control of industry. Whether control has to be wrested 
 * Self-government in Industry, p. 216 ff. 
 
378 The Meaning of National Gkulds 
 
 from the State or from the private capitalist is irrelevant. 
 . ^ . In season and out of season, Guildsmen should be 
 preaching control ; and when nationahsation is suggested, 
 they ought not to oppose it ; they ought to redouble 
 their efforts and reiterate their original demands. 
 
 " When you are ready to nationalise, we are ready 
 to Guildise ! " It would seem, however, that not 
 only are the Trade Unions as yet far from ready to 
 " Guildise," but the State, too, for all its striking 
 increase of authority and intervention in the indus- 
 trial sphere, is not ready to nationalise. The War 
 expedient of " State control " over vital industries 
 would seem to be not so much a step towards 
 nationalisation as a substitute for it. The capitaUst 
 is told to " carry on," as long as he does so with a not 
 too flagrant disregard of the requirements of the 
 public interest. The bureaucrat dictates to the 
 capitalist's nominee (like the " brass hat " to the 
 ■ regimental officer), but he does not take the other's 
 place in the line. It is possible, however, that in 
 some cases the economic pressure to which the State, 
 with its huge burden of debt, wiU find itself subject 
 after the War may induce it to embark upon profi- 
 teering on its own account. • If so, we are likely to be 
 afforded an illustration of a truth too often forgotten, 
 namely, that nationalisation is not equivalent to a 
 true socialisation, by which the State, as representa- 
 tive of the community, proceeds to the extinction 
 of surplus value. Nationalisation would probably 
 result in a sharing of the spoils of profiteering 
 between the Government and the capitalists. The 
 
 ' A recent slip made in the House of Commons by a member of the 
 Government in speaking of " the interests of the company," when he 
 intendea to refer to those of the country, would then become as 
 justifiable as it is now natural to the governing-class mind. 
 
Problems and Policy 379 
 
 actual expropriation of the latter is quite another 
 thing ; and this problem we have now to consider. 
 
 The Basis of Expropriation 
 
 Nationalisation, of course, offers society an 
 excellent opportunity, if it be willing to take it, to 
 set about the expropriation of the capitalist class. 
 Heavy taxation, in the form of steeply graduated 
 income taxes and death and estate duties, would 
 directly hit the class that had recovere4 its financial 
 position by unloading its totterilig industries upon 
 the State. In the case, too, of new private capitalist 
 concerns that involve Government or municipal 
 sanction — such as railways and tramways — ^it would 
 be well if the concession were granted only on a lease 
 and if, at the end of a stated time, the- enterprise 
 became automatically and without compensation 
 the property of the community. 
 
 We must not forget that expropriation is rather 
 a problem for society as a whole than a purely 
 Guild one, since the State and not the Guilds 
 must carry it out. But the Guildsman has a 
 unique clue to the conduct of expropriation in 
 liis repudiation of the wage-system. iBy an 
 application of the Giiildsman's proposals it be- 
 comes possible to estabhsh a reasonable basis for 
 the compensation to be paid to the expropriated 
 capitalists. In a recent and interesting article in the 
 New Age^ Mr. S. G. Hobson has pointed out the 
 absurdity of accepting, as the basis of the compensa- 
 tion to be paid by the State, the current balance- 
 sheet of a company whose plant might be taken over 
 
 ' " Claim and Counterclaim," Augu»t 30th, 1917. 
 
38o The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 by a Guild. These "Balance-sheets are drawn up on 
 the " permanent hypothesis " that the wage-system 
 is in force and will continue to be in force ; it is 
 assumed that the labour-market is still open for the 
 company to hire its hands in. But we must remem- 
 ber that the first condition of the foundation of a 
 Guild in any industry is that the workers therein 
 shall have established the monopoly of their labour 
 and refused to enter the labour-market, but, instead, 
 are offering, as a self-goveming.association of workers, 
 to co-operate with the State in the nxnning of the 
 industry. It is clear, then, that the company in 
 question is unjustified in calculating the value of its 
 assets upon the destroyed " hypothesis " of wages. 
 To quote Mr. Hobson' : 
 
 The essential point to be noted is that Labour must 
 not be compelled to compensate somebody else for the 
 value of th^e labour monopoly it has legitimately secured 
 for itself. .In other words, the commercial value of the 
 control of labour, now implied in every commercial 
 balance-sheet, and based on the commodity theory [of 
 labour] can no longer be reckoned as an asset. For the 
 balance-sheet is drawn up on an agreed understanding 
 that the business is a going concern. But how can it 
 " go," as a commercial enterprise, unless it can buy the 
 labour commodity at the current price ? Further, it is 
 only to the extent that the business can be dovetailed 
 into the triumphant Guild that it has any real value, to 
 say nothing of commercial value, for which consideration 
 could be claimed. 
 
 It is upon this " real value," as distinct from the 
 artificial commercial value, that compensation 
 should be based. But what is the way to arrive 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
^ Problems and Policy 381 
 
 at this real value? Mr. Hobson answers this 
 clearly : 
 
 The real value inhering in material (buildings, 
 machinery, railways, ships, or what not) is precisely 
 what the labour monopoly — the Guild — sets upon it as a 
 saving of time and effort in heu of creating its substitute. 
 What Labour has made, it can make again.* 
 
 Mr. Hobson's proposals are certainly most sug- 
 gestive in providing a basis on which expropriation 
 might be justly and reasonably conducted. But no 
 cut-and-dried scheme can actually provide in advance 
 for meeting aU the circumstances of a situation 
 which cannot possibly be foreseen with any exact- 
 ness. Much will depend on whether the final 
 release of society from the burden of profiteering 
 comes at the- end of an ordered development towards 
 a Guild society, or if it is only achieved as the result 
 of a bitter and, perhaps, a violent struggle. In any 
 event, we may point out that it is not in any way to 
 the interest of the mass of those who have won their 
 way to emancipation to be ungenerous to those they 
 have dispossessed. Even if we are not prepared to 
 credit the victorious workers (of every class, be it 
 remembered) with a sense of common fairness to 
 those whom they wiU have expropriated, we may 
 assume in them at least a measure of common sense. 
 And common sense wiU certainly suggest that it is 
 far better to conciliate the newly dispossessed than 
 to excite them by harsh treatment to revolt against 
 the new order. Any consideration of this subject 
 is of necessity somewhat academic, and bears with 
 it a " catastrophic "' impression. But there is no 
 
 > Ibiii. 
 
382 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 inherent difficulty in the problem of a just compensa- 
 tion to the capitalist forced by society to abdicate 
 his alien dominion. Guildsmen have generally 
 suggested a system of terminable annuities extending 
 over two generations, and it can hardly be con- 
 tended that such a proposal is unreasonably 
 harsh. If, like Matilda's aunt in Mr. Belloc's 
 poem, 
 
 They have to pay 
 
 To get the men to go away, 
 
 a Httle judicious outlay by the mass of society in 
 facilitating the departure of the defeated profiteer 
 will be money weU spent. 
 
 Political Action 
 
 But of all the questions of pohcy in relation to the 
 State which the Guildsman has to decide, none is 
 more important than that of the sphere of pohtical 
 action. It would perhaps avoid confusion if at the 
 outset we substituted the word " Parliamentary " 
 for " political," since it is in connection with action 
 through Parhament and not with Politics in its- 
 widest sense that the problem really arises. The 
 formulation of the Guild idea took place at a moment 
 when disgust and disillusion with progressive 
 poHtics were prevalent in revolutionary circles, 
 and the earher articles and comments of Guild 
 SociaUsts, as they then styled themselves, reflected 
 the Syndicahst criticism appearing elsewhere. 
 English " Reformist " Socialists were denounced, 
 not only for their blindness to the fact of the wage- 
 system, but for the result of that bhndness — ^their 
 reliance on a pohtical weapon with which to assault 
 
Problems and Policy 383 
 
 an economic foe. The articles which appeared in 
 the New Age during 1912-13, and formed the basis of 
 the volume National Guilds, return again and again 
 to the elaboration of their original text : Economic 
 power precedes political power. '■ The history of the 
 Labour Party was repeatedly drawn upon to illus- 
 trate the truth of this dictum, often with very teUing 
 effect ; and the successes of the strike movement, 
 which were becoming at that time widespread, were 
 contrasted with the placid impotence of the Labour 
 members in the House of Commons. A few sen- 
 tences from these articles will serve best to make 
 clear their criticism of ParUamentary action as a 
 cure for economic disease. 
 
 The central argument of all this body of doctrine is 
 plainly this : that economic methods are essential to the 
 achievement of economic emancipation ; that political 
 methods are not only useless but actually harmful, 
 because aU political action follows and does not precede 
 economic action ; that economic power is the substance, 
 and political power its shadow or reflection. Labour, 
 therefore, in seeking first the conquest of pohtical power, 
 is grasping at the shadow and leaving the substance. 
 
 Again : 
 
 The medicine-men of the Labour Party ... do not 
 face the evils obviously arising out of the wage-system 
 and teU their patients 'that these diseases must continue 
 so long as the wage-system continues. They drug the 
 symptoms and leave the cause severely alone. They 
 prescribe political pills for economic earthquakes ; they 
 put political salve on the economic cancer. When we 
 remember all the human effort, emotion, faith, and 
 sacrifice that have gone to the upbuilding of the Labour 
 
 ' So familiar did this phrase become that it was eventually reduced to 
 a formula— E.P.P.P.P. ! 
 
384 The Meaoii^ of National Ghiilds 
 
 Party, is not the result a mockery, a scandal, a 
 tragedy?' 
 
 There was nothing essentially new about such an 
 attitude. Nearly thirty years before this, WiUiam 
 Morris — ^the 'greatest name in English Socialism — • 
 had protested against the delusions which were 
 already gaining a hold on the Labour movement 
 about the revolutionary possibihties of Parhamen- 
 tary action. For example, in 1885 he wrote : 
 
 The real business of Socialists is to impress on the 
 workers that they are a class, whereas they ought to be 
 society. If we mix up ourselves with Parliament, we 
 shaU confuse and dull this fact in people's minds 
 instead of making it clear and intensifying it. 
 
 And a few years later, in the course of a private 
 letter, • he said : 
 
 The business of a statesman is to balance the greed 
 and fears of the proprietary class against the necessities 
 and demands of the working class. This is a sorry 
 business, and leads to aU kinds of trickery and evasion, 
 so that it is more than doubtful whether a statesman 
 can be a moderately honest man. 
 
 Morris was speaking of poUtical action as a means 
 of revolution for Socialists generally ; but for the 
 Guildsman this does not constitute the whole 
 problem, or even the most essential part of it. The 
 question for him is not merely whether some degree 
 of Parliamentary action may not be necessary in 
 hastening the transition to a Guild society — and, 
 if so, how much — ^but the more immediate problem ' 
 how such action should be organised. Is political' 
 
 ' National Guilds, p. 71. 
 
 « Quoted in William Morris, by Mrs, Townshend {Fabian Biographical 
 Series), p. 19, 
 
Problems and Policy 385 
 
 action a necessary or even a desirable function of those 
 Tmde Unions by which the emancipation of the 
 workers must be mainly won ? It is on this point, 
 rather than on the wider issue, that Guildsmen have 
 tended to disagree. Before considering it further 
 we shall quote the following from a Statement of 
 the Italian SyndicaUsts * ; it forms part of a long 
 indictment of the faults and failures of " Reformist 
 Trade Unionism " : 
 
 PoLiTiCALiSM : The Trade Union organisation is 
 dependent on or at least in constant communication 
 with the so-called Sociahst Party and follows its for- 
 tunes, exactiiig^rom its members a profession of political 
 faith which gives rise not infrequently to discord and 
 division. As a consequence there arises an infatuated 
 belief in Parliament, which produces dangerous illusions 
 and weakens the fighting spirit. This attitude of mind, 
 by robbing the proletariat of faith in its own strength, 
 leads it to build its hopes on outside influence and to aim, 
 not at victory boldly attempted, but at those com- 
 promises which are the trade of politicians. This 
 constitutes an inevitable danger and a very grave one, 
 especially in a democracy. 
 
 We have already seen in an earlier chapter how 
 the CoUectivist policy in regard to our British Trade 
 Unions has carefully fostered this " infatuated behef 
 in Parliament," and thus " robbed the proletariat 
 of faith in its own strength." We have seen, too, 
 the essential Umitations of Parliamentary action 
 in bringing about the transition to the Guilds and 
 
 ' Report and Proposed Constitution approved by the National Congress 
 of Direct Action, held at Modena, November, 1912 (Tipografia Camerale, 
 Parma). For the opportunity to quote passages from Ihis interesting 
 document we are indebted to Mrs. Townshend, wlio lias lent us her 
 translation. 
 
 BB 
 
386 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the danger of Labour's " building its hopes on outside 
 influences." We do not believe that many Gmldsmen 
 wiU quarrel with what we have written on these 
 points ; should we, however, go on to suggest that 
 poUtical action by Trade Unions as such is dangerous 
 and undesirable, differences would Certainly arise. 
 We should be told of the " great victories " won by 
 the Trade Unions in the past through Parliamentary 
 action ; we should be reminded of the number of 
 directors, representing Umited companies, who sit 
 in the House of Commons, and asked whether their 
 influence should not be balanced as far as possible 
 by representatives of Trade Unions ; and we shoidd 
 also be requested to state where else than in the 
 Trade Unions could be found the funds and the 
 organisation necessary to obtain a SociaUst majority 
 in ParUament. 
 
 To debate this issue comprehensively would 
 require far more space than is here available, and 
 we can only set down, without fuUy developing them, 
 a few of the arguments which lead us to the con- 
 clusion that Guildsmen would be mistaken in 
 encouraging the Trade Unions to regard political 
 action as one of their essential activities. Let us 
 repeat once more that we are not opposing political 
 action as such. We have seen in our chapter on the 
 transition to the Guilds how important such action 
 may become at a later stage of the class-struggle ; 
 nor are we disposed to deny its importance to-day. 
 We would explain further that we do not deny, if the 
 Trade Unions seek through ParHamentary action 
 the amelioration (and not the overthrow) of the 
 wage-system, they may attain a Umited success. 
 
Problems and Policy 387 
 
 What we are contesting is the doctrine that Parlia- 
 mentary action is a legitimate function of Trade 
 Unionism and valuable as a means of ending the 
 wage-system and hastening the advent of National 
 Guilds. 
 
 In the first place, we assert definitely that the 
 intervention of such sectional industrial bodies as 
 Trade Unions in the sphere of Parliament is wrong 
 in principle. The House of Commons exists, 
 "theoretically at any rate, to represent the outlook 
 of men as citizens, not as industrialists — ^whether 
 exploiters or exploited. Nor can we admit that in 
 this instance two blacks make a white, and that the 
 abuse of their representative character by capitalist 
 M.P.'s justifies Labour in c6ndoning an evil example 
 by following it. Moreover, it must be conceded that 
 the representatives of profiteering interests only 
 represent those interests incidentally and are not 
 directly responsible to the employers' associations 
 concerned. It is important that Guildsmen, who 
 foimd their case very largely upon the necessary 
 separation of functions between the State and the 
 industrial authority, should not do an3^hing to 
 encourage tendencies which can only confuse these 
 functions, and postpone the building of a true social 
 structure. It is dangerous, both to the State and 
 to the Trade Unions themselves, that organisations 
 with a definitely sectional purpose and interest should 
 interfere as corporations with problems that are the 
 concern of the natiojv-as a whole. 
 
 It is dangerous, we repeat, to Trade Unionists 
 themselves, for it stands in the way of their attaining 
 the outlook of true citizenship, and confines them 
 
388 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 to participation in national affairs in the capacity of 
 subordinate industrialists." Such a role is really a 
 servile one ; for Labour to accept it and organise in 
 accordance with it is, in fact, a surrender to the 
 ideology of the capitalist class. The Labour Party 
 in the past has been based on a servile philosophy 
 and has encouraged a servile morale ; if evidence 
 of this is needed, it is afforded by the recently 
 debated proposals for a radical alteration of 
 the Party's constitution. It is beginning to be 
 recognised, even by Labour politicians, that the 
 political organisation of the manual worker as a 
 caste apart forms a very dubious basis for a free 
 social democracy. Class-consciousness in industrial 
 issues is all very well ; the workers are exiled from 
 their rightful inheritance in industry, and must 
 unite to recover it from their oppressors. But 
 class-consciousness in poHtics is reaUy caste- 
 consciousness, since it involves a surrender of the 
 rights of free and equal citizenship which Labour 
 already enjoys, nominally at least, and tends to cut 
 off the workers from participation in those common 
 national decisions and purposes in which they have 
 both the right and the duty to share. 
 
 In sa5dng this, however, we are aHve to the 
 distinction between active and passive citizenship 
 which the existence of the wage-system creates in a 
 community of nominal equals. Indeed, just because 
 we are alive to this, we are insistent that Labour 
 shall seek to abolish the " passivity " and not to 
 surrender the citizenship. Indulgence by Trade 
 Unionists as such in Parhamentary dissipations 
 has only served to imperil their citizenship while 
 
Problems and Policy 389 
 
 confirming their economic passivity. It has 
 obscured the vital truth that for the workers, as 
 workers, their emancipation is an economic issue 
 requiring to be achieved by economic weapons and 
 industrial organisation. It will not be won by 
 ParUamentary victories, however dazzling ; nor can 
 Guildsmen applaud the spectacle — as ineffectual 
 generally as it is undignified always — of Trade 
 Unionists pleading in the House of Commons on behalf 
 of their organisations for paltry tips and privileges. 
 The political method was weU enough for the 
 CoUectivist, careless, when he was not contemptuous, 
 of the initiative of the worker and weU content 
 with " instalments " of State Sociahsm (wherein 
 the State was far more obvious than the Sociahsm). 
 But the Gmldsman is intent on nothing less than the 
 aboUtion of the wage-system, and he knows that 
 " Guild Sociahsm," at any rate, cannot be victorious 
 by Parliamentary vote. 
 
 Even if poUtical action was both a legitimate and 
 a desirable fimction of Trade Unionism, the further 
 question would remain whether it was the best way 
 in which to expend the limited resources of energy 
 and enthusiasm, no less than of money, which 
 the Labomr movement has at its disposal. These 
 resources are too precious to be squandered, and 
 there is only too much evidence to show that, when 
 the attention of a Trade Union is concentrated upon 
 a pohtical experiment, the essential work of indus- 
 trial organisation is apt to be neglected. We have 
 seen that the confusion in the industrial sphere is 
 serious enough to-day. It was many times worse 
 ten years ago, when the energies of Labour had been 
 
390 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 for long devoted to political objects and the economic 
 power remained unaccumulated, which alone could 
 back the political cheques drawn so confidently by 
 the Labour leaders. The Trade Union that turns 
 itself into a mere voting-machine for the election to 
 Parliament of its general secretary may derive a 
 certain reflected glory from his success, but this is 
 hardly a substantial compensation for the neglect by 
 its principal officer of his proper work. These 
 official leaders of Labour to-day who are not merely 
 tools or talkers are almost aU to be found outside 
 the House of Commons ; the fact that the majority 
 even of these are ambitious to enter it shows only 
 how the superstition of a„ Parliamentary career still 
 exercises its spell over the workers at a time when 
 almost everyone else has ceased to be impressed by 
 it. No doubt electioneering is more exciting than 
 organising, than educating or even agitating ; La 
 Belle Dame sans Merci of politics will long have 
 many of the more impatient of Labour's champions 
 in thrall. But the young men of the future who 
 will be active, enthusiastic, and clear-headed enough 
 to build up out of their Trade Unions the framework 
 of the Guilds, wiU not be so many that they can be 
 spared for poUtical wire-pulling. From the stand- 
 point of the most economical use of Laboiur's " man- 
 power," if from no other, poUtics is a luxury in 
 which the working class cannot afford to plunge too 
 deeply. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the gravest objection to the 
 attempted use of Trade Unionism as a political 
 weapon Ues in the danger of thereby dividing the 
 workers in the very process of attempting to unite 
 
Problems and PoKcy 391 
 
 them. Brigaded in an industrial organisation which 
 must ultimately recognise either slavery or freedom 
 as its goal, they can unite rotmd the issues of their 
 industrial Hfe, which affect them all in much the 
 same way and of which they have much the same 
 experience. But men thus uniting for industrial 
 purposes and groping towards a common economic 
 aim — their emancipation from the wage-system — 
 may, and wiU, legitimately differ on a dozen ques- 
 tions of general poUtics. We have seen how the 
 issues raised by the War may imperil the unity _of 
 the workers' political organisations ; there is no 
 reason why such political differences should affect 
 their industrial unity — nor have they seriously 
 affected it. Unity is essential to the workers as 
 workers ; as citizens, it is as natural as it is legitimate 
 that they should disagree. For illustration of this 
 point we quote once more from the Statement of 
 the ItaUan SjTndicaUsts* : 
 
 Political Neutrality : In the same way and for 
 the same reasons which require that the organisation 
 should be free from all religious bias, we require that it 
 should be free from all political bias. Trade Unionism 
 cannot be either Catholic, Socialist, Republican, or 
 Anarchist, under pain of. acquiring the characteristics 
 of a Church or a faction, of resigning its own essential 
 character and its own ends, of giving occasion to indus- 
 trial discord, and of serving interests that are not 
 specifically proletarian, while accustoming the worker 
 to put confidence in outside influences. . . . The pro- 
 letariat must learn that they will have just what they 
 can get by fighting, and they must ask nothing from any- 
 one except from their own wiU and their own united 
 action. 
 
 » See above, p. 385, n. 
 
392 The Meaning of Natioi^ Guilds 
 
 This political neutrality does not at all mean that 
 Trade Unionism is indifferent to social ideals, and still 
 less' does it imply any restraint on Trade Union members 
 which would hinder them from belonging to any party 
 they choose. 
 
 Let it be understood, then, that we are not oppos- 
 ing political action, nor denying that denaocratic 
 influence in Parliament may prove necessary for 
 the emancipation of society. Nor again are we 
 suggesting that the workers should abstain from any 
 share or interest in politics. We believe, on the 
 contrary, that they should exercise fully their 
 rights as citizens ; what we are insisting uponis that 
 they should not confuse their political rights with 
 their industrial organisations. To avoid such a 
 confusion seems to us essential from the standpoint 
 of National Guilds. For ourselves, we should be 
 inclined further to suggest that, on grounds of 
 expediency, the attempt to divert the energy of the 
 workers into pohtical channels with a view to obtain- 
 ing a Parhamentary victory, whether in the name of 
 " Sociahsm " or otherwise, is at least premature, 
 and, even if successfully achieved, would prove 
 ineffectual. A Guild society has to be built up by 
 the workers, before ParUament, with the best will 
 in the world, can recognise its existence. This 
 does not mean that Parliament is impotent in the 
 matter ; we have seen how much it could do by a true 
 policy of nationaUsation to cast out the devil of 
 profiteering. But it is the economic power of a 
 labour monopoly and an industrial organisation 
 capable of replacing Capitahsm which alone will 
 guarantee that a Parhamentary programme of 
 
Problems and Policy 393 
 
 nationalisation shall result in a genuine socialisation, 
 ■ and not in a counterfeit conspiracy of profiteer and 
 bureaucrat. 
 
 However, since the principal efforts of Parliament 
 to-day are directed rather towards the extinction of 
 liberty than its promotion, what is needed in the 
 House of Commons is a group of absolutely dis- 
 interested and tireless persons, not so much to propose 
 legislation as to expose it. By dragging into the 
 light of day the corrupt and servile motives which lie 
 behind so much that is put forward in the name of 
 reform, they will be enabled in many instances not 
 only to frustrate the tactics of servile statesmen, but 
 to open the eyes of the innocent to what is afoot. 
 Such exposures and criticism are not Ukely to be 
 best performed by Trade Union representatives, 
 thinking more of the effect of legislation upon the 
 sectional interests of their own industry than of its 
 effect upon society as a whole. Indeed, the keener 
 and more enterprising these Labour men may be, 
 the more urgently are their activities needed in the 
 industrial sphere ; for the Trade Unions would do 
 weU now to set about making up the leeway in the 
 industrial sphere for which their twenty years of 
 devotion to the will-o'-the-wisp of-poUticahsm have 
 been so largely responsible. The thankless task of 
 acting in ParHament as sharpshooters in the defence 
 of Freedom may better be entrusted for the time 
 being to those members of society with the courage 
 and independence for it^ who, drawn perhaps mainly 
 from the middle classes, are less Ukely than working 
 men to be hj^notised by the unaccustomed suavity 
 of governing-class Parliamentary spokesmen. 
 
394 ^e Meaning o£ National Gtiilds 
 
 Mr. Penty and the " Local Guildsmen " 
 
 We have been led, then, from our consideration of 
 the true function of the State, not only to affirm its 
 essential value in opposition to the iconoclasts of 
 Industrial Unionism, but to discover many directions 
 in which State action may make easier the establish- 
 ment of National Guilds. For it is a fallacy to 
 suppose that every manifestation of State activity 
 must necessarily lead society in a Collectivist 
 direction. 
 
 Whether Govemmental interference with industry is 
 to be regarded as CoUectivist or not, all depends upon 
 the nature of the interference itself. If its aim be to 
 take the direction of industry out of private hands and 
 to place it in the hands of ofi&cials, then it is Collectivist ; 
 but if, on the contrary, its aim be to protect the public 
 or the workers against capitalist abuses, then the State 
 is merely resuming functions which in the Middle Ages 
 were performed by the Guilds, and which in the future 
 will be performed by the revived Guilds. Once embarked 
 upon a poHcy of regulating prices the State will, as the 
 system extends, find itself compelled to seek the recrea- 
 tion of the Guilds in order to give practical effect to its 
 intentions. ' 
 
 We have not space to discuss the particular verdict 
 contained in the final sentence of the passage quoted, 
 namely, that the fixation of prices is a path to the 
 Guilds, but we have need to discuss the general 
 position of its author, Mr. A. J. Penty. To this 
 writer, indeed, aU Guildsmen are imder a special 
 obhgation, however little they may be conscious of 
 it ; for it was Mr. Penty who, by the publication of 
 
 • Old Worlds for New, by Arthur J. Penty, pp. lo, ir. 
 
Problems and Policy 395 
 
 his book, the Restoration of the Guild System, a dozen 
 years ago, challenged the sway of Collectivism, then 
 almost absolute in would-be revolutionary circles 
 But the Guild idea as first formulated by Mr. Penty 
 was "different, in origin and intention, from the 
 development which has followed upon it. Mr. Pent / 
 did not propose the organisation of the great indus- 
 tries into National Guilds ; he urged their break-up 
 by the repudiation of IndustriaUsm and the estab- 
 lishment of Local Guilds, in which the worker would 
 find emancipation from bondage to the machine and 
 would realise freedom in the escape from the tjnranny 
 of large-scale organisation. 
 
 Mr. Penty's challenge was essentially a criticism 
 of Fabian Collectivism with its blindness and callous- 
 ness to the outlook of the producer. But when 
 social students and writers, equally hostile to Fabian- 
 ism, began to apply the Guild idea to the problem of 
 economic exploitation, and proposed the overthrow 
 of the wage-system by a national reconstruction of 
 industry along Guild lines, Mr. Penty found himself 
 in some degree in opposition to them also. For 
 him the enemy was not CapitaHsm, but IndustriaHsm 
 itself, of which both capitaUst and wage-worker alike 
 were evil but inevitable symptoms. While Indus- 
 trialism prevailed, the restoration of the Guilds was 
 not to be hoped for ; nor was its overthrow to be 
 expected at the hands of its proletarian victims — 
 " simply demoralised men, who are thankful for a 
 meal." Unless society should decide soon to put 
 back the clock of Industrialism, as, for instance, . 
 by the revival of agriculture and handicrafts, there 
 must follow an economic catastrophe, since every 
 
396 The Meanmg ol National Guilds 
 
 canon of social health is being increasingly violated 
 by our industrial development, and this rake's 
 progress can only end in disaster. Yet even such a 
 disaster may prove a blessing in the end, since out of 
 the ruin of Industrialism a new social order might 
 arise, founded on local initiative and the revival of 
 the crafts. ' 
 
 Such, in the broadest outUne, was the argument 
 of a series of articles of singular originaHty and 
 insight, which appeared in the Daily Herald ia the 
 months preceding the War, and were, indeed, 
 brought to a premature conclusion by this catas- 
 trophe, which their analysis of over-production 
 had partly foreshadowed.' We can only concern 
 ourselves here with that part of Mr. Penty's case 
 which involves him in a criticism of the attitude of 
 National Guildsmen, a criticism, let us say at once, 
 of the utmost importance and value, and one wMch 
 they cannot afford to ignore. Confronted as they 
 rightly and necessarily are with the immediate issues 
 of industry, it is natural that National Guildsmen 
 should sometimes lose their grip upon those ultimate 
 truths and values for the realisation of which emanci- 
 pation is but an instrument and even self-govern- 
 ment largely a means. Of such truths and values 
 Mr. Penty, the prophet of the Guild idea, is at hand 
 to remind its scribes and warriors. 
 
 A single quotation must suffice to sum up Mr. 
 Penty's position ; the extract which we append is 
 t5^ical, of many others. 
 
 ' These articles have since been reprinted in book torm under the 
 suggestive title Old Worlds for New. Since it is impossible in any 
 summary to do justice to their argument, the reader is earnestly recom- 
 mended to study the book ior himself. 
 
Problems and Policy 397 
 
 It is impossible to superimpose Guild organisation 
 upon the existing activities [of industry]. The desire 
 for profits, the division of labour, and misapplication of 
 machinery have introduced such a measure of confusion 
 and such a host of parasitic trades that, as it exists to-day, 
 industry is incapable of organisation except upon a 
 capitalist basis. So long as it remains as it is the 
 capitalist will inevitably remain master of the position, 
 because industry to-day has no organic structure apart 
 from his activities. . . . 
 
 In these circumstances it wiU be necessary, before 
 taking measures to restore the Guilds, to bring industry 
 back to a healthy and nonnal state.' 
 
 Thus, in 1914, Mr. Penty denied that any frontal 
 attack on the evils of capitalist Industrialism, such 
 as National Giuldsmen proposed, could be of any 
 avaU. National Guilds were not only inadequate 
 as an alternative to Local Guilds ; they were useless 
 even if regarded as forerunners of them. On this 
 point Mr. Pentylias completely changed his opinion ; 
 he is now a warm supporter of the National Guilds 
 propaganda as the best means to -the realisation of 
 his ideals, since 
 
 Once the workers find themselves in the possession of 
 industry, the fimdamental contradictions which underUe 
 industrialism will demand a solution, and that demand 
 will set us on the road to Local Guilds. " 
 
 This suggests the view which National Guildsmen 
 had on more than one occasion sought to urge upon 
 Mr. Penty, namely, that emancipation from the 
 wage-system is a necessary preliminary to a recon- 
 sideration of the prablem of Industrialism by the 
 
 'OW Worlds for New, p. 103. 
 ' Op. cit„ Frejace, p. g. 
 
39S The Meaning oi National Gruilds 
 
 workers themselves; But Mr. Penty's conversioir- 
 from his former " impossibihst " attitude is not, he 
 explains, due to these arguments, but to the lessons 
 of the War : 
 
 Hitherto I had supposed that society was to be 
 reconstructed by peaceable means — at any rate under 
 the normal conditions which peace presupposes. . . . 
 But the War has altered the factors of the problem. 
 Capitahsm no longer appears impregnable. Indeed, I 
 feel the War by its reactions will break it up, and in all 
 probabUity precipitate a revolution. In this Hght the 
 National Guild propaganda acquires a new significance. 
 The fact of the War has brought it within the range of 
 practical poUtics, for what was impossible in times of 
 peace may be possible in a time of revolution.* 
 
 The passage is somewhat vague, and Mr. Penty 
 does not explain precisely why he " feels " that the 
 War will precipitate a revolution. Nor does he 
 explain at all what share he imagines that the 
 worker will take in such a revolution : whether he wiU 
 initiate it, whether h,e will dominate it, or whether he 
 will be whirled along by the tempest together with 
 the rest of society. And here we touch upon one of 
 the weakest and strangest elements in Mr. Penty's 
 position — ^his indifference to the rple of the worker 
 in the issues of modem society. Mr. Penty, it is 
 true, shows himself keenly ahve to the personal 
 factor in the problem, while he is criticising the way 
 in which capitahst IndustriaUsm and its Fabian 
 paUiatives alike distort and degrade the nature of 
 man. But he never turns to consider what steps 
 the will and the manhood of the worker may, and do, 
 
 ' Ibid, 
 
Problems and Policy 399 
 
 incite him to take in reply to the tyranny by which 
 he is enslaved. Possibly the struggles of the worker 
 caught in the net of Industrialism seem to Mr. Penty 
 so feeble and pathetic that he deliberately averts his 
 gaze from them. But, if so, he is wrong ; for his 
 failure to take due account of the factor of human 
 will and».the forces which it may organise and com- 
 mand too often betrays Mr. Penty into dubious 
 deductions of the inevitable catastrophe of Capital- 
 ism, and into a more than Marxian fatalism. He 
 sets out to prove to us how the Collectivists in their 
 attempted reform of industrial tyranny fail to take 
 the normal potentialities .and desires of the worker 
 into account ; but, when the means of opposing 
 that t5T:anny is in question, Mr. Penty shows himself 
 almost equally oblivious to the workers' potential- 
 ities and desires. 
 
 A striking example of this is Mr. Penty's seeming 
 imconsciousness of the significance of Trade Union- 
 ism. Far from taking it as the basis for any restora- 
 tion of the Guild system, he appears to decide to 
 ignore it altogether, and to look to Guilds being 
 formed without any reference to the great demo- 
 cratic associations in which, however feebly and 
 spasmodically, the struggle against Capitalism has 
 so far been carried on. National Guildsmen found 
 their ideal upon abstract principles, but equally 
 they take their stand upon a fact — the industrial 
 organisations which the workers have created for 
 themselves and in which alone they wiU be able to 
 achieve the reality of freedom. Trade Unionism 
 provides the lever by which the workers can overturn 
 capitaHst organisation and at the same time replace 
 
400 The Meaning ol National Guilds 
 
 it by organs of their own. When they have put 
 themselves in a position to command their own 
 industrial destiny, they wiU be able to decide for 
 themselves the scale of production, the size of their 
 imit of organisation, and the sphere of the machine. 
 But before they can set aboilt to cope with this whole 
 problem of Industriahsm they have first to be 
 victorious over the power which now moulds 
 Industriahsm — and Industrialists — ^to its own pur- 
 poses. Before men can cease to serve machines, 
 they must cease to serve as machines. Before men 
 can put their souls into their work, they must be 
 able to call their souls their own. 
 
 The National Guildsman, then, does not necessarily 
 — as Mr. Penty suggests — " accept Industrialism " 
 because he accepts his share in the industrial battle 
 which is already joined and does not retire to a 
 distant part of the field to shout a private defiance 
 at an impalpable foe. Though he perceives the 
 perils of Industriahsm, and recognises that society 
 wiU have to face them before it can be assured of 
 true health and happiness, he perceives also a certain 
 danger in substituting Industriahsm for CapitaUsm 
 as the workers' immediate enemy to-day. " Indus- 
 triahsm " sounds as impersonal as Fate and as 
 irresistible ; while " Capitalism " is apt to remind the 
 worker of the capitahst and of the personal servitude 
 to profiteering by which he is both robbed and 
 dishonoured. The governing classes will, no doubt, 
 be glad enough to throw upon an abstract " Indus- 
 triahsm " the responsibihty for having brought 
 upon society the despirituaUsation of Labour and 
 the degradation of the masses. But this is a burden 
 
Problems and Policy 401 
 
 they must not be allowed to shift so easily ; for 
 Labour wiU only recover its spirit in struggling for 
 its inheritance, and, if the princes of Industrialism 
 can plead successfully, their helpless innocence in 
 face of the abstract tendencies of economic evolu- 
 tion, thfey will forestall the struggle and retain the 
 spoils. 
 
 The prindpalltojges by which Mr. Penty seeks to 
 establish his general indictment against National 
 Guildsmen of surrendering to IndustriaUsm are two : 
 their supposed partiality for large-scale organisation, 
 and their alleged blindness to the evils of machine 
 production. The one leads them to a preference 
 for National over Local Guilds ; the other renders 
 them insfensible to the claims of the craftsman. 
 Space admits of our touching on each of these points 
 only very briefly ; a more thorough pursuit of both 
 these controversies must be looked for elsewhere.* 
 
 In the first place, we must take occasion to repu- 
 diate the suggestion that National Guildsmen, in 
 their attitude to these two questions, are compromis- 
 ing with their principles. Such an insinuation is 
 based upon a misunderstanding of what those 
 principles are. For the vast majority of Guildsmen, 
 Guild principles do not necessarily involve an 
 insistence upon the local unit as such, or upon crafts- 
 manship for its own sake ; rather do they demand 
 the freedom of the worker to share in the control of 
 his own industrial Ufe, and the recognition of a 
 moral ideal in industry, impossible while the 
 
 ' See, for instance, the discussion in the pages of the Church Socialist, 
 November, 1915 — May, 1916, between Mr. Penty and one of the authors 
 of this book. Also Self-government in Industry, chapter viii., sections 
 iii. and ix. 
 
 CC 
 
402 The Meaning of National GKiilds 
 
 wage-system prevails. It is true that many National 
 Guildsmen would desire to see a high degree of 
 decentrahsation in industry and a steady supplanting 
 of machine production by manual work in many 
 directions ; but' these objects are predilections with 
 them, not principles. They are concerned to release 
 the worker to decide these issues, not to prejudice 
 them on his behalf. His principles impel the 
 National Guildsman to demand freedom of choice 
 for the community in both its aspects of maker and 
 buyer — ;that is, for the Guilds and the public in 
 consultation. Until the conditions of this freedom 
 have been won, the Guildsmen's views on such 
 subjects as local autonomy and craftsmanship, 
 however strongly held, are rather prejudices than 
 principles. His principles do not require that the 
 Guilds shall be forced into local isolation, or machines 
 butchered to make a mediaeval holiday ; they only 
 require that society, freed from the alien sway of 
 Capitalism, shall be at hberty to do these things if it 
 so desires. 
 
 In one of the most valuable chapters of his book 
 Mr. Penty discusses the evil of large organisation, 
 and with much of what he says most Guildsmen will 
 instinctively sympathise and agree. They will also 
 find something on which they wiU do well to reflect. 
 For having disposed of the Fabian bluff that large 
 organisations are more " efficient " than small ones, 
 Mr. Penty asks, " Eflftcient for what ? " and proceeds 
 to this suggestive passage : 
 
 When the capitalist afi&rms that it is his enterprise that 
 keeps things going, I regret to say that he is telling the 
 truth. There Ues the condemnation of the large industry. 
 
Problems and Policy 403 
 
 So rotten have things become that industry to-day has 
 come to depend entirely upon an external and artificial 
 stimulus to galvanise it into activity from above. 
 Remove this artificial stimulus, due to the desire for 
 profits, and stagnation would speedily result. For 
 the greater part of our industrial activities have no 
 vaUcfity apart from the desire for profits. Exclude the 
 motive of profit from such activities, and they would 
 cease to exist. * 
 
 Biit if this passage contains an itpportant con- 
 sideration for National Guildsmen, it also suggests 
 a part of their reply to Mr. Penty. For it is to 
 " exclude the motive of profit " and the profiteer 
 who incarnates it that they are striving ; if, by 
 doing so, they are thereby preparing the downfall 
 of the large organisation, they wiU be on the way 
 to accomplishing by their action what Mr. Penty 
 too often reserves to his hypothetical catastrophe. 
 We must at this point remind our readers how 
 continually we have already insisted on the need 
 for and the strong probability of local initiative and 
 control of production within the National Guilds; 
 but we need not repeat our arguments here.' The 
 fact that the industrial struggle of to-day involves 
 a high degree of centralisation in the Trad6 Unions 
 in no way conflicts with that view. We have to 
 beat the enemy before we can expect to enjoy the 
 fruits of a real industrial peace ; and in this conflict 
 with a highly organised and closely united Capital- 
 ism the workers must themselves organise and unite 
 no less thoroughly. But even here, as our chapter 
 on Trade Unionism sought to (femonstrate, initiative 
 
 ' Old Worlds for New, pp. 68-9. 
 • See above, chapter viii. 
 
404 The Meanii^ o£ National Chiilds 
 
 must come from below ; no framework of organisa- 
 tion, however efficient, will compensate for apathy 
 in the workshop or the local branch. 
 
 While National Guildsmen insist strongly on the 
 vital note of the small unit, the fact remains that 
 it is essentially for National Guilds that they are 
 labouring. In the Europe in which we hve, the 
 human grouping which commands instinctively the 
 highest loyalty and is alone capable of co-ordinating 
 all other loyalties is the nation. To recognise this 
 by no means involves a worship of the sovereign 
 and bureaucratic State ; nor -loy any stretch of 
 imagination can National Guildsmen be accused of 
 such an idolatry. By ignoring it, however, there 
 is danger that we shall fall into the atavistic locaUsm 
 of the acadermc mediaevalist. We are bound to 
 point out to Mr. Penty that even his " locaUsm," 
 like other unspontaneous revivals, is somewhat 
 self-conscious. The mediaeval townsman spoke of 
 the stranger from another district as a " foreigner," 
 because he thought of him as such. Yet to-day we 
 have on every side decisive evidence of the strength 
 of the national ideal ; even despite the great national 
 corruption of Capitahsm, it is the appeal for national 
 service that has aroused the simultaneous energies 
 and devotions of every comer of this island. Local 
 patriotism has been strong ; the spirit of emulation 
 has manifested itself between district and district 
 in a hundred ways, from the taking of a trench down 
 to the buying of a War Bond. But it is the over- 
 powering claim of the national interest that has 
 inspired and co-ordinated the efforts of them aH. 
 
 It must be even so with the Guilds : they must 
 
Problems and Policy 405 
 
 be national or they wiU be nothing; decentrsdised 
 certainly, but national in their scope ; national 
 ultimately in their co-ordination of supply and 
 demand ; national in their organisation for purchase 
 of raw material ; national in their relations with the 
 national State. Moreover, the Guilds wiU be taking 
 over national tasks, not only from the capitalist 
 who has usurped them, but from the State which 
 has inevitably mishandled them. Old age pensions, 
 sick pay, insurance — such industrial machinery as 
 is involved in these is the affair of the Guilds ; in 
 accepting the transference, they wiU be assuming 
 national responsibiUties such as no local Guilds, 
 even though federated, would be capable of shoulder- 
 ing with efficiency. 
 
 We can agree, however, with Mr.' Penty's general 
 verdict that " National Guilds can have no finahty 
 about them," since, when the victory over Capital- 
 ism is completely achieved, decentraUsation in 
 industry wiU almost certainly follow, with results 
 that cannot be altogether foreseen. But if we do 
 not claim finahty for National Guilds, we do claim 
 priority for them. The propaganda of Local Guilds, 
 in our view, rightly begins at the point where the 
 propaganda of National' Guilds leaves off. The 
 same is true of the machine problem. Before we 
 can control that problem we must first control the 
 machines themselves, and for this the Guilds are 
 an indispensable prehminary. Moreover, Mr. Penty, 
 for all his careful thought and close reasoning 
 on the subject,' does not seem to us sufficiently to 
 realise that machinery does present a problem, and 
 
 ' See Old Worlds for New, chapters ix. and x. 
 
4o6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 not merely exhibit a disease. If machinery appears 
 to have nm wild and to be threatening our civilisa- 
 tion, let us remember that, while anyone can shoot 
 wild animals (granted sufl&cient courage for the 
 enterprise), the difficult but, at the same time, 
 valuable thing is to tame them ! 
 
 , Again, we do not think that Mr. Penty sufficiently 
 takes into account the fact that, though machine 
 production is primarily the concern of the producer, 
 it is also a matter in which the consumer's opinion 
 has a right to be heard. Even the worker himself 
 may be prepared to surrender a certain proportion 
 of his joy in his work, if he feels an assurance^hat 
 he will derive joy out of the finished products. 
 Under our present evil system the workers are 
 engaged very largely in turning out cheap and nasty 
 machine-made goods for their own use, while, if they 
 do get an opportunity to expend their skiU and 
 express their personality in work, it is in the produc- 
 tion of luxuries for a handful of parasitic and wealthy 
 consumers. The arrival of a state of things in which 
 the normal consumer of the worker's finest products 
 will be a man like himself, wiU in itself go far to put 
 the machine in its proper place, since good work will 
 not be canaUsed into the creation of luxuries for a 
 plutocratic market, but spread over the whole field 
 of production to cope with a democratic demand. 
 
 Capitahsm : voild 'lennemi ! Man has no right 
 to happiness in his work until he has secured justice 
 in the ordering of it. Nor is he likely to obtain it. 
 The profiteer will always be ready to spare a httle 
 academic sympathy for the worker over the horrors 
 of Industriahsm ; but he will do nothing substantial 
 
Problems and Policy 407 
 
 to end them, since so to do would endanger his sway. ' 
 In concentrating the attack upon Industrialism, 
 Mr. Penty is not only tacitly exonerating the 
 profiteer, but he is obscuring the role of the worker 
 in preparing, as he must do, to subjugate what will 
 otherwise subjugate him. Mr. Penty is, in a very 
 real sense, putting the cart before the horse — the 
 inanimate before the Uving, the mechanical before 
 the human. The worker must control before he 
 can create ; he can neither build a noble world nor 
 furnish it beautifully until he has struck the chains 
 of wage-slavery from his wrists. 
 
 Mr. Belloc and the Distributivists 
 
 The third attack made upon National Guildsmen 
 from the forces of the Revolutionary Left comes 
 from Mr. BeUoc and his followers, the Distribu- 
 tivists.' This school shares the Guildsmen's stand- 
 point of criticism in regard to existing society, and 
 applauds their purpose. But while the Distribu- 
 tivists admit that Guild propaganda may be valuable 
 in organising resistance to the Servile State, they 
 declare that the appUcation of Guild principles will 
 be indecisive and ultimately worthless, unless they 
 are founded upon the dogma of individual property, 
 which, in their view, is the sole guarantee of political 
 
 'Mr. Penty himself implicitly admits this, when he says of the 
 capitalist that " He aims at the deliberate creation of a class of workers 
 so degraded and with an outlook in Ufe so hopeless that they wUl have 
 little option but to do the horrible and dangerous work which lies at 
 'the base of industrialism."— hOM Worlds for New, p. 97- 
 
 • See Mr. Belloc's articles in the New Age, October — November, 1913, 
 and the editorial reply to them in that journal, December nth, 1913 ; 
 also the elaboration of Mr. Belloc's position by his followers of the 
 "Rota Club " in The Real Democracy, by J. E. F. Mann, N. J. Sievers, 
 and R. W. T. Cox. 
 
4o8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 citizenship and economic freedom. The Distribu- 
 tivists insist that " State ownership " means in fact 
 ownership by an inevitably corrupt, inevitably 
 stupid, and inevitably tjnrannical bureaucracy. 
 Against this peril they see no other safeguard than 
 the wide distribution of property among many men, 
 instead of its centralisation in the hands of a few — 
 whether the latter be private capitalists or a bureau- 
 cracy. In the case, for example, of agriculture, the 
 Distributivists hold that a countryside of peasant 
 owners, each owning his small farm and then 
 associating in a Guild, is more natural and more 
 practical an ideal than the notion of a National 
 Agricultural Guild, with its members responsible for 
 the working of the land, the ownership of which is, 
 however, vested in the State. 
 
 The National Guild- principles, after their long 
 and by now successful confhct with Collectivism 
 in the realm of ideas, caimot be accused of an 
 undue tendency to State interference. Nor, with 
 their intense insistence upon the importance 
 and outlook of the individual Guildsman, can 
 National GuUdsmen be thought unmindful of in- 
 dividual rights and individual freedom. If, then, 
 we felt that the only way in which these could 
 be guaranteed to the citizen was by the restoration 
 and redistribution of property, we should un- 
 hesitatingly advocate this, undeterred by any 
 merely sentimental reverence for Socialist concep- 
 tions. There seems to us, however, a confusion in 
 the idea of " property " that is fatal to the ideal of 
 the Distributivists, as far, at any rate, as industry 
 is concerned. It results from the failure sufficiently 
 
Problems and Policy 409 
 
 to recognise the fact that there are two sorts of 
 property — ^the one, which may be maintained and 
 developed by the owner himself ; the other, which 
 entails a claim upon the labour of others. An 
 example of the former is the agricultural small 
 holding, which example, as the Distributivist well 
 knows, lends itsdf best to his demonstrations even 
 though it does not estabUsh his case. Once, how- 
 ever, we turn from farming to the realm of industry 
 proper, we find that we are concerned almost 
 entirely with the second kind of property. It is 
 impossible to imagine a smaU holding of railway-hue 
 in the same sense as a small holding of land. But 
 here the Distributivists have, of course, another 
 me&od to propose. They would make each railway- 
 man the propnetor of an interest-bearing share in 
 the capital of the Railway Guild. If he wished, the 
 railwa5anan could sell his share, and either hve on the 
 proceeds or invest them in a share in another Guild. 
 To National Guildsmen this will seem the strangest 
 way of achieving freedom. First, the shares are 
 to be interest-bearing ; this means that the Guilds 
 wiU be conducted for profit — since interest is nothing 
 other than a share in profits. But National Guilds- 
 men affirm the necessity of industry being conducted 
 for service, not for profits ; this is, indeed, why 
 emphasis is necessarily laid upon the conjunction of 
 the State in the conduct of industry. There is 
 a second impUcation of the Distributivists' pro- 
 gramme which is still more remarkable. This is 
 that shares in a Guild may be bought and sold. 
 If an engineer, therefore, sells Mr. BeUoc a share in 
 the Engineering Guild, it becomes Mr. Belloc's 
 
410 The Meaning of National Giiilds 
 
 property. Mr. Belloc then will expect and be 
 entitled to receive interest upon this' share he has 
 purchased ; he thereby becomes a sharer in the 
 profits made by the Engineering Guild with the 
 labour of its members. Thus Mr. Belloc twice 
 offends against the sense of industrial justice : first, 
 he abets the Guild in extracting profits from its 
 service to the pubUc ; secondly, he claims that, by 
 his purchase of a share in the Guild, he is entitled 
 to the fruits of a work in which he himself does not 
 participate. Without the engineers' labour there 
 wiU be no profits, and so no interest for the Engineer- 
 ing Guild's shareholders ; in as far, therefore, as 
 Mr. BeUoc's claim to interest upon his share is 
 legally enforceable, he is putting forward a claim to 
 the legal enforcement of the engineers to labour for 
 him. The hypothetical Mr. Belloc, no doubt, 
 becomes free and independent by virtue of his 
 shareholding of property ; but the members of the 
 Engineering Guild are equally the poorer, both in 
 independence and in status. It might be possible, 
 however, as the Distributivists propose, to restrict 
 by State action the sale of shares, to prevent the 
 creation of large properties, and to destroy those 
 already in existence. But National Guildsmen 
 submit that there is no possibility of individual 
 property being redistributed and secured, until 
 concerted aggressive p.ction on a national scale has 
 been taken by the Trade Unions. * Indeed, a 
 perilous and paradoxical feature of the Distributivist 
 programme is the stress which it throws upon State 
 
 » See Mr. Cole's development of this point in Self-government tn 
 Industry, p. i6o. 
 
Problems and Policy 4^^ 
 
 action in. achieving economic emancipation and 
 preserving its fruits. 
 
 National GuUdsmen cannot admit that the multi- 
 plication of individual property in industry is a feasible 
 proposal ; their principles demand the sociaUsation of 
 the' means of production, by which these become 
 the propOTty of all — or none. The bureaucracy — 
 even if it can be supposed to remain as corrupt in a 
 Guild State as it is now — would not be able to ride 
 rough-shod over a National Guild ; such an effort 
 would meet with the opposition of all the Guilds 
 united in their Guild Congress. And in the sphere 
 of industry, Mr. BeUoc's detested " politicians " 
 would certainly not succeed in demoralising a Guild 
 Congress with the same faciUty with which they dazzle 
 and deceive the wage-slaves of to-day. The Guilds- 
 man, famihar at every turn of his working life with 
 the realities of industrial democracy, will be well 
 prepared to pay the price of eternal vigilance for 
 the freedom he has so hardly won. 
 
 But, in the opinion of many National GuUdsmen, 
 the fundamental difference with the Distributivists 
 is that their arguments are directed rather towards 
 the attaiinment of individual happiness than to the 
 establishment of social justice. It is true that such 
 a conception of happiness is far removed froip the 
 base ideals of "increased happiness " dangled 
 before the wage-slaves by the Reconstructors of 
 Capitalism. It is the vigorous happiness of eco- 
 nomic independence ; not the easy acquiescence in 
 pampered servitude. Yet to the Guildsman, happi- 
 ness, though certainly a " by-product " of emancipa- 
 tion and even an essential one, is not the end for 
 
412 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 which such emancipation is striving. That end is 
 justice rather than happiness, or, as the theologian 
 might express it, the glorification of God rather 
 than the glorification of man. The economics 
 of Distributivism are the logical development of 
 individuahst liberalism.' Yet, because Mr. BeUoc 
 is as fundamentally human as Herbert Spencer was 
 essentially inhuman, he translates the academic 
 antagonism of the " Man versus the State " into the 
 burning question of the Peasant Proprietor versus 
 the Politician, and so, of course, enhsts the instinc- 
 tive-sympathies of aU but the mean, the timid, or 
 the corrupt. For the Guildsman, however, this 
 is not a burning question, but rather a rhetorical 
 question ; it is a question that does not call for an 
 answer, and is, therefore, not really a question at all. 
 The question for the Guildsman is not so much 
 whether the poUtician should be in a position to 
 oppress the peasant or the peasant in a position to 
 defy the politician, but rather how the community 
 may best combine the highest degree of freedom for 
 those who live and labour on the land with the 
 highest degree of agricultinral development. There 
 may weU be a conflict of ideals and of interests 
 between the politician with a bureaucratic outlook 
 and the peasant proprietor with a purely individual 
 standpoint : the former necessarily interfering and 
 incompetent ; the latter very possibly irresponsible 
 and inefficient. There need be no such conflict ' 
 when the agriculturaUst ceases to pursue his private 
 ends, and the bureaucrat abandons his interference 
 
 ' See in this connection an article by Mr. de Maeztu in the Nem Age 
 for February 14th, 1918. 
 
Problems and Policy 413 
 
 in methods. At present it is the instinct of the 
 agriculturalist to tell the politician to " keep off the 
 grass," to which the poMtician immediately rephes 
 that the agricultiiralist is to blame for letting that 
 grass grow imder his feet. But let the exploitation 
 of the land cease to be the subject of petty profiteer- 
 ing and become a national concern for which a 
 National Agricultural Guild, co-ordinating the 
 initiative and the activities of small agricultural 
 communities, is fuUy responsible, and the bickering 
 of proprietor and pohtician disappears. Agriculture 
 becomes a pubUc Service, in which, while on the one 
 hand State trespassers would be^ prosecuted, on the 
 other the inefficiency and individuaHsm of one or a 
 few would not be allowed to impair the prosperity 
 of the most essential of aU industries. Moreover, 
 only with the institution of a National Agricultural 
 Guild would there result the disappearance of that 
 rural proletariat on which even peasant proprietor- 
 ship largely depends, and which suffers even more 
 perhaps at the. hand of the small landowner than 
 it does from the more distant domination of the 
 big. 
 
 The Distributivist, then, fails, even in the most 
 promising sphere of agriculture, to harmonise 
 economic independence with the highest interests 
 of society. The emancipated peasant proprietor 
 may have as good ground as the Jolly Miller for 
 singing: 
 
 I care for nobody, no, not I, 
 
 If nobody cares for me. 
 
 But freedom means something more substantial 
 than irresponsibihty. Man cannpt be altogether 
 
4^4 The Meanir^ of National Guilds 
 
 relieved, as Oscar Wilde desired to be, from the 
 " sordid necessity of Uving for others " ; even the 
 most individuahst amongst us may be content to 
 serve society, if in the organisation of that service 
 he has a full and equal share. 
 
 Women in Industry— and in the Guilds 
 
 We have dealt with the three lines of attack which 
 National Guildsmen have to encounter from the 
 revolutionary side, and with such problems of pohcy 
 as arise out of them. The remainder of this chapter ' 
 must be devoted to a discussion of questions which 
 are at friendly issue amongst Guildsmen themselves. 
 Amongst these, one of the first to appear was a 
 quarrel in which Guildsmen were not in any direct 
 way imphcated, but which was rather a far-off 
 disturbance on the waters of socicd theory ; reaching 
 them eventually, it faintly rocked their adventurous 
 craft and passed away beyond. There was a period 
 before the War when on the discovery of some 
 difference, violent, but at first sight obscure, in a 
 corner of the revolutionary field, it was safe to apply 
 the maxim, Cherchsz le feminisme ! From this epi- 
 demic of debate Guildsmen did not wholly escape. 
 The Feminist, with a phrase surely amongst the most 
 rash even of progressive formulas, was demanding" 
 that women should take " all labour for their 
 province," and in due time called upon Guildsmen 
 to stand and deliver their doctrine on the subject. 
 But Guildsmen — ^in which comprehensive term 
 women are, of course, included no less in practice 
 than in theory — faced with a proposition as vague 
 as it was disputable, feU to debating it amongst 
 
Problems and Policy 415 
 
 themselves, both with a view to the immediate 
 industrial situation and in its relation to the prin- 
 ciples and working of a GuUd society. It was not 
 to be expected that uniformity would arise from 
 suchr a debate : to some, the " economic independ- 
 ence " of women was the supreme test ; to others, 
 her spiritual independence in her own self-governing 
 domain of home Jind family seemed an even more 
 indispensable basis for a healthy community. 
 But the upshot of the discussion seemed to show 
 that those differences which could be deemed funda- 
 mental were not strictly relevant to Guild principles, 
 while such differences as were relevant were not 
 particularly important. In our treatment of the 
 subject, necessarily brief, we do not pretend to 
 speak for other Guildsmen than ourselves, but we 
 are not conscious that our conclusions would be 
 very violently combated even by those Guildsmen 
 who would not completely assent to them. 
 
 There is not, of course, anything pcirticularly 
 new about the appearance of women in industry ; 
 but the present position, greatly accelerated by the 
 -effects of the War, is that women are entering 
 industry in ever greater numbers. This^-incursion 
 is welcomed by Feminists on the ground that it 
 offers women the comparative independence of 
 wage-earning after the old economic inferiority to 
 which wiUy-nilly they have had to submit ; it is 
 better, they say, for a woman to be a wage-slave 
 in the labour-market than a chattel-slave in the 
 home — ^better to sell her labour than her sex. 
 Astute employers also are encouraging women to 
 enter industry. Their reasons are very apparent ; 
 
4i6 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the influx of women into industry lowers wages and 
 disorganises Labour. 
 
 One of the first definite pronouncements of 
 National Guildsmen in respect of this problem was 
 made by the New Age in 1912 in a long editorial 
 article ^ : 
 
 It is bad in our opinion . . . that women should enter 
 the industrial market while wage-slavery prevails there. 
 The only possible effect of their incursion will be to 
 reduce wages to their {i.e., women's] level of subsistence 
 and to depreciate marriage and moraUty in necessary 
 consequence. 
 
 Some time later, Mr. Rowland Kenney, writing 
 in the same paper, made a definite proposal on the 
 subject, with the aim in view of consoHdating the 
 Trade Unions for the overthrow of the wage-system. 
 
 The Unions should treat women labour precisely as 
 they sometimes treat non-Union or potential blackleg 
 labour : refuse to work with it. Failing that, then the 
 men should refuse to let any more women come in, and 
 so clear their industries by the dying-off or marr3ring-o£E 
 of the present women workers. But whatever step is 
 taken, it should be taken with a view ultimately to 
 clearing women out of industry. 
 
 To this Mrs. Winifred Horrabin replied with a rival 
 suggestion, set out in the following manner '. 
 
 Question : Can women be used as blacklegs ? 
 Answer : Yes. 
 
 Simple Solution : Then we must organise them with 
 us in our own Unions. 
 
 Thus we have two proposals made to the workers. 
 To guard themselves against the serious menace 
 
 '■ See " Notes of the Week," August 29th, 1912. 
 
 1 
 
Problems and Policy 417 
 
 offered to tlieir organisations by the swamping~of 
 Trade Unionism beneath a flood of unorganised 
 women workers, they were to attempt either to 
 exclude women from industry altogether, or to 
 enrol them in their own Industrial Unions. 
 
 "Whatever the relative merits of these two sugges- 
 tions at the time when they were made, the issue 
 between ^them has now been definitely settled by 
 circumstances in favour of the second. Whether or 
 not it was practicable before the War to exclude 
 women from industry, this has now become im- 
 possible. Moreover, the weak point in the proposal 
 from the Trade Unionist standpoint is that it 
 presupposes a far greater degree of organisation and 
 a far more highly developed sense of the right to 
 control industrial conditions than the Trade Unions 
 at present possess. So drastic a poUcy as the 
 conscious and dehberate exclusion of women from 
 industry could only succeed on two conditions : 
 if there existed a strong and fairly general conviction 
 that their entry would be harmful to their own best 
 interests, and if, further, the vital necessity was 
 clearly appreciated of creating a labour monopoly 
 as a prelude to the establishment of National Guilds^ 
 But these conditions — ^unfortunately, as we think — 
 are absent, save in a degree too small to be of much 
 account. 
 
 National Guildsmen are faced, then, by the definite 
 establishment of women in industry, with Uttle or 
 no possibility of their ever being removed from it. ' 
 Our own standpoint is not in any way a sex one ; 
 
 ' An interesting suggestion, however, has been put forward in the 
 New Age that, as one means of minimising unemployment after the 
 War, women should be compulsorily " undiluted " from industry. 
 
 DD 
 
4x8 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 we are aiming at the welfare of society and the 
 emancipation of the workers as the condition of it. 
 This, as our readers iiave seen, involves an increase 
 in control ; the entrance of women into industry 
 is certainly weakening and has weakened the 
 / workers' power to attain control. It is useless to 
 cry over spilt milk ; the task before us now is to 
 see how this breach in the Trade Union citadel may 
 be repaired. How can the Trade Unions become 
 blackleg-proof while there is a huge mass of " poten- 
 tially blackleg " women workers in industry for the 
 employer to fall back upon in times of necessity? 
 The men workers' answer must clearly be, " We 
 must organise them with us in our own Unions." 
 If women workers are ever to be anything better 
 than mere blacklegs, it is their duty to organise. 
 But, as a rule, women workers are so full of their 
 newly found independence — the independence, for- 
 sooth, of wage-slavery ! — and so much are they 
 confirmed in this, and the true facts- hidden from 
 them, by the sUly, when not actually corrupt, 
 Feminist tools of the employers, that Trade Union 
 organisation is the last thing they think of. There 
 are signs, however, that the rude facts of wage- 
 slavery are slowly rousing the women workers to a 
 consciousness of their position. But even when 
 women can be induced to enrol themselves, as Trade 
 Unionists, their apathy is a constant source of 
 anxiety and disappointment to men and women 
 organisers alike. It is not found easy to induce 
 women workers^ to share in the govemmelit of Trade 
 Unions, even when provision • is madfe for their 
 special representation. They would seem to be 
 
Problems and Policy 419 
 
 conscious that industry is for them a temporary 
 expedient and not an essential part of life. One 
 virtue, however, women almost invariably display 
 in Trade Union activities — that of loyalty ; com- 
 plaint has seldom to be made of a woman worker, 
 once she is a Trade Unionist, that she failed her 
 comrades in a crisis or deserted them in a strikg. 
 
 There is still one pressing danger to be guarded 
 against. It is that the organisation of the women 
 workers might be based on the principles of Craft 
 Unionism rather than those of Industrial Unionism. 
 Nothing would better please the enemies of Labour 
 than if a quarrel should break out between the men's 
 and the women's Unions, or — a more serious and 
 immediate peril — ^if an unholy alliance should be 
 formed between the women's and the unskilled 
 men's Unions against the skilled men's. ' The only 
 safeguard against these internecine disasters is 
 Industrial Unionism — for men and women workers 
 alike. That the women should be represented 
 sectionaUy inside the Unions seems both desirable and 
 simple to effect, once the fundamental princi^e of 
 Industrial Unionism is recognised as the best way, and 
 even the only way, to challenge the capitahsts to-day. 
 
 What is the position of women to be as workers 
 in the Guild State ? It would be premature to 
 attempt too elaborate a reply to this question ; we 
 shall submit only a few general suggestions. Despite 
 all the promises of their heralds, women have found 
 neither satisfaction nor advantage in taking all 
 labour for their province. The more thoughtful 
 
 ' There is no small danger of this arising in the munitions trades, in 
 coimectiou •vritb the restoration of the skilled Unions' privileges after 
 the War. 
 
420 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 amongst them are already reflecting on the conse- 
 quences of this principle, which would seem rather 
 to be working out in the form of wage-labour 
 taking aU womanhood for its province. The wel- 
 fare, moral and physical, of society has gained 
 nothing and lost much from the thoughtless drift 
 of women into industry. The reaction must come ; 
 already, after flocking from the horrors of home to 
 the deKghts of the workshop, many women are 
 returning to what they find — it may be, with surprise 
 — to be the more congenial sphere, and many more 
 are only wai;ting for the opportunity to do so. ' For 
 the time being, the places of those who return are 
 more than filled by yoimger and less disillusioned 
 women ; nor would it be fair to exaggerate the 
 charms to-day of the Uncle Tom's cabiq. of the 
 wage-slave. But, with the restoration of manhood 
 and Mberty to the Guild worker, there seems no 
 doubt that the more normal rules of life will be 
 re-established. Society as a wholes men and women 
 alike, wiU welcome the exit of women from those 
 industrial tasks that require from them great 
 physical exertion and strain. 
 
 There are, we think, two main principles by which 
 the limits of women's work in the Guilds must 
 be established. Does their performance of any 
 industrial function injure their womanhood — ^then 
 it must be closed to women. Does their performance 
 of any task injure the Guild industry by lowering 
 standards or infringing rules — ^then also must women 
 retire from it. But what work women wish to do, 
 and can do without harm either to themselves or to 
 the Guild standards-^this, at least, must, certainly be 
 
Problems and Policy 421 
 
 left open to them. At the smallest estimate, this 
 leaves the^professions and all the vast clerical and 
 crafts sides of the Guild industries as a field for women 
 to whom the industrial worid presents an appeal. 
 There were women in the old Guilds ; and some 
 there will undoubtedly be in the new.' 
 
 Unemployment 
 
 For many GuUdsmen — amongst whom, however, 
 we are not to be numbered — ^the question of women's 
 entry into industry was of importance solely in its 
 bearing upon imemplojonent. Would the perpetual 
 flow of fresh imskilled labour from a practically 
 inexhaustible source remove all possibihty of the 
 workers' confronting the capitaHsts' monopoly with 
 a labour monopoly of their own ? Though we have, 
 preferred not to discuss the relation of women to 
 industry purely from this point of view, we are 
 conscious of its importance. Indeed, the creation 
 of a labour monopoly is so vital a part of Guild 
 policy that we have need to discuss somewhat fuUy 
 how best we may overcome a most obvious obstacle 
 to it, namely, the phenomenon of unemployment. 
 Conspicuous, indeed, ' by its absence during the 
 fallacious " prosperity " of War-time, unemploy- 
 ment, the corollary of profiteering, is likely to 
 reappear at its close on an unparalleled scale, as an 
 accompaniment of what may well be the greatest 
 slump ia the annals of Industrialism. Demobilisa- 
 tion, however skilfully conducted, cannot of itself 
 create a demand for labour, and the most efficient 
 
 ' For a fuller elaboration of these suggestions the reader is referred 
 to two articles on " Women in a Guild State " in the New Age, March 
 4th and jith, 1915. 
 
>! '"'f. 
 
 422 The Meaixing of National Guilds 
 
 organisation of the Labour Exchanges may prove 
 powferless to arrest a sensational fall in Labour 
 securities — and security. The State does not rule 
 the waves of industry, but abandons them to the 
 depredations of privateers ; far less can it hope, 
 then, to control the tides. Despite the optimistic 
 counsels of his " wise men," our Canute at the 
 Ministry of Labour is Hkely to wet his feet. And 
 the workers, if they put their trust in bureaucratic 
 princes, will find many of the weaker amongst their 
 number drowned altogether.' 
 
 But what we have to consider here is not so much 
 an immediate peril as a permanent disease. Unem- 
 plojTment is not an accident arising out of the 
 capitaUst control of iadustry ; it is rather a con- 
 dition of it. This has long been recognised by 
 Guildsmen, as, of course, by all but superficial 
 critics of capitahst economies. Mr. S. G. Hobson, 
 for instance, in his original articles on the subject, 
 showed that " a margin of unemployment is 
 essential to the maintenance of the wage-system " ; 
 and he supported his demonstration by a quotation 
 from a prominent employer, Mr. Arthur Chamber- 
 lain, who, in the course of a speech on the Tariff 
 controversy, gave utterance to the following remark- 
 able confession : 
 
 We must maintain a certain reserve of unemployed, 
 or what would we poor manufacturers do ? 
 
 Moreover, Mr. Hobson reminded us how, should this 
 reserve be somehow absorbed or " organised " out 
 
 • For coping with the immediate problem of post-war unemtploymeut, 
 see Mr. Orage's proposals for the " undilution of labour " in his intiw- 
 duction to GwtW Principles in War and Peace. 
 
Problems and Policy 423 
 
 of existence by schemes of bureaucratic manipula- 
 tion, the employers, by the judicious introduction 
 of labour-saving machinery and devices for " speed- 
 ing-up " production, can automatically create 
 another. To cure imemployment, he argued, we 
 have to remove its cause ; and this, in practice, 
 means nothing other than the destruction of the 
 wage-system itself. 
 
 Since the destruction of the wage-system, though 
 an mrgent task, may weU prove to be a long one, it is 
 necessary to inquire whether, short of its compj'ete 
 destruction, we can modify the wage-system by the 
 regulation of imemployment in the direction of 
 Guild ideals. The problem is not a simple one ; we 
 have already seen in earlier chapters how easily the 
 establishment, of security for the worker under 
 capitalist control leads to his being bound more 
 closely to the master who, whether voluntarily or 
 under State compulsion, endows him with it.' 
 We have constantly to bear this danger in mind 
 when we consider proposals, favoured by many 
 Guildsmen, for throwing the responsibiUty for the 
 maintenance of the*^ unemployed in any industry 
 upon the industry itself. The arguments advanced 
 ia favour of such a poUcy are of two kinds. 
 
 On the one hand, it is suggested that to make 
 either the State or the workers contribute to the 
 maintenance of the employers' human reserve is 
 essentially unreasonable, since neither the one nor 
 
 ' " For an actual security based upon bondage the wage-system sub- 
 stituted a no less actual insecurity based upon an incomplete personal 
 freedom. Our problem to-day is that of re-establishing security without 
 re-instituting virtual chattel-slavery" (Self-government in Industry, 
 p. 163). This quotation is from chapter vi., section iii., which is a 
 useful summary of the problem. 
 
4^4 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 the other directly profits from the successful accom- 
 plishment of the purpose for which that reserve has 
 to be maintained. The capitalist does not expect 
 either the State or the Trade Unions to help to 
 maintain his machinery or his raw materials, and, 
 since the worker is but ■»the human material of 
 profiteering, the least that can be demanded of the 
 profiteer is that he should himself pay for " its " 
 upkeep and support. This line of argument, how- 
 ever, is in no sense revolutionary, and it is from a 
 somewhat different standpoint that the poUcy is 
 advocated by Guildsmen seeking to secure its adop- 
 tion by their fellows. The maintenance of the 
 workers in any particular industry Ijjy the Guild 
 concerned is, they remind us, a Guild principle. 
 Pending the development of the Guild, let us throw 
 the task upon those who are at present the masters 
 of the industry. By doing so, we shall strike at 
 the commodity basis of labour and go far to destroy 
 the wage-system that depends upon it. For, in 
 proportion as labour ceases to be a commodity in 
 industry, it becomes a partner, and the status of 
 the worker is thereby sensibly raised. Moreover, 
 what are the alternatives? Maintenance of the 
 unemployed by the Trade Unions, beside being - 
 inherently unjust, involves a crippling charge upon 
 the resources of Labour, which are needed for 
 purposes more constructive and aggressive than 
 industrial first-aid. As for throwing the charge 
 upon the State, this course, apart from its being 
 quite unfair to the taxpayers who have tdtimately 
 to defray the expense involved, will lead straight 
 to an increase of the bureaucratic control over 
 
Problems and Policy 425 
 
 indMstry which the Guildsman is concerned to avoid. 
 To bureaucracy we oppose the principle of industrial 
 autonomy ; with its bold appHcation we may strike 
 a blow at the wage-system by establishing the right 
 of the worker to be maintained by the industry on 
 which he depends. 
 
 Before turning to consider the opposition which 
 these contentions have encountered, we must 
 briefly examine ways in which the idea of making the 
 unemployed a charge on the industry might be 
 appUed. One method has been put forward by Mr. 
 Henry Clay,^ which, though strictly compatible 
 with the maintenance of CapitaUsm and not pro- 
 posed as any sort of attack on it, has points of interest 
 to Guildsmen as being quite independent of, if not 
 prior to, proposals which they have made for 
 increasing the responsibility of the employer. 
 Mr. Clay's argument can only be summarised here, 
 but it deserves a close study. He starts by declaring 
 that neither the State nor the Trade Unions can 
 control unemployment efficiently, since they do not 
 control production. As long as production remains 
 a function of the employer, the proper regulation of 
 it is primarily his task, and the responsibility for 
 its discharge must be brought home to him. 
 
 The organisation of production on a basis of regular 
 instead of irregular emplojmient, the reduction of irregu- 
 larly employed reserves to a minimum, and the charging 
 of the maintenance of such reserves on the cost of pro- 
 duction can be done only by the people who organise 
 ^production — ^namely, the employers. Where they have 
 to do it, they are able to.» 
 
 'See The Industrial Outlook, pp. 85-9I., 
 « Ibid. I 
 
426 The Meaning o£ National Guilds 
 
 Mr. Clay cites the examples of agriculture and of 
 the isolated firm in a small town ; in both instances, 
 the employer has to keep his workers together, 
 whether he has work for them aU the time or not. 
 There is no essential reason why aU employers 
 should not have imposed upon them by compulsion 
 a duty imposed on these few by circumstances. 
 
 Rent and debenture interest are met irrespective of 
 the state of trade ; only wages are expected to share 
 with profit the burden of fluctuations.* 
 ! - 
 
 This is the more unjust, contends Mr. Clay, since 
 
 trade fluctuations are intensified by the employers 
 themselves working, only too often, not to stock, bu 
 to order, and inflating production during a boom, 
 with the inevitable result that a depression follows 
 and those " hands " who are no longer required are 
 turned off. No one would suggest, Mr. Clay con- 
 tinues, that the State should forbid such dismissals. '. 
 But it does not follow that it can do nothing to 
 prevent them. On the contrary. 
 
 The State could emphasise the responsibility of the 
 organiser of production for regulatiag unemploymenfci 
 without making it an absolute rule that employers must 
 give regular employment. It could do so by putting a 
 premium on regular unemployment and penalising 
 irregular employment. Thus it would remit the problem 
 of unemployment in an industry to the industry. • ' 
 
 Mr. Clay is in no doubt how this could be done. 
 His proposal is to amend the Unemplo5Tnent Section 
 of the Insmrance Act by raising the employer's 
 
 » Ibid. 
 • Ibid. 
 
Problems and Policy " 427 
 
 contribution, since it is both unjust and unpractical 
 to " tax equally- the worker who suffers from unem- 
 ployment and the employer whose defective organis- 
 ing work is a main factor in causing it." Rather 
 • should we " impose a tax which will not only compel 
 the individual employer to seek means of regularising 
 work, but will induce aU the firms in each industry to 
 co-operate to that end." To be effective, however, 
 the tax must be paid by employers in each industry 
 into a separate fund ; only thus can the responsi- 
 bility for failing to regularise employment in any 
 particular industry be brought home to the proper 
 quarter, and the interest of the industry as such 
 become obvious. Further, employers should be 
 able to recover a proportion of their contribution, if 
 they are able to prove that the regularisation thus 
 forced upon them^has led to good results. 
 
 Mr. Clay justifies his proposal in a significant 
 passage, which suggests some of the criticisms that 
 certain GuOdsmen have been led to make on the 
 whole idea he is endeavourijig to apply. The 
 justification of profits, he reminds his readers, is 
 assumed to rest upon the idea that they are payment 
 for the work of organising production and shoulder- 
 ing its risks. But, if employers shirk the burden of 
 maintaining the unemployed, they are leaving 
 undone a principal part of their task, and their 
 justificatiorr as profit-makers cannot be considered 
 estabhshed. 
 
 To charge the chief burden of unemployment on to 
 prdfits, then, is justifiable on precisely the same grounds 
 as profits themselves are justifiable. If, on the other 
 hand, the workers or their Unions are to continue to 
 
428 The Meanii^ ot National Guilds 
 
 bear the chief cost of bad organisation, then they are 
 entitled to a share in the control of the industries. ' 
 
 The question arises, then, whether there be not a 
 danger that, if the workers are content to let this 
 burden pass over to their masters, they will at the 
 same time be surrendering beyond recovery an 
 indispensable Guild function out of the hands of 
 the Trade Unions, which are the Guilds in embryo. 
 Guildsmen, such as Mr. S. G. Hobson and Mr. Cole, 
 who have proposed that the unemployed should be 
 made a charge upon the industry to which they 
 belong, have not been blind to this danger.' To 
 guard against it, they have demanded a large 
 measure of Trade Union control over the scheme they 
 propose. This scheme we quote from Mr. Cole's 
 summary of it in his latest book' : 
 
 Let an Act be passed setting up for each industry a 
 statutory body representing employers and Trade 
 Unions, with power to levy a rate upon all the firms in 
 the industry in proportion to the numbers employed by 
 them. Let the payment of benefits from this fund be 
 placed absolutely in the hands of the Trade Unions, and 
 let ParUament have no control either of the amount of 
 the levy or of its expenditure. This would be a clear 
 step in the direction of industrial autonomy. 
 
 This, however, would not solve the whole problem; 
 for industry is not yet decasualised, and there are many 
 workers, and not a few employers, who cannot be 
 assigned definitely to any industry. For these there 
 
 ,1 Ibid. 
 
 • " If he who pays the piper calls- the tune, there is evidently a danger 
 that Capitalism, in assuming the responsibility for the worker in sick- 
 ness and unemplojmient, might also virt ually assume ownership of the 
 worker." — Self-government in Industry, p. 167. 
 
 " Op. cit., pp. 168, 169. 
 
Problems and Policy 429 
 
 would have to be a general body, on which, from the 
 Labour side, the General Labour Unions would be 
 strongly represented,-and this body would levy a general 
 rate on aU employers employing such unallotted labour. 
 To these bodies and to a central body co-ordinating 
 them all should also pass the control of the Labour 
 Exchanges, and of any other industrial agencies set up 
 by the State for dealing with questions of emplojnnent. 
 
 It is time to consider the objections that the 
 whole proposal has provoked from those Guildsmen 
 who fear its adverse effect upon the independence of 
 the worker. In the first place, they contend that 
 the scheme just outlined, while certainly less objec- 
 tionable than others that could be and have been 
 proposed, would be likely to prove impracticable in 
 the form in which it is put forward, and would work 
 out very differently. The employers- would insist 
 on some control of the money contributed by them ; 
 nor would any proposal ever get through Parliament 
 which did not provide for this. But, in any case, 
 the idea of appl3dng " industrial autonomy " to an 
 industrial order b3,sed on an essential antagonism 
 of interests and ideals is perilous to the morale of the 
 worker, since it gives him a false sense of solidarity 
 with those whom he has no right to regard as 
 partners, until they have ceased to exploit both him 
 and the public. This suggestion that servility will 
 follow upon a feeling of security is not based merely 
 upon theory ; there is practical evidence in support 
 of it. The members of the salariat, indeed, enjoy 
 this very illusion of security (for, under the wage- 
 system, security cannot be absolute without the 
 addition of complete slavery) ; we see the result in 
 the lack of vision and enterprise they exhibit. Far 
 
430 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 from raising the status of <the worker, by binding 
 him more closely to his job, we may be rather 
 lowering it by creating a new form of industrial 
 serf who may not, leave his industriallord or, at any 
 rate, the group of lords dominating through their 
 associations the industry in which he is regimented. 
 Moreover, the scheme, to work efficiently, would 
 almost certainly involve a large" measure of com- 
 pulsory Trade Unionism, and, consequently, an 
 extension of public control over Trade Unions, 
 which might go far to deprive them of their character 
 as autonomous bodies. Until profiteering is a 
 thing of the past, the autonomy of Trade Unionism 
 is a more essential principle than the autonomy of 
 industry ; for the workers to call in the employers 
 to combat the State is a step in the wrong direction, 
 which wiU postpone rather than hasten the social 
 partnership that Guildsmen are seekiag to establish. 
 
 "Exclusive" Control or "Divided" Control? 
 
 While we are inclined to think that this criticism 
 lays undue stress upon the dangers of the proposal, 
 without a due recognition of its merits, it is never- 
 theless obvious that this idea of " industrial auto- 
 nomy " has its pitfalls for the Guildsman. As long 
 as the wage-system remains, anything which tends 
 to accentuate a supposed identity of interest 
 between the t3^ants, the officials, and the serfs of 
 an industry must fortify rather than weaken the, 
 dominion of profiteering. This point takes us to a 
 consideration of the most violent controversy that 
 has yet arisen amongst Guildsmen, and one which 
 concerns the question of the immediate poHcy they 
 
Problems and Policy 431 
 
 should pursue in relation to the extension of control 
 over production by the workers. We have already 
 discussed this question at some length ; with our 
 maxim of " Encroaching Control " and with the 
 greater part, at any rate, of our application of it 
 few Guildsmen are likely to disagree. But a further 
 point arises. Is the "Encroaching Control " to take 
 the form in all cases of an exclusive control by the 
 workers' organisations concerned, without any 
 contact with or relation to the representatives of 
 Capital? Or may it in some instances require to 
 be developed in the form of divided control between 
 the workers' representatives and the representatives 
 of Capital, not necessarily — and certainly not 
 primarily— through National or District Councils 
 (qu the Whitley model), but in the form of Joint 
 Committees in the workshop and in the works I 
 
 Let us say at the outset that, while we recognise 
 both the importance and the urgency of this ques- 
 tion, it appears to us to be one merely of expediency, 
 and not of principle. The fact that the protagonists 
 on both sides of this controversy have inclined quite 
 definitely to regard it as one of principle seems to us 
 to be due to an essential misunderstanding of the 
 problem involved. The champions of Exclusive 
 Control have valued so highly the independence of 
 Labour that they have suspected their opponents 
 of being seciletly prepared to . compromise it in 
 return for an immediate, though illusory, instalment 
 of control. The supporters of Divided Control, on 
 the other hand, havd regarded as so urgent the 
 development of the workers' self-government in 
 industry that they have been led to look upon their 
 
432 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 adversaries in this controversy in the light of obsti- 
 nate and fanatical impossibilists. While both sides 
 had at heart precisely the same object of applying 
 the maxim of " Encroaching Control," those who 
 insisted on Exclusive Control contended that, if 
 control were in any sense divided, the workers 
 would ipso facto cease to encroach, and would accept 
 the subordinate role allotted to them by Capitalism ; 
 while those Guildsmen who justified Divided Control 
 in. certain circumstances did so very largely on the 
 ground that, unless Labour consented temporarily 
 to divide its control over such industrial functions 
 as it could not control completely, it would never 
 be able to encroach beyond the most insignificSit 
 outworks of CapitaUsm. The advocates of Exclusive 
 Control accused those who justified Divided Control 
 of being impatient to encroach too quickly and at 
 too great a risk, and were in turn themselves charged 
 with being content to control too little, and afraid 
 to take the risks that the achievement of victory 
 demanded. 
 
 The controversy, we repeat, is one which appears 
 to us to be concerned rather with a difference of 
 judgment — as legitimate as it is natural — than 
 a fundamental cleavage of principle. We do sot 
 regard a doctrinal uniformity on all points amongst 
 Guildsmen as being either possible or desirable ; the 
 end of all differences would more probably result 
 from mental stagnation than from spontaneous 
 unanimity. In the instance we are now discussing, 
 it would be as unreasonable for those who favour 
 Divided Control to be charged with being 
 " defeatists " in the class-war as for their opponents 
 
Problems and Policy 433 
 
 to be denounced as mad irreconcilables, committed 
 to catastrophic action. If the controversiahsts 
 cannot agree happily to differ, they can, at any rate, 
 recognise that the article on which they momentarily 
 disagree is as nothing compared with the creed by 
 which they are miited. Unfortunately, the con- 
 troversy first arose at a moment when neither the 
 ideas nor the projects of Reconstruction had been 
 clearly defined ; confusion bred misunderstanding, 
 positions were attacked and defended by either side 
 with more vigour than relevancy, and issue was 
 joined on points which a closer examination would 
 have shown not to be in dispute. We sheill endea- 
 vour to state the position from both points of view 
 in such a way that our readers may discover what 
 is in dispute, and decide for themselves what measure 
 of truth hes with either side. 
 
 Let the advocate of Exclusive Control speak first, 
 and let us imagine the tone of, urgent warning and 
 burning conviction in which his words are dehvered* 
 
 " You are flinching from the consequences of 
 your principles," he cries to his opponent, " at the 
 first moment when they have been seriously tested. 
 While the Guild idea is essentially a revolutionary 
 idea, as you have yourselves repeatedly testified 
 and still assert, you are surrendering the initiative 
 to your enemy and are debating terms proposed by 
 the very people to whom it is your business to dictate 
 themr You are suggesting that Labour should 
 associate itself with Joint Parliaments and Com- 
 mittees in which it will not only, by its very entrance, 
 be forced to deny impKcitly, if not expMcitly, the 
 reahty of the class-struggle, but where it will appear 
 
 EE 
 
434 ^e Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 in a position definitely and admittedly subordinate. 
 This is a double blasphemy, since it dishonours not 
 only the workers' cause, but the very manhood of 
 the workers themselves. You claim that only thus 
 can the workers set about to control the industry to 
 which they belong — as well might the fly accept the 
 hospitaUty of the spider in hopes of controlling his 
 web ! You claim to be practical ; yet how can a 
 programme be practical which no class-conscious 
 Industrial Unionists would even look at ? They 
 would reject you unhesitatingly ; and why ? 
 Because they realise that the value of the position 
 they are going to win in industry will result princi- 
 pally from the fact that it has been won, and not 
 granted. The workers' right to control their work- 
 ing lives can only be estabhshed by their winning the 
 exercise of this right independently as workers, and 
 not dependently as employees or as " industriahsts." 
 It is not their business to concern themselves with 
 the industry ; their part lies with the Industrial 
 Union. 
 
 " It is true that you rule out in words the possi- 
 bihty of Labour becoming in any way jointly respon- 
 sible with Capital, and vigorously affirm the right 
 to strike. But it is useless to rule out something 
 which you proceed by your policy to render inevit- 
 able, or to affirm a right when at the same time you 
 are preparing to undermine the whole spirit that 
 alone wiU dictate its exercise. The workers cannot 
 assume joint functions with Capital without becom- 
 ing responsible to Capitahsm for carrpng them out. 
 Moreover, such assumptions must create, in Labour 
 officials at any rate, a feeling of responsibihty for 
 
Problems and Policy ' 435 
 
 seeing that things go smoothly. Similarly, with 
 the right to strike — ^the employers can well afford to 
 tolerate such a right, if they have entrapped Labour 
 into a relationship that obscilres, even when it does 
 not forbid, any development of the spirit of antagon- 
 ism which prompts the workers' aggressive action 
 and without which the class-struggle must flicker 
 but into ignominious defeat. 
 
 " You charge us with being impossibiUsts. We 
 accept the description if it means that we deem all 
 projects of Reconstruction, however nominally 
 impartial, impossible of acceptance by Labour. 
 But we repudiate it if it be meant to imply that we 
 have no constructive alternative to propose and that 
 we pin our hopes to catastrophic action. It has 
 been suggested from your side that it is dangerous 
 to raise catastrophic expectations ia the workers, 
 since these result swiftly in a reaction of disappoint- 
 ment and despair. We assent to this suggestion, 
 and only deny that it has any relevance to* ourselves. 
 Far from faiMng to be constructive, we urge the 
 most gigantic task of Reconstruction that can be 
 suggested — the reconstruction of Trade Unionism. 
 In proportion as this is securely achieved it will be 
 possible to proceed to the seizure of control by the 
 workers, as is certainly possible already in some 
 branches of industry, notably where the Shop 
 Stewards movement has prepared the way. But 
 this" control must be completely and uncompromis- 
 ingly exclusive ; it must not admit any kind of 
 intervention from above or from outside in those 
 industrial functions which Labour feels itself strong 
 enough to undertake. This is a fundamental point, 
 
43^ The Meanii^ ol National'Guilds 
 
 since, if Labour is encouraged or even induced to 
 share its rights, it will lose the spirit and the power 
 to battle for them. That spirit you are damping ; 
 that power you are paralysing ; because you are in a 
 hurry to gain a Uttle, you are preparing the surrender 
 of all." 
 
 We shall pause here only to mark the impression 
 the foregoing address has created ; resisting the 
 temptation to intervene, we caU upon the advocate 
 of Divided Control to refjjy. If we imagined the 
 previous speaker passionate and vigorous, we must 
 picture his successor as equally vigorous but 
 striving to convince rather by the urgency of his 
 argument than by an appeal to emotion, however 
 legitimate. He begins by applauding the spirit of 
 his opponent's contentions and expressing his 
 readiness to agree with most of their construc- 
 tive proposals. His general verdict is that the 
 speech was admirable, but addressed to the wrong 
 audience. 
 
 " You are attacking the devotees of Reconstruc- 
 tion," he continues; "your only mistake lies in 
 numbering us amongst them. We are no more 
 deceived by the language and the purpose of 
 Reconstruction thanxyou are, and we are no less 
 determined that the workers must not be deceived 
 by them either. Where we differ from you is in 
 den5ang that a negative attitude to their proposals 
 is more convincing than a positive one. We contend 
 that, if these proposals are not frankly examined 
 and discussed on their merits, people will receive the 
 impression that we are disgruntled and bigoted 
 sectarians who are interested only in forcing our 
 
Problems and Policy 437 
 
 own nostrums and panaceas on the workers, resent- 
 ing all outside interference with our self-appointed 
 task. If the authors of Reconstruction schemes— 
 who themselves, by the way, are seldom actually 
 capitalists — have borrowed our phrases and ideas 
 only to distort them, there is all the more reason 
 that we should point out precisely how they have 
 distorted them, and should not appear to abandon 
 cardinal points in our case simply because other 
 people are making a bad use of them. Far from our 
 surrendering the initiative to the enemy, we are 
 refusing to let him steal this initiative from us. 
 
 " We attach every whit els much importance to 
 the workers' independence as you do. But by 
 independence we do not mean mere defiance ; nor 
 do we see much value in an independence which 
 results in passivity and a refusal to engage the 
 enemy. We would point out that, if the workers 
 are as utterly servile and faint-hearted as your 
 distrust of them implies, then the class-struggle 
 may as well be abandoned at once ; it can never 
 succeed. But we do not believe this. We, are 
 confident that the increasing desire of the worker 
 to take a hand in control is inspired far more by the 
 ambition to challenge the stronghold of capitalist 
 privilege, than by an illusory belief that he can- 
 become responsible for industry while he is tied by 
 the tether of wages. Consultation with Capitalism 
 does not involve co-operation ; indeed, it is far more 
 likely to provoke disharmony than to smooth the 
 way to peace. Especially is it likely to make the 
 workers dishai^ionious about the proper things. 
 Without intervention in control they will remain 
 
438 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 prone to fruitless disputes about wages ; but, in 
 proportion as they come into contact with the 
 representatives of Capital, they will discover the 
 conflict of interests in industry which had been 
 previously a matter rather of phrase than of fact. 
 This is one of our reasons for attaching a positive 
 value to divided control : it will translate industrial 
 antagonism from the theory of the few into the 
 experience of the many. 
 
 " You make the charge against our proposals for 
 divided control that they mvolve the admission of 
 Labour to the sphere of management in a subordinate 
 capacity. We agree that they do, but the fault is 
 not ours ; it must be laid at the door of the wage- 
 system itself. Such subordination is inevitable 
 while the wage-system is maintained. Indeed, in 
 our opinion it is well that the workers should be 
 forcibly reminded by circumstances of a status they 
 are too apt to forget, since we must trust that they 
 will be roused thereby to set about making an end 
 of it. Moreover, we should Hke to recall the safe- 
 guards on which we have always insisted as a 
 condition of any assumption of divided control, and 
 which, we suggest, have not merely a negative but 
 a very definite positive value. These are Inde- 
 pendence and Unity — the first expressed in the 
 practice of preliminary meeting for the discussion 
 of agenda, in the preparation of which Labour must 
 obtain an equal share with Capital ; the second 
 realised in at least a considerable approximation 
 to Industrial Unionism. In regard to Industrial 
 Unionism, on the importance of which you have so 
 greatly insisted, not only do we deny that our 
 
Problems and Policy 439 
 
 attitude is in any way prejudicial to it, but we go 
 further and assert that any intervention in control, 
 of whatever kind, must tend to the promotion of 
 Industrial Unionism. As long as the Trade Union 
 movement remains external to control, the craftsman 
 feels that his main interest is in the particular 
 conditions of his craft as against other crafts ; as 
 soon as you give the workers any share in control, 
 it means that the craftsman's interest against rival 
 craftsmen is subordinated to the other interests they 
 have in carrying on production. 
 
 " You have laid emphasis upon your constructive 
 propossds for exclusive control. But a proposal 
 is only constructive when it is practical ; yours is 
 not. Let us suppose that you obtain exclusive 
 control in th^ workshop — ^which would, we agree, 
 be an excellent thing in every way. This wiU not 
 obviate the necessity for any joint meeting with the 
 employer ; it will, on the contrary, create such a 
 necessity. The workshop cannot be isolated from 
 the rest of industrial control ; it is intimately related 
 to the organisation of the works as a whole, to 
 buying and selling as well as to the co-ordination 
 of production. You may even get exclusive control 
 of the workshop whoUy into the workers' hands, 
 but this will drive you on to negotiate with the 
 employer about higher spheres of control, more 
 especially if you are determined, as you say you are, 
 to invade these also in their turn. Even if you 
 could start with exclusive control in the workshop, 
 you could not confine yourself to this principle over 
 the whole of production — or production would come 
 altogether to an end within a week. All intervention 
 
440 The Meanii^ of National Guilds 
 
 leads, sooner or later, to negotiation ; and negotia- 
 tion, when it concerns production, can only be 
 effective in the form of a division of control. 
 
 " A last word upon National Industrial Councils. 
 We do not attach a great measure of importance to 
 them, as we do to Works Councils constituted with 
 
 -reasonable safeguards. But we think that they 
 may have their -uses, if only to familiarise the 
 workers with the tasks they must ultimately under- 
 take, and of whicji they have to-day no practical 
 knowledge whatever. It is said that the men at 
 the top of the Trade Unions are not to be trusted, 
 that they will betray the workers and desert their 
 
 _ cause when the test comes. We beheve that this 
 is very largely true ; therefore, we say, let the test 
 come as soon as possible, and let it be a severe one ! 
 If you cannot rely on your leaders, it is best to make 
 that discovery in good time. If your spokesmen 
 are ready to desert your true interests, the sooner 
 they desert them the better, and the more you will 
 be able to trust those who survive the test. But if 
 the workers are never to trust their-chosen repre- 
 sentatives or even themselves, then they wUl remain 
 in bondage ; and they will deserve their fate. We 
 believe that, after the War, a great opportunity will 
 arise for Labour, which, if it be neglected for doctri- 
 naire reasons or shirked from a lack of courage and 
 enterprise, may never return. We say to the 
 workers : ' Trust in yourselves and go forward ! ' " 
 Though we do not pretend that the arguments 
 presented on either side exhaust those which could 
 be brought forward, we think we can claim to have 
 given our readers the essence of the controversy; 
 
Problems and Policy 441 
 
 they must decide for themselves whether either case 
 is completely convincing and whether they consider 
 the issues involved are matters of principle. At the 
 risk of incurring the hostiUty of both sides, we must 
 express our belief that the truth does not he entirely 
 with either. We do not propose to add materially 
 to the space already occupied by this subject to 
 elaborate our own opinionp-more especially as we 
 haVe taken pains to state what we consider essential, 
 both from the standpoint of Trade Unionism and 
 in relation to Reconstruction proposals, in previous 
 sections of this book. 
 
 We would afiirm, however, that, in our view, what 
 matters most is not the form in which Labour 
 estabUshes its claim to industrial control, but the 
 free spirit and the economic strength that He behind 
 the claim. We certainly prefer that Exclusive 
 Control should be fought for, whenever it can be 
 aimed at with any prospect of success ; but we do 
 not consider that Labour should in aU instances 
 refuse to divide a control it cannot completely 
 exercise. Neither Exclusive nor Divided Control 
 are absolutely essential in themselves ; circumstances 
 should largely determine the sphere of each. We 
 insist that in the works and the workshop is to be 
 found the crux of the situation for Labour to-day ; 
 we should prefer to see its representatives abstain 
 altogether from ambitions and premature proposals 
 for " Industrial ParUaments " imtil the key to the 
 positicHi has been secured for the base of industry. 
 If, however, such experiments are to be made, let 
 the enterprising and courageous sections of the 
 Trade Union movement set about to exploit to the 
 
442 The Meaning of National Guilds 
 
 full the opportunities they will present, while 
 guarding vigilantly against their inevitable dangers. 
 Finally, we would urge the value of nationalisation 
 as a solution of some of the problems which are 
 raised by the issue of control. Let the profiteer be 
 eliminated ; and many of the difiiculties which his 
 presence raises will disappear with him. Labour 
 will then be able to advance confidently to that true 
 partnership with the community in which alone 
 freedom and service may be perfectly realised. 
 
 The Fundamental Question 
 
 We have examined the main problems that have 
 so far arisen in connection with the ideal and the 
 programme of National Guilds. The fundamental 
 problem of aU, however, concerns neither the one 
 nor the other ; it is not a matter of theory at aU, but 
 a practical question — the most practical of any that 
 could be raised. It is whether, granted the truth 
 of the Guild idea and the possibiHty of its reaHsation, 
 our people will have the vision to grasp the one and 
 the spirit to compass the other. When we look at 
 the huge prison of Industriahsm to which a despotic 
 plutocracy, itself weary and uneasy beneath the 
 weight of its golden crown, has condemned the 
 masses of our countrymen, despair is only too easy. 
 How can we hope that in these dreary hells courage 
 can rise and initiative return to stimulate and to 
 arm those whose manhood is dishonotired and 
 betrayed by every circumstance of there hire? 
 From their servitude — if power be added to it- 
 envy and violence may spring ; but what- can they 
 achieve save confusion and the ruin of all? 
 
Problems and Policy 443 
 
 Yet, if we admit these dangers — and no one will 
 altogether deny them — ^is not the obligation laid 
 upon us all the more urgently to challenge the 
 slavery amidst which they are bred ? Every con- 
 demnation of the materialism and the servility of 
 the worker is a condemnation of the system which 
 moulds and imprisons him, and a condemnation, 
 moreover, of all those whom that system enriches 
 and exalts. All the culture, aU the grace, all the 
 intellectual worth that our governing classes display 
 — ^and there is not too much — are founded upon the 
 degradation and the exploitation of the mass of 
 EngUsh men and women. Even if the claims of the 
 wealthy and powerful amongst us to honour and 
 privilege were to be accepted at their own valuation, 
 they would not compensate for the building of our 
 social life upon shame and fraud. 
 
 We would not have it thought that, in espousing 
 frankly and completely the cause of the workers' 
 emancipation, we have surrendered to the illusion 
 that cdl personal and collective virtue Ues upon the 
 one side, and nothing but iniquity upon the other. 
 The convenient fiction of the well-intentioned work- 
 man and the wicked capitalist is as perilous as it is 
 foolish ; it leads men to seek for nothing but a 
 " change of heart " in the capitalist, rather than a 
 change in the whole purpose of society. Yet, while 
 we resign this fiction to those sentimentalists who 
 have an inclination for such things, we insist that 
 the fundamental distinction between the cause of 
 the worker and the position of his a:dversary is that 
 the former is essentially moral, while the latter is not. 
 The one is a demand for service, for fellowship, for 
 
444 The Meaning o£ National Gtiilds 
 
 the honour of the worker and his task ; the other is a 
 denial of value to these things, where the^ conflict — 
 as they do ever37where — ^with the maintenance of 
 profiteering. There could be no greater disaster 
 than that Labour should surrender its moral claim, 
 in return for immediate security and immediate 
 peace. The danger is not absent. " Capital," we 
 are told (oh the authority, moreover, of Mr. John 
 Hodge), " must have its dividend." In that phrase 
 of our first Minister of Labour the workers' whole case 
 is surrendered. If it represented the considered 
 verdict of the mass of our people, the time would 
 have come to despair. 
 
 But it does not do so ; of this we are -confident. 
 Never was Capitahsm so strong in its resources and so 
 weak in its moral appeal. It has lost the confidence of 
 the country ; we are now at the turning of the ways. 
 The profiteer has given us the world of Business, a 
 sordid and shoddy den pf money-makers and money- 
 changers. Industry as an honoxirable craft and a 
 social service — this is the better way now open to our 
 country, made possible by the repudiation of pro- 
 fiteering and the toils in which it has strangled us. 
 It is the high destiny of the worker, and the goal of 
 National Guilds. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The following books, journals, and pamphlets deal 
 wholly or in large part with National Guilds and 
 the issues of Trade Unionism in the Hght of the Guild 
 idea. There are also, of course, innumerable 
 references to this in current publications upon 
 economics, industry, etc. 
 
 Books. 
 
 National Guilds. By S. G. Hobson ; edited by A. R. 
 Orage. 5s. 
 This reprint of the well-known articles that 
 appeared serially in the New Age in 1912 and 1913 
 represents the pioneer work of the National Guilds 
 movement. It sketches the social and economic 
 theory of the Guild idea and its general apphcation 
 to modem industry, and, as its sub-title denotes, 
 is " an inquiry into the wage-system and the way 
 out." Its work has been developed and adapted 
 in the other books mentioned in this list. National 
 Guilds is now in its second edition. 
 
 The World of Labour. (3rd Edition.) By G. D. H. 
 Cole. 3s. 
 This book, which first appeared in 1913, is 
 indispensable to the student of modern Labour 
 problems, for it reviews the ideas and the recent 
 developments of Labour organisations every- 
 where, as affected by and affecting the problem 
 of the control of industry. Besides containing 
 445 
 
446 Bibliography 
 
 the most valuable EngUSh account of the ideas of 
 French SyndicaUsm and their effect, it provides 
 a comprehensive study of the questions of struc- 
 ture and poUcy that confront the British Labour 
 movement. It offers to the Guildsman, in a 
 unique degree, the opportunity to base his thought 
 and speculation on a sure foundation of knowledge 
 of the essential problems and tendencies of con- 
 temporary Trade Unionism. 
 
 Guild Principles in War and Peace. By S. G. 
 Hobson. 2s. 6d. 
 This volume comprises two series of connected 
 chapters, besides a few additional isolated essays. 
 Of the two series, the former contains a summary 
 of the author's criticism of society and of his 
 proposals for its re-creation ; the latter, under the 
 general title of the " Permanent Hypothesis," 
 is an examination of certain Reconstruction 
 proposals irgm the Guild standpoint. The book 
 is prefaced by a valuable study of Unemploy- 
 ment after the War from the pen of the Editor of 
 the New Age. 
 
 Self-government in Industry. By G. D. H. Cole. 
 4s. 6d. 
 The title of this book supplies the co-ordinating 
 idea of a number of studies, both theoretical and 
 practical, in the imphcations of Guild principles. 
 Trade Unionism is discussed In relation to the 
 question of restoring its surrendered conditions, 
 and also, on the constructive side, as affected by 
 the Shop Stewards movement. The transition 
 to National Guilds is dealt with from the worker's 
 
Bibliography 447 
 
 - point of view, in a chapter on the abohtion of the 
 wage-system, and, from the standpoint of the 
 State, in a section on the use and abuse of Nation- 
 alisation. There is also a chapter on " Freedom 
 in the Guild," which includes a project for a Guild 
 constitution ; and an elaboration of a poHtical 
 theory hostile to State Sovereignty. 
 
 Old Worlds for New. By A. J. Penty. 3s. 6d. 
 
 This original and challenging book is a reprint 
 of a series of articles, pubUshed on the eve of the 
 War £ind described by their author as a " study 
 of the Post- Industrial State." They examine 
 and contradict the moral and economic assump- 
 tions of capitaUst industriaUsm and its claims 
 to benefit society and enlarge man's opportunities. 
 The author, a friendly critic of National Guilds, 
 confesses in his introduction that he now recognises 
 National Guilds as an indispensable step in the 
 development he seeks. ' 
 
 An Alphabet of Economics. ByA. R. Orage. 4s. 6d. 
 In this book the Editor of the New Age sets out, 
 by means of a glossary of economic terms, to 
 develop a " more or less systematic attempt to 
 define economics in terms of the wage-system, 
 and, at the same time, to suggest an alternative 
 
 , to it." The penetrating and sometimes starthng 
 acuteness of the definitions make vivid and ahve 
 a subject which conventional economists have 
 too often obscured, not only by dullness, but also 
 by intellectual servility to the assumptions of 
 Capitahsm. To such the volume is a welcctoe 
 antidote. 
 
448 I Bibliography 
 
 Authority, Liberty, and Function. By Ramiro de Maeztu. 
 43. 6d. 
 The thesis of this book is that the basing of standards 
 upon Authority for its own sake, or Liberty for its 
 own sake, is both immoral and inhuman. The basis 
 of any action is the perfection of the object involved. 
 The outcome of the Authoritarian doctrine is revealed, 
 poUtically, in Prussianism, and of the Liberal in 
 anarchy. Applied to industry, the principle of 
 " duties and rights according to function " is demon- 
 strated in the Guilds, the raison d'etre of which is to 
 secure neither the " authority " of a privileged class 
 nor the " personaUty " of the mere individual, but 
 the interests of the Guild work. 
 
 Journals. 
 
 The New Age. Weekly, 6d. (38 Cursitor Street, 
 London, E.C. 4.) 
 In the columns of this unique review the Guild 
 idea was first formulated some half-dozen years 
 ago, and has since been by many writers discussed 
 and developed. It is here that aU those interested 
 in National Guilds will find both the evolution of 
 Guild principles by exposition and controversy, 
 and their application to current issues in editorial 
 notes which, for vigour and insight, are unmatched 
 in contemporary journalism. 
 
 The Guildsman. Monthly, 2d. (22 Glenview, 
 Paisley.) 
 This, periodical was founded by the Glasgow 
 Group of the National Guilds League, and has 
 been conducted and very largely written by them. 
 Though at present only unofficially connected 
 with the League, it forms a most valuable medium 
 
Bibliography 449 
 
 for the discussion and propaganda of its principles, 
 and also for the treatment of its internal affairs. 
 The' Herald (weekly, id.) contains a page of Trade 
 Union notes compiled from the National Guilds 
 standpoint ; the Church Socialist (bi-monthly, 2d.) 
 also editorially supports the National Guilds 
 position. 
 
 Pamphlets, Etc. 
 
 1915. National Guilds : An Appeal to Trade 
 
 ^ Unionists ..... 2d. 
 
 1915. A Catechism of National Guilds . . id. 
 
 1916. The Guild Idea : An Appeal to the Public . 26.y 
 
 1916. Towards a Miners' Guild . . . 2d. 
 
 1917. Towards a National Railway Guild . 2d. 
 1917. A Short Statement of the Principles and 
 
 Objects of the National Guilds League . id. 
 
 1917. Observations on the Whitley Report . . 2d. 
 
 1918. Notes for Trade Unionists on the Whitley 
 
 Report ...... 2d. 
 
 All the above pamphlets are published by the 
 National Guilds League, 17 Acacia Road, St. 
 John's Wood, N.W. 8. 
 
 (While this book is in no sense an " official " 
 production or put forward under the direct auspices 
 of any organisation, we think our readers may be 
 interested to have some account of the National 
 Guilds League, which was founded in April, 1915, 
 to work for the " abolition of the wage-system, and 
 the estabUshment of self-government in industry 
 through a system of National Guilds working in 
 
 FF 
 
450 Bibliography 
 
 conjunction with the State." Its objects are two- 
 fold : propaganda of Guild principles, and discussion 
 of problems connected with the establishment of 
 National Guilds. Since its foundation a very large 
 number of meetings have been addressed by its 
 speakers, and many thousands of its publications 
 have been sold and distributed. The formation of 
 groups has afforded opportunity for the discussion of 
 questions among Guildsmen in concert, and has 
 contributed materially to the development of the 
 Guild idea. Its members meet annually in con- 
 ference, when matters of pohcy are thoroughly 
 debated in relation to the existing situation. There 
 are branches of the League in London, Glasgow, 
 Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds, Edin- 
 burgh, Leicester, and Kettering ; in addition, the 
 League has correspondents in various other centres. 
 The League cordially welcomes all those who 
 sympathise with its principles and objects to join 
 its ranks and share in its tasks. The annual sub- 
 scription is 6s. Members receive copies of all League 
 pubhcations free.) 
 
 A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE TO CHAPTER V 
 
 For all those who desire seriously to stu<iy the proposals 
 of National Guilds some ^asp of the facts and problems 
 of modem Trade Unionism is essential. Our chapter 
 may serve as an introduction ; but, in the hope that 
 some of our readers without previous acquaintance with 
 the subject may desire to carry further their study of it, 
 we append a few particulars which may be of assistance. 
 Those interested would do well also to consult the biblio- 
 graphies in Mr. Cole's The World of Labour. 
 
A Bibliographical Note to Chapter V 451 
 
 General. 
 
 In addition to Mr. Cole's books, of which particulars 
 are given elsewhere, the best existing introduction to the 
 subject is Trade Unionism, by C. M. Lloyd (2s. 6d.), which 
 gives an excellent general account of the position of the 
 Trade Union movement, as it stood at the outbreak of 
 War. However, a most useful volume by Mr. Cole, 
 entitled An Introduction to Trade Unionism, is in the press 
 and wiU form the most modem study of the movement. 
 On all matters of fact and detail inquirers should consult 
 the Labour Year Book for 1916 (2s,) and for 1918 (2s. 6d.), 
 both volumes of which are equally indispensable, since 
 each contains a mass of information not appearing in the 
 other. No general study of the subject can be complete 
 without at least a consultation of Industrial Democracy, 
 by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (los. 6d.) ; this very 
 important volume is written, however, from a standpoint 
 in sharp contrast to that from which the subject has 
 been treated here. 
 
 Historical. 
 
 For this aspect of the subject. The History of Trade 
 Unionism, by Sidney and Beatrice Webb (7s. 6d.), is 
 indispensable. It dogs not carry the story down to our 
 own day, and the last quarter of a century stiU remains 
 in need of an adequate historian. An excellent contrast 
 to the foregoing is a httle book, written from the Indus- 
 trial Unionist standpoint. Outlines of the History of the 
 Modern British Working-class Movement, by W. W. 
 Craik (6d.) . An interesting account of the early struggles 
 of Trade Unionists is to be found in The Town Labourer, 
 1760-1830, by J. L. and B. Hammond (los. 6d.) 
 
 For the effect of the War on Trade Unionism, see the 
 full account given in each volume of the Labour Year 
 Book ; also Labour in War-time, by G. D. H. Cole (2s. 6d.), 
 for the events of the first year. There is a very interest- 
 ing-chapter on the subject by J. R. Taylor in The 
 Industrial Outlook (3s. 6d.), pp. 125-152, which covers 
 events down to the summer of 1916. 
 
45^ A Bibliographical Note to Chaptei V 
 
 Women. ^ 
 
 The best treatment of the subject will be found in 
 Women in Modern Industry, by Beatrice L. Hutchins 
 (4s. 6d.). A volume pubUshed by the Fabian Research 
 Department on Women in the Engineering Trades, edited 
 by Mrs. Bernard Drake (2s. 6d.), contains much interest- 
 ing information on the effect of women's entry into the 
 munition trades during the War, and includes proposals 
 from various sources for the solution of the problems 
 which their entry has raised. 
 
 Pamphlets. ^ 
 
 The pamphlets relating to Trade Unionism are, of 
 codrse, enormous in number and often both of interest 
 and importance. A few of those recently issued have 
 been mentioned in footnotes and discussed in the text of 
 the present book. A Ust of the pubhcations of the 
 National Guilds League relating to Trade Unionism 
 appears in the preceding bibUography. 
 
 There is a great need for reUable^short studies of Trade 
 Unionism in the various industries ; the Fabian Reseaxch 
 Department (which, be it noted, has no connection, 
 except nominally, with the Fabian Society) has started 
 to cope with this by the publication of Trade Unionism 
 on the Railways, by G. D. H. Cole and R. Page Amot 
 (2S. 6d.). We may also mention a volume of a less 
 descriptive and impartial kind. Industrial Unionism in 
 the Mining Industry, by George Harvey (is. 2d.), 
 obtainable from its author at the Miners' Hall, Wardley 
 Colliery, Pelaw-on-Tyne, Durham. 
 
 For all information about current Trade Union facts 
 and problems, inquirers should consult the Fabian 
 Research Department, 25 Tothill.Street, S.W. i, which 
 also pubUshes a Monthly Circular for the use of its 
 members, associates, and affiliated bodies. 
 
 A useful syllabus ~ on Trade Union Problems and 
 Policy (2d.) is pubUshed by the Yorkshire District of the 
 \5Jorkers'^ Educational Association, 21 Brudenell Road, 
 Hyde Park, Leeds. 
 
 Printed by the Southampton Times Company, Limited, 70 Above Bar 
 
THE GREAT UNBORN. By Edwin Pugh, 
 Author of " A Book of Laughter," etc., etc. Cr. 8vo. 
 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 Mr. Pugh in this work discusses the problem of 
 the age, and even prophesies the end of the War 1 
 
 DIE HOHENZOLLERNDAMMERUNG 
 
 (The Twilight of the Hohenzollerns). With 12 full- 
 page Illustrations by Glyn Philpot, A.R.A. Boards, 
 5s. net. 
 
 This work is a clever adaptation of Richard Wagner's 
 "Nibdung's Ring," in which the Author seeks to 
 prove that Wagner prophesied the downfall of 
 Prussian Militarism.. 
 
 FROM WARFARE TO WELFARE : Essays 
 in Social Reconstruction. By R. Dimsdale Stocker. 
 Cr. 8vo. Qoth, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 " It is a thoughtful, stimulating book on the most 
 important subject of the moment." — Bookman. 
 
 THE CRIMES OF ENGLAND. By G. K. 
 
 Chesterton. Cr. 8vo. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. Paper, 
 IS. 3d. net. (Second Edition.) 
 
 "This is one of the few war books worth buying." 
 — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 THE GIRL AND THE FAUN. By Eden 
 Philpotts. With Illustrations in colour and decorative 
 borders throughout the text by Frank Brangwyn, R.A. 
 Cloth, 6s. net. Also a limited Edition de Luxe, with 
 additional Illustrations by Frank Brangwyn, £2 2s. 
 net. 
 
 CEQL PALMER AND HAYWARD 
 
 454 
 
THE PATH OF THE MODERN RUSSIAN 
 STAGE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Alexander 
 Bakshy. With 12 Pholeo Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 
 Cloth, 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 " There is much earnest and stimulating thought in 
 this volimie." — Stage. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO BRITISH 
 MUSIC. By Percy A. Scholes, Editor of "The 
 Music Student." Cr. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH 
 MUSIC. By G. Jean-Aubry. Cr. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 
 net. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO RUSSIAN 
 
 MUSIC. By M. Montagu-Nathan, Author of 
 "Contemporary Russian Composers," etc. Cr. 8vo. 
 Cloth, IS. 6d. net. 
 
 The above three Music volumes are uniform in a 
 Series which is designed to afford a concise account 
 of the foundation and development of Musical Art in 
 the respective countries. The volumes consist in 
 each case of a series of chapters devoted to the most 
 famous composers. 
 
 HINDUISM: THE WORLD-IDEAL. By 
 
 Harendranath Maitra. Cr. 8vo. Qoth, 3s. 6d. net. 
 With an Introduction by G. K. Chesterton. 
 
 This book is a unique presentation of Hinduism to 
 the British public. The Author has had exceptional 
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 The style is dear and simple, and the book is written 
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 developed through the discipline of their daily life, 
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 brotherhood. '• 
 
 CECIL PALMER AND HAYWARD 
 
 453 
 

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 GAYLOBD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED INU.S.A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 HD 6664.R4 1920 
 
 The meaning of national guilds. 
 
 3 1924 002 358 483