,,the ,,unfinished ,,programme ,,of ,,democracy ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,books ,,by ,,the ,,same ,,author ,the ,renascence of ,faith ,the ,highroad to ,christ ,christ and ,ourselves ,personality and ,nationality ,the ,church in the ,commonwealth 7,new ,commonwealth ,books7 ,the ,red ,cap on the ,cross ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,the ,,unfinished ,,programme ,,of ,,democracy ,,by ,,richard ,,roberts ,illustration3 ,publisher's ,logo ,,new ,,york3 ,b4 ,w4 ,,huebsch ,mcmxx ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,to 8,,mine ,,own10 ,n41 ,p41 ,d41 ,,and ,g4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,,the ,,crisis ,,of ,,democracy #i ,,ii4 ,,the ,,tests ,,of ,,democratic ,,progress #ci ,,iii4 ,,the ,,pecuniary ,,standard #fd ,,iv4 ,,the ,,redemption ,,of ,,work #ic ,v4 ,,the ,,achievement ,,of ,,liberty #aca ,,vi4 ,,the ,,practice ,,of ,,fellowship #afj ,,vii4 ,,the ,,organisation ,,of ,,government #baj ,,viii4 ,a ,,democratised ,,world #bea ,,ix4 ,,education ,,into ,,democracy #bie ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,,preface ,,these pages embody the attempt of a plain man to thread a way through the social confusion of our time4 ,the book sets out with a profound faith in the validity of the democratic principle2 and its object is to trace the path along which the logic of this principle appears to lead4 ,no claim is made to expert knowledge of economics or political science2 but the writer has endeavoured to acquaint himself with the recent literature of the subject and to understand the main currents of prevailing opinion and feeling4 ,events are moving so rapidly at the present time that certain passages became impertinent before the book was finished4 ,it is probable that before it finally leaves the writer's hands1 other passages may suffer in the same way4 ,but the main drift of the argument remains unaffected4 99 99 99 99 99 ,no attempt has been made in the body of the book to discuss the methods by which the social and economic changes which are impending should be carried through4 ,it has been assumed that in the ,english-speaking world1 the traditional respect for constitutional processes would avail to prevent resort to what has come to be known as 8direct action40 ,it is now clear that this assumption was ill-founded and that there is a considerable movement of opinion toward industrial or 8direct0 action4 ,the writer would venture to state his conviction that recourse to this method would be unspeakably disastrous and would carry with it consequences which its present advocates cannot foresee4 ,it will be no easy task to restore the normal constitutional and economic processes when once they have been scrapped in the pursuit of some immediate object2 and it is as sure as anything can very well be that the first step in direct action will have to be followed by others and must end in a confusion out of which the forty years it took to deliver ,israel out of ,egypt would be all too short to extricate us4 ,at the same time it should in fairness be acknowledged that if organised labour decides to use this dubious weapon1 it will be under great provocation4 ,the tardiness of governments to fulfil their promises1 their too obvious tenderness toward the vested interests1 the blind and obstinate bourbonism of the privileged classes over against the new proletarian awakening--all these things combine to create a situation which labour may feel intolerable and may resolve to end by a summary process4 ,it is indeed only the most resolute and speedy mobilisation of all the resources of practical goodwill and reasonableness that can avert a great catastrophe4 ,organised labour has proved itself to be neither vindictive nor unreasonable when it has been met with fair and square dealing2 and if we are plunged into the chaos of a general strike or perhaps worse1 the larger responsibility will rest with those who1 possessed of power and privilege1 either could or would not see that the clock had moved onward a great space--and1 during the years of war1 with great rapidity--and so were unwilling or unready to adapt themselves to the new circumstances4 99 99 99 99 99 ,one subject of fundamental importance is touched upon but incidentally in these pages--namely1 the land4 ,what is said herein concerning property in general applies with even more point to land2 and the plea which is made for the standardisation of the price of staple commodities clearly leads to the public ownership of land1 which is indeed on every ground the only reasonable solution of the land question4 ,but adequate discussion of the matter would carry the argument of the book too far afield4 ,in these pages1 attention is primarily directed to the situation which has been created by modern industrialism4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the obligations of the writer to friends and writers are legion2 it would be hopeless to enumerate them4 ,some items of this indebtedness may be inferred from the footnotes4 ,the writer in particular regrets that ,mr4 ,laski's ,authority in the ,modern ,state did not fall into his hands sooner2 but he is glad to find himself in substantial agreement with the argument and conclusions of that notable work4 ,ty'n-y-coed1 ,capel ,curig1 ,north ,wales4 ,july #aeth1 #aiai4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,i4 ,,the ,,crisis ,,of ,,democracy 8,what is democracy8 ,sometimes1 it is the name for a form of government by which the ultimate control of the machinery of government is committed to a numerical majority of the community4 ,sometimes1 and incorrectly1 it is used to denote the numerical majority itself1 the poor or the multitude existing in a state4 ,sometimes1 and still more loosely1 it is the name for a policy1 directed exclusively or mainly to the advantage of the labouring class4 ,finally1 in its broadest and deepest1 most comprehensive and most interesting sense1 democracy is the name for a certain general condition of society1 having historic origins1 springing from circumstances and the nature of things1 not only involving the political doctrine of popular sovereignty but representing a cognate group of corresponding tendencies over the whole field of moral1 social and even spiritual life within the democratic community40--,,lord ,,morley4 8,i speak the password primeval1 ,i give the sign of ,democracy1 ,by ,god6 ,i will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms40--,,walt ,,whitman4 8,to be a democrat is not to decide on a certain form of human association1 it is to learn how to live with other men40--,,mary ,p4 ,,follett4 ,,the inherent logic of the democratic idea calls for a society which will provide for all its members those conditions of equal opportunity that are within human control4 ,it denies all forms of special and exclusive privilege1 and affirms the sovereignty of the common man4 ,in practice1 however1 democracy has gone no further than the achievement of a form of government2 and in popular discussion the word has usually a connotation exclusively political4 ,it is even yet but slowly becoming clear that a democratic form of government is no more than the bare framework of a democratic society2 and democracy as we know it is justly open to the criticism that it has not seriously taken in hand the task of clothing the political skeleton with a body of living social flesh4 ,modern democracy is1 of course1 historically very young2 and it may be reasonably maintained that it is premature to speak of its failure to realise its full promise4 ,nevertheless1 it is of some consequence that already that part of the democratic programme which has been achieved and put to the proof is being exposed to heavy fire of destructive criticism4 ,during the past few years1 we have become familiar with the idea of a world made safe for democracy2 and in the minds of many people democracy 7which in this connection means representative popular government7 stands as a sort of ultimate good which it is impious to challenge or to criticise4 ,yet this democracy1 for which the world has been presumably made safe at so great and sorrowful a price1 is by some roundly declared to be radically unsafe for the world and a hindrance to social progress4 ,the syndicalists1 for instance1 believe the democratic state to be no more than the citadel of bourgeois and plutocratic privilege1 and have decreed its destruction1 proposing to substitute for it a modified anarchism4 ,others1 like ,paul ,bourget and ,brunetiere1 so far from finding it the sanctuary of the privileged1 fear it as a source of anarchy and social confusion1 and invite us to retrace our steps to happier days when authority being less diffused was more speedily and effectually exercised4 ,neither the syndicalist nor the authoritarian criticism is wholly baseless2 yet it is true that in neither case does it arise from an inherent defect in the democratic principle4 ,the one arises from the circumstance that political democracy still lacks its logical economic corollary2 the other from the fact that democracy is not sustained by its proper ethical coefficient4 ,these1 however1 are not the only grounds for the increasing scepticism of the validity of democratic institutions4 ,the democratic state1 like its predecessors1 has proved itself to be voracious of authority2 and in the exercise of its presumed omnicompetency it has increasingly occupied itself with matters1 which--both in respect of extent and content--it is incapable of handling adequately4 ,it has become palpably impossible to submit all the concerns of government to parliamentary discussion2 and in consequence there has been a tendency on the one hand to invest administrative departments with virtual legislative power1 and on the other to convert representative assemblies into mere instruments for registering the decisions of the executive government4 ,the recent proposal for the establishment of a permanent statutory ,national ,industrial ,council in ,england has been evoked by the palpable inability of ,parliament to deal effectually with the problems of industrial production4 ,even before the ,war1 it was becoming plain that the congestion of parliamentary business in ,england called for some drastic remedy if parliament was to be saved from futility and discredit4 ,but here again1 the failure has been due to no inherent defect in the democratic principle but rather to the fact that the unitary and absolutist doctrine and practice of the state has hindered the proper development of democracy4 ,in a word1 the trouble with democracy is that there is not enough of it4 ,the remedy for the ills of democracy is more democracy4 ,politically1 it is still incomplete2 its economic applications have yet to be made2 and while we do lip service to its ethical presuppositions1 they are far from being a rule of life4 ,yet lacking these things1 democracy is condemned to arrest1 and through arrest to decay4 ,meantime the dynastic principle has fallen--has indeed fallen under circumstances which make its revival seem exceedingly remote4 ,nevertheless1 if democracy suffers arrest at this point in its history1 if the peoples fail to work out its logic1 society may lapse into an anarchy out of which dynasticism or something like it may once more emerge4 ,it is no hyperbole to speak of the crisis of democracy2 and it is only to be saved as the democratic peoples set themselves earnestly to the business of strengthening its stakes and lengthening its cords4 ,i ,few ,british people of liberal mind are able to look back upon that period of their history which gathers around the ,boer ,war without a certain humiliation4 ,professor ,l4 ,t4 ,hobhouse ascribes the popular defection of the ,british people from the democratic principle and temper during that time to four causes3 7a7 the decay of profound and vivid religious belief2 7b7 the diffusion of a stream of ,german idealism 8which has swelled the current of retrogression from the plain rationalistic way of looking at life and its problems10 and which has stimulated the growth of the doctrine of the absolute state and its imperialistic corollaries2 7c7 the career of ,prince ,bismarck1 and 7d7 8by far the most potent intellectual support of the reaction 444 the belief that physical science has given its verdict 7for it came to this7 in favour of violence against social justice40 ,this provides us with an instance 7so plain that another were superfluous7 of the inability of an unfulfilled democratic order to resist alien and hostile influences that may be 8in the air10 and of its consequent perversion to ends which belie its own first principles4 ,it is the permanent danger of democracy when it is not sustained and inspired by a generous moral impulse to be prostituted to undemocratic ends4 8,it is at best0 7to quote ,mr4 ,hobhouse again7 8an instrument with which men who hold by the ideal of social justice and human progress can work2 but when these ideals grow cold1 it may1 like other instruments1 be turned to base uses40 ,lord ,morley1 with a similar sensitiveness to the perils of democracy asks whether we mean by it 8a doctrine or a force2 constitutional parchment or a glorious evangel2 perfected machinery for the wire-puller1 the party-tactician1 the spoils-man and the boss1 or the high and stern ideals of a ,mazzini or a ,tolstoi40 ,it may1 indeed1 be reasonably held that worse has befallen it than ,lord ,morley's fears4 ,we have evidence how frequently democracy has in practice become the tool of strong and unscrupulous men and gangs of such men seeking selfish and corrupt ends2 and how1 for ,lincoln's famous formula1 we have had government of the people by a well-to-do oligarchy in the interest of the privileged classes4 ,nor have we any guarantee against this kind of degradation and degeneracy except in the perpetual reaffirmation and revitalising of the spiritual and moral grounds of democracy4 ,it may indeed be possible to create political safeguards against the exploitation of the people and their government in the interest of individuals and classes2 but there is no such safeguard against democracy1 as it were1 exploiting itself for undemocratic ends or sinking into undemocratic practices except in its continued education in the purposes for which it exists1 in its extension into every region of life1 and in its repeated solemn submission of itself to its principles and ideals4 ,until democracy becomes and is felt to be a personal and collective vocation1 it is forever liable to corruption and apostasy4 ,democracy can only live and thrive while men remain sincerely and consciously democratic4 ,liberty and ,equality are doubtful and precarious boons1 and may--as they often have--become positive dangers without ,fraternity4 ,democracy without its appropriate moral coefficient must be a vain and short-lived thing4 ,so long as1 while professing to give a fair field to every man1 it does no more than provide an open field for the strong man1 it will inevitably lead to the exploitation of the multitude and to the creation of new forms of privilege2 and that in the main has been its recent history4 ,not less than by the loss or the absence of moral impulse1 is democracy endangered by ignorance or forgetfulness of what it exists for4 ,two words are usually taken to describe the characteristics of democracy1 liberty and equality2 and the atmosphere of a particular democracy depends upon whether it lays the larger emphasis on one or on the other of these4 ,in ,england1 for instance1 the type is libertarian4 ,the ,briton has cared less for political equality than for what he calls freedom1 the right of self-determination1 the opportunity to live out his own life in his own way4 ,he has been less doctrinaire than his ,french neighbours and has not been much troubled by the logical anomaly of an aristocracy so long as the aristocracy left him reasonable elbow-room4 ,when the aristocracy was found to be obstructive1 its pretensions were suitably abridged4 ,in general1 the idea of formal equality has played a less important part in ,england than it has in ,france or the ,united ,states4 ,democracy in the two latter countries is more specifically egalitarian4 ,this difference is1 however1 mainly a difference of stress upon two aspects of the same thing1 the egalitarian emphasis having to do with the formal status of the citizen1 the libertarian with the personal independence which should belong to the status4 ,yet the inadequate co-ordination of the two ideas may1 and indeed does1 lead to certain unhappy consequences4 ,in ,great ,britain1 an insufficient attention to equality has led to a too prolonged survival of the idea of a 8governing class02 and social prestige still possesses an inordinate influence upon the distribution of political power4 ,in ,france1 on the other hand1 an insufficient stress on liberty has tended to make ,frenchmen tatistes4 ,according to ,emile ,faguet1 they are accustomed to submit to despotism and are eager in turn to practise it4 ,they are liberals only when they are in a minority4 ,in the ,united ,states1 egalitarianism produces a kind of compulsory uniformitarianism4 ,it is significant that1 while in a state of war all nations are intolerant of dissent and free discussion1 in the ,united ,states where the doctrine of political equality has reached its completest expression1 dissent from the common view has been much more harshly treated than in any other belligerent country4 ,the cardinal sin appears to be that of breaking the ranks4 ,liberty1 according to ,lord ,acton1 is 8the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influence of authority and majorities1 custom1 and opinion20 and if that be true1 it does not necessarily follow that democracy is the home of liberty4 ,an egalitarian democracy may indeed become the tomb of liberty4 8,democracy10 says the same learned authority1 8no less than monarchy or aristocracy sacrifices everything to maintain itself1 and strives with an energy and a plausibility that kings and nobles cannot attain to override representation1 to annul all the forces of resistance and deviation1 and to secure by plebiscite1 referendum1 or caucus1 free play for the will of the majority4 ,the true democratic principle that none shall have power over the people is taken to mean that none shall be able to restrain or to evade its power2 the true democratic principle that the people shall not be made to do what it does not like1 is taken to mean that it shall not be required to tolerate what it does not like4 ,the true democratic principle that every man's free-will shall be as unfettered as possible is taken to mean that the free will of the sovereign people shall be fettered in nothing4444 ,democracy claims to be not only supreme1 without authority above1 but absolute1 without independence below1 to be its own master and not a trustee4 ,the old sovereigns of the world are exchanged for a new one1 who may be flattered and deceived but whom it is impossible to corrupt or to resist2 and to whom must be rendered the things that are ,csar's1 and also the things that are ,god's40 ,democracy appeared in order to deliver the individual from a dehumanising subjection2 but it may become a dehumanising tyranny itself4 ,a sovereign people may become as harsh and merciless as a sovereign lord4 ,the democratic idea is the corollary of the doctrine of the equal intrinsic worth of every individual soul4 ,the modern democratic movement has started from a recognition of this principle2 and the principle is meaningless unless it implies the prescriptive right of the individual to self-determination4 ,lord ,acton's definition of liberty is inadequate because he approaches it from the standpoint of one who was in a permanent religious minority in his own country1 and in a permanent intellectual minority in his church4 ,liberty is surely the assurance that a man may have full opportunity to live out his own life and to grow to the full stature of his manhood1 to be true to himself through everything4 ,this requires the recognition of real personal independence and a definite minimum of obligatory uniformity4 ,in another connection1 ,acton insists that 8liberty is not a means to a higher political end2 it is itself the highest political end4 ,it is not for the sake of a good public administration that it is required1 but for security in the pursuit of the highest objects of civil society and of private life40 ,it is so frequently assumed that the function of government is the establishment and preservation of order that it is well to remember that it is a comparatively easy thing to secure some kind of order4 ,the real difficulty is to establish and to secure liberty4 ,we are far too ready to assume that liberty is capable of looking after itself and that the fragile plant which needs our solicitude is social order4 ,but liberty stands in jeopardy every hour1 not less in a democracy than in an autocracy4 ,and in so far as a democracy1 which was born of the craving for liberty fails to preserve and to extend liberty1 it proves itself bankrupt4 ,and just as democracy is only made safe from corruption and subordination to undemocratic ends by repeated solemn affirmation of its moral and spiritual foundations1 so it is only made safe from declining into absolutism and tyranny by constant return upon its metaphysical centre--the sanctity of the individual4 ,in the modern world1 the multitude is not in danger2 our chief pre-occupation must be to save the individual from being swamped by the multitude4 ,we are apt not to see the trees for the wood2 we must be for ever reminding ourselves that the wood is made up of the trees4 ,democracy that tends to authority and uniformity is foreordained to decay2 the democracy of life is one of freedom and infinite variety4 ,democracy has yet to solve the problem of setting the individual free without opening the door to individualism and anarchy4 ,,ii ,it may be with some reason pleaded that the defects of modern democracy spring from the conditions under which it emerged as a historical fact4 ,it has appeared with an aspect altogether too negative1 as though the abolition of monarchy or aristocracy or any form of privilege were sufficient to bring it to birth4 ,the democratic principle has implications which are not exhausted with the destruction of autocracy or aristocracy or even with the formal affirmation of popular sovereignty and the institution of a universal and equal franchise4 ,historically1 democracy is the product1 direct or indirect1 of popular risings against political privilege whether vested in a person or in a class4 ,probably we should have to seek a still anterior cause in the power of economic exploitation which political power confers upon him who holds it4 ,the mainspring of revolution is the sense of disinheritance rendered intolerable by injustice and exploitation and the consequent demand of the disinherited class for its appointed share in the common human inheritance of light and life4 ,but the tragedy of revolution 7despite the conventional historical judgment7 is that it has never gone far enough4 ,the records of revolution are filled chiefly with its negative and destructive performances because its impulse1 not having been sustained by an adequate social vision1 ran out before it completed its work or before it could swing on to the business of construction4 ,it was too readily assumed that the one thing needful was to break down the one palpable disabling barrier of privilege4 ,that done1 the rest would follow2 the golden age would at once materialise4 ,but it has never done so4 ,it was not perceived that the logic of revolution required and pointed to a sequel of positive and creative social action4 ,this was essentially ,lamennais' plea in #ahca4 ,a revolution1 he told his fellow countrymen1 is only the beginning of things4 ,you have cleared the ground2 upon that cleared ground1 you have to raise the fabric of a living society4 ,france did1 indeed1 already provide the instance of the danger of an uncompleted revolution4 ,the political equality established by the ,revolution of #aghi1 was intended to give a fair field to every man2 but because it went no further1 in effect it opened the door to the strong man4 ,the strong man appeared presently in the person of ,napoleon2 and with ,napoleon came the ,empire and all that that episode cost ,europe in blood and treasure4 ,the same kind of miscarriage 7in another region and on a larger scale7 has befallen the wider historical development of the ,french ,revolution4 ,because it was not seen that the 8natural right0 of property might no less than the 8divine right0 of noble birth become a source of disinheritance1 the door was opened to a movement which in the nineteenth century produced a new type of privilege and a new manner of disinheritance4 ,that ,jack's vote has been declared to be as good as his master's has not saved ,jack from an exploitation as real and burdensome as that under which his father groaned4 ,but it is of a different kind4 ,the older disability was chiefly agrarian2 the new is industrial4 ,the doctrine of political liberty 7interpreted in the light of ,adam ,smith7 received an economic translation in the doctrine of 8laissez-faire02 and this combined1 first1 with the restrictions imposed upon the power of the territorial aristocracy1 second1 with the new commercial civilisation which began at the ,industrial ,revolution1 and third1 with the advantage with which the propertied classes1 especially the rich merchant class1 started in the new order1 has brought about a new kind of disability4 ,the common people have exchanged the old master for a new1 a feudal aristocracy for an industrial plutocracy1 land barons for trade barons2 they have been released from agrarian serfdom only to be tied to the wheel of industrial wage-slavery4 ,political emancipation did not bring with it real freedom4 ,it was characteristic of ,lamennais' insight that he saw that political liberty without safeguards against economic exploitation would prove a vain thing4 ,writing to the working men of ,paris in #ahdg1 he said that1 with them he 8should demand that in accordance with justice and reason1 the question should be gone into1 how it is possible1 in the distribution of the fruits of labour1 to do away with the revolting anomalies which crush under their weight the most numerous portion of the human family40#a ,emile ,faguet justly observes that ,lamennais saw that the coming enemy was 8le pouvoir d'argent10 and that he did what he could to choke it off before it could establish itself4 ,nor was ,lamennais alone in his sense of the inadequacy of political change to meet the needs of the common people4 ,robert ,owen reached a similar conclusion1 and1 indeed1 was so sceptical of the value of political action for social improvement that during one period of his life he preached outright to the working classes a doctrine of political indifferentism4 ,the working-class movements which came into being early in the nineteenth century--the ,co-operative ,societies and the ,trade ,unions--originated in the need of countervailing the economic disadvantage under which the new order had placed the worker and which the endeavour to establish political equality and liberty had been powerless to prevent4 ,the growth of ,socialism and ,syndicalism represents a revolt from a social order in which the privilege of noble birth has been superseded by the privilege of property1 and the disinherited class has but suffered a new disinheritance4 ,footnote #a3 ,this view was shared by ,mazzini1 whose gospel was at many points identical with that of ,lamennais4 ,see ,the ,duties of ,man1 ch4 xi4 ,it is by now abundantly evident that the next stage in the evolution of democracy will consist of a movement of the proletarian masses to remove the economic disabilities under which they believe themselves to be suffering4 ,the revolutionary movement in ,europe is directed not only against the dynastic tradition but against the modern institution of private capitalism2 and while the influences of change that have now overwhelmed ,russia and ,germany were afoot long before the war1 it is not to be questioned that their liberation was due to the ,war4 ,beneath the outward calm of empire there was a seething mass of unrest2 and once the crust of empire was cracked1 this lava of human passion rushed through4 ,the worker has come to believe that the origins of the war are to be traced to economic causes1 direct products of the capitalist system of industry1 which is also the source of his disabilities in times of peace2 and whether in peace or in war1 the worker has at last to pay the bill4 ,it is not to the point here to discuss whether the premises from which the worker argues or the conclusions he has reached are valid or not4 ,we are concerned only to note the state of the case at the present moment4 ,we observe that the failure of dynastic imperialism has become the occasion of economic revolution2 and in this circumstance we are to look for the clue to the course of the democratic movement in the immediate future4 ,the movement seems indeed to be historically due4 ,the first great turning point in modern history was the ,protestant ,reformation with its insistence upon religious liberty as against ecclesiastical authority4 ,the second turning point was the ,french ,revolution1 which was the first act in the drama of establishing political liberty as against the power of aristocracy4 ,it may well turn out that the ,russian ,revolution marks the beginning of the third crisis in the modern period1 the first act in the drama of economic emancipation4 ,the ,protestant ,reformation affirmed the liberty of the layman against a privilege resting upon an alleged monopoly of the means of grace2 the ,french ,revolution affirmed the liberty of the citizen against privilege resting upon the fact of noble birth2 the ,revolution now in progress will affirm the liberty of the worker as against privilege resting upon the presumed rights of property4 ,perhaps we are about to realise the long delayed economic corollary of the ,french ,revolution4 ,several circumstances of war-experience have given a powerful stimulus to the movement for radical economic change4 ,before the war1 men were still haunted by the fear that the revolutionary changes advocated by the more advanced spirits might turn out to be a transition from the frying pan into the fire4 ,but the cynical readiness of the 8big business0 interests in all the belligerent countries to turn the nation's necessity to their own advantage2 and the now demonstrated incompetency and wastefulness of the system of private capitalist enterprise have served to remove from among the workers any lingering sense that the good of the nation is bound up with the existing industrial order4 ,in ,great ,britain in particular the close industrial organisation required by the war has provided a revelation of hitherto unexplored and even unsuspected possibilities of production1 proving 8big0 business to have been uncommonly bad business4 ,the immense increase of output in all industries1 through the proper co-ordination and standardisation of processes1 the systematic use of scientific investigation1 and the more adequate oversight of the physical condition of the workers has made it plain that private capitalism either would not or could not make proper use of the productive resources of the ,british people4 ,for instance1 the ignorant opposition of the average employer to the movement for reducing the hours of labour has convicted him of a stupid incapacity to handle men1 especially in view of such findings as those recorded by ,lord ,henry ,bentinck1 who shows conclusively 7from data drawn from the engineering1 printing and textile trades7 that 8in every case in which experiments have been tried1 the result in output has been favourable to a shortening of the working day40#b ,footnote #b3 ,contemporary ,review1 ,february1 #aiah4 ,moreover1 the war-time emphasis upon the idea of democracy has greatly stimulated the demand for its extension into the field of industry4 ,this demand was assuming definite shape before the war2 but what was at that time the propaganda of a comparatively small group has now become the faith of a multitude2 and this faith is becoming more and more articulate as a demand for a socially intensive as well as geographically extensive application of the democratic principle4 ,the argument runs in some such fashion as this4 ,broadly speaking1 the democratic idea has three notes2 first1 the institution of those conditions of equal opportunity which are within human control2 second1 the participation of the community as a whole in the creation of these conditions1 which means a universal franchise and equal ungraded partnership in affairs2 and third1 the absence of any privileged class which is able to impose its will upon the rest or any part of the rest4 ,some rough approximation to this state of things has been made in the political region2 there it is accounted good and right4 ,why1 then should not the same process be good and right in other regions of life8 ,for instance1 the greater part of a man's life gathers around and is governed by his work2 yet this democratic principle which is so estimable in politics is taboo in industry4 ,to begin with1 there is no such thing as a condition of equal opportunity in the industrial region4 ,certain antecedent advantages of birth1 possession1 and education have created a privileged class2 and the rest are under a corresponding handicap4 ,there was a time when the ranker could rise out of the ranks and make a field for himself2 but in these days of trusts1 combines1 chain-stores and the like1 the opportunity of the ranker to quit the ranks has dwindled almost to vanishing point4 ,in the second place1 industry is under class government4 ,the persons engaged in it are divided into masters and servants1 employers and employees2 and the hired man has hardly a word to say in determining the conditions of his work4 ,the only freedom he possesses lies in the choice of a master2 and even this1 under the rgime of large corporations1 is steadily disappearing4 ,for the rest1 he is confined to a choice between working under conditions imposed by the employer and not working at all1 which means starvation4 ,in industry there is a rule of privilege as real as that of the old territorial aristocracy2 and the modern practice of investment has served to perpetuate this privilege within the bounds of a single class by the simple operation of the accident of birth1 just as feudal landownership in another age became the foundation of aristocratic power4 ,the one qualification which requires to be made here is that the concentration of large multitudes of workers in urban centres1 as the result of the machine industry1 has enabled the workers to join together in self-defence2 and the ,trade ,union has to some extent mitigated the insolence of plutocratic power4 ,the argument1 however1 does not end here4 ,it proceeds to the analysis of the causes of this privilege2 and it finds it in the doctrine of property-rights4 ,it would take us too far afield to trace this doctrine to its origins4 ,apparently the ,french thinkers who laid the train of the ,revolution believed that the 8natural right0 of property was the necessary check upon the natural right of freedom2 but they could not foresee the developments of the ,industrial ,revolution4 ,otherwise it is questionable whether they would have found the solution of their problem so easy4 ,for it is not open to argument that the presumed sanctity of property rights has1 under the conditions created by the ,industrial ,revolution furnished the foundation of the modern capitalist order and its corollaries4 ,the capitalist owes his power to his possession of property in the shape of industrial plant or of money4 ,yet it is plain to anyone who analyses the position with any degree of realism that the mere possession of a number of things should no more entitle or enable an individual to lord it over his fellows than an inheritance of blue blood4 ,nevertheless1 in point of cold fact1 that is the present position2 there is1 however1 a prospect that the divine right of property may presently go the same way as the divine right of kings4 ,but it will go not under the pressure of a theory4 ,it will disappear under the strain of economic necessity4 ,in ,england the proposal of a 8levy on capital0 has been widely and seriously discussed4 ,it is asserted that it will be impossible to raise by taxation a revenue sufficient to pay the interest on the war debt after providing for indispensable national services2 and there appears to be no way out of this impasse save by making a levy upon the accumulated wealth of the country4 ,a levy equal to the debt would require to take something like two-fifths of the estimated total of the private capital4 ,the methods by which this might be done do not now concern us2 nor does it matter very much for our argument that the industrial and commercial magnates1 and the ancien rgime economists are declaiming vehemently against it4 ,even the fact that the levy may not be carried out in the form now advocated is not of great moment4 ,what is important is that the serious discussion evoked by the proposal has shown that the traditional doctrine of property-rights is in liquidation4 ,there has not been1 so far as the present writer has been able to discover1 any lifting-up of hands in horror at this suggestion of a sacrilegious invasion upon this ancient sanctity2 the discussion has been conducted on the plane of expediency and utility4 ,this marks a very considerable movement--for to many1 the ,reform ,bill of #ahca looked like the end of the world1 since it was 7as a politician of the time said7 8a maxim that every government which tends to separate property from constitutional government must be liable to perpetual revolution40#c ,property was the chief cornerstone of the social structure2 and even as late as #ahhh1 ,lord ,acton wrote to ,mr4 ,gladstone that he hears that 8the skilled artisans of ,london are hostile to the clergy but not to property10 which latter circumstance he plainly regards as a sign of grace4 ,yet to-day1 under the exigencies of public need1 it is seriously discussed whether the state should not lay its hands on anything up to a half of the private wealth of the country4 ,footnote #c3 ,quoted in ,laski1 ,problems of ,sovereignty1 p4 #gj--note4 ,this is essentially a return to the view of a saner age4 ,the medival doctrine was that right in property was not absolute1 but that it was of the nature of a trust4 ,this is the view that underlies the project of a levy4 ,professor ,hobhouse draws a distinction between 8property for use0 and 8property for power40 ,the right to possess property can hardly be denied4 ,it is essential to a man's freedom and growth that he should have absolute control over a certain number of things4 ,but it should be restricted to what is necessary for personal freedom and growth4 ,a man may have1 that is1 property for use but not for power4 ,he may not have so much property as would enable him to control or virtually to own the life and labour of others4 ,it is to some such doctrine of property as this that the mind of progressive labour is tending4 ,property is in prospect of socialisation2 and perhaps only such socialised property will in future be available as capital4 ,under economic pressure1 the doctrine of property is being ethicised2 and to ethicise the doctrine is simply to declare property to be wholly subordinate to social ends4 ,the first step in modern democracy was the socialisation of political power2 the second without which the first cannot be complete1 will be the socialisation of economic power4 ,,iii ,we should1 however1 be deluding ourselves if we suppose that radical economic change will of itself bring about the kind of world that we want4 ,the miscarriage which has followed political revolution in the past may no less disastrously follow economic revolution4 ,economic change is of itself powerless to secure us from the appearance of new types of privilege2 and there is not a little danger that the present tendencies of some advanced thought may lead to bureaucratic government4 ,between a proletarian bureaucracy and an industrial plutocracy there is little to choose2 and the tyranny of the expert may become as galling as that of a despot4 8,in the socialistic presentment10 says ,professor ,hobhouse1 8the expert sometimes looks strangely like the powers that be--in education for instance1 a clergyman under a new title1 in business that very captain of industry who at the outset was the socialist's chief enemy4 ,be that as it may1 as the expert comes to the front and efficiency becomes the watchword of administration1 all that was human in socialism vanishes out of it4 ,its tenderness for the losers in the race1 its protests against class-tyranny1 its revolt against commercial materialism1 all the sources of inspiration under which socialist leaders have faced poverty and prison1 are gone like a dream and instead of them we have a conception of society as a perfect piece of machinery1 pulled by wires radiating from a single centre1 and all men are either experts or puppets4 ,humanity1 ,liberty1 ,justice are expunged from the banner and the single word efficiency replaces them40 ,this is1 indeed1 a sufficiently dismal prospect1 for which it is hardly worth while to change our present state4 ,it should be said1 however1 that this particular peril is greatly minimised by the current emphasis upon democratic control in industry4 ,the danger remains real notwithstanding4 ,nor is it the only danger inherent in a purely economic change4 ,indeed1 it may be questioned whether any economic change has elements of permanence1 while it is only economic4 ,the word efficiency betrays the mind of the age which gave it its current connotation4 ,it was a machine-governed mind2 and mechanistic conceptions of life and progress are from the nature of the case unfriendly to the democratic spirit4 ,the appearance of the 8efficiency engineer0 showed the low estate into which man had fallen--man made once a little lower than the angels but now treated as a little lower than the machine4 ,the business of efficiency engineering was the closer subordination of the man to the machine by methods alleged to be scientific4 ,nothing could show more plainly than this does the absence of that broad humanism which is the very breath of democracy2 and even the generous intention of the socialist ideal was vitiated by the mechanistic character of socialist doctrine4 ,statecraft itself became an affair of efficiency-engineering on a large scale2 and the logic of the mechanistic habit of thought reached its fine flower in the merciless regimentation of the ,german people and the enthronement of the 8,great ,god ,gun40 ,from this pernicious heresy1 we may hopefully expect that reflection on our war-experience may deliver us4 ,already there are manifest signs of a reaction to a healthier and kindlier conception of life and its meaning4 ,the excessive and artificial centralisation of power in the ,state is being challenged by a demand for the revival of regional culture and such a redistribution of the functions of government as a recognition of the 8region0 would require4#d ,the business of 8unscrambling0 the egg1 will indeed be long and difficult2 but it is clear that any advance in the essential humanities is bound up with a release of life from the artificial integrations forced upon it by the machine civilisation4 ,mr4 ,delisle ,burns has shown us that the essential note of ,greek life was its sociability2#e and this is indeed a pole to which normal human nature ever swings true4 ,but in the ,greek city1 sociability was vitiated and ultimately destroyed by the tragic schism of a slave-system2 while in modern civilisation it has been poisoned by the dominion of the machine4 ,the swamping of the 8region0 by the state has enfeebled the natural social bonds of a less sophisticated age2 and somehow or other democracy must thread its way back to a simpler and more spontaneous sociability4 ,for the artificial synthesis of 8the individual and the state10 we must restore the natural order of 8myself and my neighbours40 ,footnote #d3 ,upon this subject1 see ,the ,coming ,polity1 by ,geddes and ,branford4 7,williams and ,norgate47 ,footnote #e3 ,in his ,greek ,ideals4 ,but we have travelled so far from the simple amenities of the 8region0 and our minds have become so sophisticated in artificial and mechanical modernity that our recovery must begin in something akin to a spiritual renewal1 in a new perception of essential human values4 ,economic change will not deliver us from the mechanistic obsession2 and we shall only be saved from the inherent dangers of economic change under present conditions by a fresh recognition of the central principle of democracy4 ,that every soul has equal worth carries with it the corollary that personality must be conceived as an end in itself and not merely as a means4 ,it is our quarrel with the ,junker classes wherever we find them1 that they deliberately relegate large masses of their fellowmen into a sub-human category4 ,democracy is the direct denial of this posture4 ,it affirms on the contrary that every man has a prescriptive right to stand on his feet unashamed1 and to have full opportunity to become the whole man he may be4 ,it ascribes to him certain liberties and a certain inalienable status among his fellows2 and the employer who regards his men as 8hands0 denies democracy as directly as does the autocrat who regards his subjects as serfs or cannonfodder4 ,in other words1 democracy requires a specific type of personal relationship between men2 and perhaps1 its troubles are chiefly due to the fact that while it preached liberty and equality with no uncertain sound1 it neglected to lay a corresponding emphasis upon fraternity4 ,in truth1 democracy is beset more perilously and more persistently by the inward enemy than the foe without--the inner enemy that lurks in men's souls4 ,for though there be a democrat in every man1 there is also a potential aristocrat4 ,the ultimate battle-ground of the democratic ideal is in men's hearts4 ,after the external enemies of democracy are defeated on land and on sea1 democracy will have to go on fighting for its life in our souls4 ,in this as in all things else1 8the kingdom of heaven is within you40 ,the personal practice of democracy is comparatively simple1 as its central doctrine is4 ,the equal worth of souls does not of course imply equal capacity2 nor does the fact of unequal natural capacity do away with the truth of equal worth4 ,it simply indicates the kind of world we live in4 ,it is a world in which capacity is the measure not of worth but of obligation2 and the law of life is mutual service4 ,in one of the very few political allusions which ,jesus made1 ,he stated this point with much plainness4 8,ye know that the rulers of the ,gentiles lord it over them and they that have authority over them are called #8benefactors'0 7as it was in the beginning1 and has been ever since1 when autocrats and their like have conceded to their subjects some fragment of the natural rights of which they have despoiled them and then have posed as 8benefactors10 and when imperialists talk of conferring their peculiar ,kultur on the 8lesser breeds without the law071 8but10 said ,jesus1 8it shall not be so among you4 ,he that is greatest among you1 let him be the servant of all40 ,this is the authentic democratic spirit and the personal practice without which democracy cannot live4 ,it is not enough to pay lip service to democratic ideals--the sanctity of personality and the obligation of mutual service2 or even to accept them in a spirit of pious sentimentalism4 ,that kind of thing is already common enough4 ,to the idealistic temper1 we must attach the pragmatic habit1 and translate our doctrines into concrete programmes of emancipation and co-operation4 ,the city of ,god is not to be built with good intentions4 ,fraternity must be rendered into a polity4 ,yet even fraternity may perish in formality except it be sustained by a living brotherliness4 ,it is the spirit that quickeneth4 ,democracy like every living thing must either grow or decay4 ,if it stops at a political form or an economic scheme1 then it must decline and die4 ,it is only as its essential spirit captures our consciences and wills and its central principle is consistently and continuously applied that it can survive the perversity of our nature and the vicissitudes of history4 ,it must become a crusade and a holy war4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,tests ,,of ,,democratic ,,progress 8,the fundamental reform for which the times call is rather a reconsideration of the ends for which all civilised government exists1 in a word1 the return to a saner measure of social values40--,,lord ,,morley4 ,,the next stage in the realisation of the democratic ideal would appear to be tolerably clear4 ,we are moving toward an extension of the democratic principle into the economic and industrial sphere2 but is the movement governed by an understanding of the goal we have in view8 ,are we sure that our immediate policies are consistent with the 8far gain0 which we should seek8 ,or are we to regard progress purely as a somewhat blind experimental affair1 largely beyond control8 ,we are obviously moving--somewhere2 the movement indeed promises to be an improvement4 ,but are there any tests which can be applied to it in order that we may satisfy ourselves that the course we are on will land us safely in port8 ,i ,mr4 ,thorstein ,veblen has rendered an important service to this generation by showing how the technology of the machine industry has invaded our minds and led us to an almost exclusive pre-occupation with processes4 ,it is this intellectual bias which explains--at least in great part--our complete capitulation to the ,darwinian hypothesis and accounts for the way in which we have pressed it out of its proper sphere to furnish clues in religion1 history1 and ethics--regions in which there are factors to be considered which are not included among the data of the doctrine of biological evolution4 ,here also is the explanation of the wide acceptance of the pragmatist philosophy4 ,pragmatism is indeed the characteristic philosophy of the machine-age2 its postulate 8that truth is what works0 is clearly derived from the engine-shop1 where efficiency is the only rule4 ,generally it may also be said that it is this mechanistic attention to processes which accounts for the importance and omnicompetency ascribed to the still juvenile science of psychology2 and this is particularly true of the application of psychology and psychological method to the problems of sociology4 ,psychology is the fruit of the application of the scientific method to mental processes2 its subject matter consists of the observable phenomena of mind4 ,its application to sociology has produced an almost exclusive concentration on social functions2 and while this has important uses1 it does not furnish us with the clue we need to our sociological tasks4 ,mental functions1 whether of the individual or of society1 cannot be treated in the same way as chemical reactions4 ,chemical reactions are predetermined and invariable2 human functions are dirigible4 ,those functions which ultimately govern and sustain human activity and determine human character are directed to more or less sharply recognised and chosen ends4 ,it is indeed true that many of the processes which are concerned in the movement of life are1 as ,mr4 ,cooley has pointed out1 unconscious and seemingly impersonal1 such as those which account for the growth of tradition and the variations of language4 ,nevertheless1 as ,mr4 ,cooley himself very excellently shows in his illustration of the growth of a book in its author's mind1 even these unconscious and involuntary processes fall into line with a definitely fixed purpose of the mind4#f ,the problem of sound social integration is not merely an affair of processes operating properly4 ,for human powers may function1 at least for a time1 in a normal way even while they are being directed to mischievous and perverse ends4 ,modern ,germany supplies an instance of unexampled attention to social processes2 but it is not open to question that all this has been directed to a perverse and immoral end1 and has 7as the event has shown7 culminated in catastrophe and confusion4 ,just so a man's intellect may operate brilliantly2 yet the man himself may be a thief4 ,psychology may claim that its business is a disinterested study of processes2 and the claim is justly made4 ,but the same claim cannot be made for sociology4 ,the sociologist may indeed claim that he too is a scientist2 and that his science like every other is empirical and not teleological4 ,but the two claims are not parallel4 ,psychology deals with an opus operatum1 the actual concrete mind as it is2 whereas the assumption which underlies all sociology is that it is handling an opus operandum1 a work still to be done1 the production of a living and wholesome society4 ,the teleological interest is necessarily supreme4 ,this does not mean that sociology has not its empirical aspects2 of course1 it has2 and these aspects are all important for the construction of a sound sociology4 ,but we shall produce a mere torso of sociology if we suppose we can ignore the problem of ends4 ,the relation of psychology to sociology is of much the same character as its relation to education or the relation of physiology to public health4 ,footnote #f3 ,charles ,horton ,cooley1 ,social ,process1 p4 #af4 ,it is probable1 moreover1 that the obscuration of this question of ends has been helped by the modern acceptance of the doctrine of progress4 ,this in its turn appears to be mainly due to the application of the principle of evolution to human affairs4 ,we have supposed that because living nature shows a process of development1 the life of man is also necessarily governed by a law of predestined progress1 from worse to better1 from the simple to the more complex4 ,the result of this evolutionary view of human affairs has been to make the study of ends appear impertinent4 ,the ends are already determined2 why then trouble ourselves about them8 ,it is true that we do not know whither this vis a tergo is propelling us2 the only thing we can do1 therefore1 is to study the processes by which it works as we see them in operation in men's minds1 whether the single or the mass mind4 ,we shall observe them1 duly record them1 and contemplate them in a spirit of detachment1 without concerning ourselves overmuch with their destination4 ,but it is now too late in the day to suppose that this attitude can be seriously maintained4 ,the area of the margin of human freedom may be a subject of controversy2 but it is impossible to take seriously the kind of determinism which denies the possibility of directing human action to deliberately chosen ends4 ,the actual range of our control over our actions may be limited2 but within those limits it is very real4 ,and in any case it does not require to be very much to make the evolution hypothesis of very doubtful validity as an interpretation of the whole life of man4#g ,footnote #g3 ,for a concise statement of the philosophical argument against a doctrine of progress based upon biological evolution1 see ,bertrand ,russell1 ,mysticism and ,logic1 pp4 #aje1 #ajf4 ,sociology must concern itself with ends2 and it must do so at its own beginnings4 ,if this means that it has to forfeit its claim to a strictly scientific status1 so be it4 ,there is no virtue in replying that the question of ends is an affair of speculation and hypothesis4 ,that is indeed true2 but it cannot be helped4 ,we are compelled to speculate concerning ends since there is no other way of reaching a conception of them4 ,and there is no harm in speculation so long as it starts from the soundest available premises1 and its conclusions are not hardened into dogma4 ,sociology will hardly rise above an academic futility until it abandons its obsession to rank as a pure science and makes bold to define however tentatively the goal toward which social processes should be directed4 ,let it by all means make its surveys and collate its statistics unremittingly2 but these things it ought to do and not to leave the other undone4 ,,ii ,yet it becomes plain1 immediately we begin to discuss this question of ends1 that if we exclude definitely religious considerations from the argument1 we cannot indicate an end that has the character of a real end1 that is1 an absolute ultimacy4 ,it is indeed questionable how far even the religious postulate directly provides the conception of an end1 except to the comparatively small company of people who are strongly mystical by nature4 ,the ,shorter ,catechism taught us that the chief end of man was to seek ,god and to glorify ,him for ever1 but to most of us this brings not information but bewilderment2 and ,mr4 ,kipling's paradise where the painter 8draws the thing as he sees it for the ,god of things as they are0 is attractive but elusive4 ,the truth appears to be that for the multitude of religiously disposed persons1 the sense of ,god becomes effectual for conduct only as it dramatises itself in the form of a social vision or a personal relationship2 and the ascendency of ,jesus in the ,christian tradition is explained by the power ,he has possessed of inviting that unreserved personal loyalty through which the sense of ,god assumes reality for common men4 ,such a phrase as 8the glory of ,god0 describes not our knowledge but our ignorance4 ,all the content which can intelligibly be given to it is that there is an ideal end toward which we are called to move4 ,this1 however1 does not mean that it is barren of immediate effect on conduct4 ,we know that throughout history it has had the power to evoke a supreme disinterestedness in people who have been sensitive to it4 ,it is1 of course1 akin to what ,mr4 ,benjamin ,kidd calls 8the emotion of the ideal20 and it is related closely to the characteristic poetic anticipation and hope expressed in such passages as ,tennyson's in which he speaks of the 8one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves40 ,but disinterestedness and 8the emotion of the ideal10 while they are essential to any kind of healthy social existence afford but slender foundation for a positive social policy4 ,no moral attitude or emotion will carry us far except it be evoked by an ideal which can dramatise itself in terms of a more or less achievable undertaking4 ,we are therefore compelled to relinquish the hope of a definition of absolute social ends1 and must be content with something more modest and manageable4 ,we may at least attempt to indicate certain proximate social aims4 ,even if we cannot hopefully describe the ultimate goal of life1 we may reasonably endeavour to answer the question--,what do we want our social organisation to produce8 ,just what results are we to aim at8 ,that some such discussion as this is involved in any fruitful handling of the question of social integration is clear from the fact that the conception of an aim is either implicit or explicit in all attempts to formulate a social polity ever since ,aristotle defined the aim of the ,republic as the promotion of the good life4 ,but this definition1 like ,mill's 8greatest good of the greatest number0 raises further questions--,what is the nature of the good8 ,what is the characteristic note and quality of the good life8 ,this indeed takes us to the very centre of our problem2 for at last the controversy between the militarist and the pacifist1 the protectionist and the free-trader1 the authoritarian and the libertarian1 springs from differing conceptions of the good life4 ,this is not to say that either party has worked out a reasoned conviction on the point4 ,both appear to start from certain instinctive acceptances1 determined largely by temperamental variations1--which points to the need of a rigorously rationalistic exploration of this entire region4 ,mr4 ,graham ,wallace speaks of 8the organisation of happiness02 but as he himself perceives1 he is speaking in paradox4 ,it seems in any case improbable that our social aims can be defined in terms of an emotional state4 ,,iii ,a good deal of confusion has been introduced into this subject by a tendency to regard society itself as an end4 ,in much modern thought upon the matter1 the individual is conceived as attaining his own end through his due contribution to the life of the group4 ,the extreme development of this view is to be found in the ,german doctrine of the state1 a doctrine which prevails in more or less perfection wherever the ,hegelian philosophy has struck its roots4#h ,on this view1 the individual has neither function nor end which is not to be expressed in terms of his own personal subordination to the state4 ,he is a cog in the wheel1 and no more4 ,the modern dogma of progress has reinforced this view to some extent2 as has also the obsession of size1 which is one of the by-products of our extended knowledge of the physical universe and which has had the effect of minimising the significance of the single life4 ,but whatever the causes to which this view is attributable1 its influence on sociological thought is beyond question4 ,it has been assumed1 with varying explicitness1 that the supra-personal end which the individual is to serve is to be identified with the social group to which he belongs4 ,it is his appointed purpose to minister to the happiness of the group or to increase its efficiency as a military or economic unit4 ,footnote #h3 ,the devout ,hegelian who dislikes the ,prussian doctrine of the state is nowadays at some pains to explain that ,hegel's view of the state does not cohere quite congruously with the rest of his philosophy4 7a7 ,it may be urged against this view that the antithesis which it implies between the individual and the group is fallacious4 ,for the group is composed of individuals and it cannot have a conscious end except in the minds of the individuals who compose it4 ,there is a degree of truth in speaking of the 8personality0 of a group so long as the analogy is not pressed too far4 ,a group may have a common thought and may unite in a collective act2 but to say that a group has a definite 8personality0 of its own is to carry the process of abstraction too far4 ,a group attains to consciousness only in the several minds of its members4 ,moreover social ends must take shape in individual lives4 ,that the individual should serve a social end is true2 it is equally true that the social aim must be achieved in the character and experience of individuals4 ,for if they are not realised in persons1 where shall they be realised8 ,if our ultimate social aims do not become effective in the single life1 they remain mere abstractions1 existing only in a speculative thought and never reaching the point of actuality4 ,but it serves us as little to insist on the converse of this view and to assert that the end of society is the individual4 ,the truth would rather appear to be that the individual is to reach his own end in and through a society which it is his first business to create4 ,personal self-realisation and social integration will proceed pari passu4 ,the individual and the group will find themselves in each other2 the great soul and the great society will arrive together4 ,but from the nature of the case1 we must seek the clue to the character of right social aims through a study of personality1 and of what is involved in its self-realisation4 7b7 ,a further objection to this view is that it subordinates personality to aims that are limited and sectional4 ,in practice it may make good ,germans1 but almost certainly it cannot make good men4 ,while it is better for a man to serve the narrowest social group than to serve his self-regard1 yet the exclusiveness of the social group as it is identified with the state or the nation is hostile to that increasing social integration which is implied in a self-consistent sociology4 ,the current conceptions of the state and the nation must undergo some revision if they are to be made congruous with a fruitful social polity4 ,the nation represents a stage in the social education of the race1 in that discipline whereby the caveman grows into a citizenship of the world2 and in no sense can the nation be ethically regarded as constituting an adequate end for the individual1 except as the nation in its turn is consciously seeking its own end in the service of the whole4 ,it is true that men have in the past generally regarded the glory and the power of their particular group as an end which has the right to command their absolute devotion1 and have believed that to suffer death in such a cause is the highest conceivable self-realisation4 ,this does indeed represent a much higher ethical plane than that on which a man fights only for his own hand or the tiny circle of his blood kindred4 ,but the fact that this loyalty to his group has had the power to evoke the highest possible sacrifice1 does not prove that the glory and the power of the group provides a full and valid end for him as a man4 ,in his character as ,german or ,englishman1 it may appear to provide him with an end to which he may properly submit himself without reserve2 but it is questionable whether he can do so without some sacrifice of his possibilities and obligations as a man4 ,the propaganda of ,germanism produced very efficient and docile ,germans2 but the records of the war leave us little room to doubt that the process has had a mischievous effect upon their manhood4 ,from the standpoint of an expanding society polity1 education should produce individuals who are human before they are national4 ,there is no system of national education which achieves this result2 but the ultimate logic of the prevailing educational tradition as we see it in the ,german conduct of the war should provoke serious misgivings and minister to a change of heart in those persons who direct the policies of public education4 7c7 ,it is worth observing in this connection that even in ,germany the ,germanic propaganda had to trick itself out in a pseudo-universal jargon4 ,it had to say large-sounding things about a ,kultur-mission to the world in order to validate itself in the eyes of the ,german people4 ,the claim implied in the ,kultur-mission as it was commonly expounded is so preposterous as to be self-refuting to a normal mind2 but this systematic diffusion of the idea proves that man has reached a point where the power and wealth of a particular group is no longer able by itself to evoke an effectual response in the individuals who compose the group4 ,the fact is that civilised mankind is slowly learning to think in universal terms4 ,its social grasp is already faintly embracing the whole world4 ,this circumstance tends to simplify the sociologist's task very materially4 ,while the application of the polity which he evolves will require to take account of the peculiar traditions and institutions of different groups1 he will be free to work out his polity in terms which are independent of the present exclusive and conflicting aims of the groups which compose the world of man4 ,he will state the ultimate problems of society in ,germany in the same terms as he will state those in ,america2 for he will necessarily be dealing with the one factor which is common to both4 ,there cannot be a distinctive social science in ,germany and another in ,america1 differing from one another in essentials and both at the same time being true4 ,there will be endless variety in the methods by which social principles are applied by different groups2 for we cannot write off the past of a people and the institutions in which its history is embodied4 ,yet there can be no true sociology in ,england or in ,germany unless its postulates are equally valid in ,america4 ,in other words these postulates must be drawn from a disinterested study of personality4 ,they will not concern themselves with the welfare of a particular group1 in whatever terms that welfare may be defined4 ,but they will be concerned with the good of the world of groups because they are derived from the one fact which is common to and underlies them all1 and which1 despite conflicting aims still binds human groups together in a permanent unity1 namely1 personality4 ,,iv ,the aims of our social polity must1 therefore1 be defined congruously with the nature of personality2 and the corresponding social processes must validate themselves by bringing to those whom they affect1 the sense of movement towards a real and recognisable personal good4 ,it does not require that all the individuals composing a society should organise their common life with the conscious and deliberate aim of personal self-realisation2 but it is certain that the processes of a genuine social integration will be accompanied by a certain growing emotional satisfaction in the persons concerned4 ,it is generally assumed that this emotional satisfaction is to be described as happiness2 but it is probably something deeper and more organic than the state which this word connotes4 ,professor ,dewey says that 8to find out what one is fitted to do1 and to secure an opportunity to do it1 is the key of happiness40#i ,this is1 of course1 true so far as it goes2 but it is symptomatic of the inadequate analysis which this point generally receives4 ,obviously there are possibilities of self-realisation and personal satisfaction far beyond the attainment which ,professor ,dewey indicates in this sentence4 ,we might1 perhaps1 find a better definition of the emotional state which we should require our process of social development to produce1 in the ,new ,testament use of the word joy4 ,there the word is clearly associated with an emotional state consequent upon a sense of accomplishment or discovery4 ,the golfer experiences it for a passing moment after a completely successful drive from the tee4 ,the artist knows it more durably as he puts the finishing touch to what he believes to be his masterpiece4 ,gibbon had it 7not without a large tincture of self-admiration7 on the memorable evening on which he finished the 8,decline and ,fall40 ,it is the condition which is described by the word 8fruition20#aj the inward reaction evoked by the sense of arrival1 of fulfilment1 and of course--derivatively--of being surely on the way4 ,it comes to a man when he knows he is on the road to personal completeness4 ,footnote #i3 ,democracy and ,education1 p4 #cfj4 ,footnote #aj3 ,this word is so frequently mishandled that it is perhaps necessary to point out that it does not mean bearing fruit4 ,it is derived from the ,latin word fruor1 ,i enjoy2 and it describes an inward state4 ,illustrative of the ,new ,testament use of the word joy1 the following passages may be cited3 ,john ii4 #cj1 8,this my joy is made full0 7spoken by ,john ,baptist on hearing that ,jesus was launched on the full tide of ,his ministry47 ,john xvi4 #ba1 8444 when she is delivered of the child1 she remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born unto the world40 ,matt4 xiii4 #ad1 8,in his joy1 he goeth and selleth all that he hath0 7the merchant man who has found the pearl of great price74 ,luke xv4 #i1 8,rejoice with me1 for ,i have found my sheep that was lost40 ,it is upon the question of what constitutes personal completeness that we have to reach some kind of conclusion if our sociological thinking is to be fruitful and if we are to have the proper tests to apply to our social programmes4 ,obviously the society we want to produce is one which will provide the conditions under which every man may rise to the full stature of his manhood4 ,but what is the full-grown man8 ,apparently the only person in the modern world who has possessed a definite and vivid conception of the full-grown man is ,nietzsche4 ,but ,nietzsche's doctrine is ruled out by our democratic hypothesis4 ,he has told us that mankind falls into two broad classes of master and slave1 and though he recognises a considerable hierarchy of social grades1 he sees1 nevertheless1 at the one end the ruling class1 and at the other 8the class of man who thrives best when he is looked after and closely observed1 the man who is happy to serve not because he must1 but because he is what he is1 the man uncorrupted by political and religious lies concerning liberty1 equality and fraternity1 who is half conscious of the abyss which separates him from his superiors1 and who is happiest when he is performing those acts which are not beyond his limitations40#aa ,obviously the only kind of society possible on the ,nietzschean terms is an armed peace between supermen and 8slave morality0 for the rest4 ,the will to power soon or late issues in anarchy4 ,the strength of the position of ,nietzsche lies in the theoretic justification it provides for the native human bias which leads to the quest of personal ascendency1 and the struggle for possession4 ,the result of this tendency has been the constant subordination and exploitation of the weak by the strong1 and a ceaseless scrimmage among the strong in which the weak are the pawns2 and if this struggle has not brought about the ,nietzschean equilibrium1 it is due1 presumably1 to the enervating influence of ,christianity4 ,yet1 here1 in this self-regarding bias we have the original source of all our social chaos2 but the disorder is not to be overcome by inhibiting this impulse4 ,it is sometimes supposed that human nature is incurably and permanently self-regarding and anarchic2 but this is not true4 ,it is indeed true that human nature does take easily to the practice of self-assertion as against others2 this is the penalty of our inheritance from the 8ape and the tiger40 ,but it is mere folly to suppose that man has to carry this sorrowful entail in perpetuity4 ,it is fastened on him largely by reason of the external circumstances of his life1 a vicious social heredity which has put a premium upon power and pushfulness1 and an atmosphere of competition in which capacity and cunning win the prize4 ,it is1 however1 not impossible to communicate to men a social vision which is able to divert the natural energies of the human spirit into more generous channels4 ,this1 did they but know it1 is the peculiar vocation of the preacher and the teacher4 ,footnote #aa3 ,a4 ,m4 ,ludovici1 ,nietszche1 pp4 #he;f4 ,mr4 ,bertrand ,russell has recently laid just emphasis upon the supremacy of impulse in determining human conduct2 and has pointed out the distinction between impulses which make for life and those which make for death4 ,william ,blake had a somewhat similar view4 ,what ,blake in 8,the ,marriage of ,heaven and ,hell0 calls energy appears to be that vital stress which expresses itself in our impulses1 and which in the form of 8poetic0 energy is the source of creative art4 ,in ,blake's psychology1 this energy only works out healthily and fruitfully when it is co-ordinated on the one side with ,reason and on the other by ,desire2 and he traces our human troubles to an undue ascendency of one or other of these two balancing principles4 ,when ,reason prevails over ,desire1 it imposes disastrous restraint upon energy2 but when the tables are turned1 the ascendency of ,desire leads to the 8vegetated life40 ,blake's analysis has much to commend it2 and it appears to supply the necessary complement to ,mr4 ,russell's4 ,for our impulses1 whether they make for life or death are the same impulses--the difference in their result springing from a difference in their direction1 and in the conditions under which they operate4 ,the old psychological analysis of the mind into will1 intellect1 affections1 and so forth has served its turn2 and for purposes of social building we must betake ourselves rather to an analysis of ,blake's energy or ,mr4 ,russell's impulses4 ,m4 ,bergson has shown us how the 8elan vitale0 has in the course of its onward march split up again and again1 and in so doing has set afoot new lines of development and variation2 and we have for result the infinite wealth of plant and animal form which fills the earth4 ,the primitive urge of life was seemingly a bundle of tendencies1 which were released1 one at this point1 and another at that1 under the stress of the circumstances encountered on the way4 ,in the same way the energy1 the vital stress of personality is an organic complex of impulses1 each of which has released and shaped itself conformably to the conditions in which the human spirit has found itself in the process of growth4 ,in this complex of impulses1 it is possible to discern three main strands3 #a4 ,the ,impulse of ,self-preservation4 ,this has to do with the desire and purpose to maintain life2 and its primitive form was determined by the necessity of procuring food1 clothing and shelter4 ,its characteristic activity was that of discovering and adapting the means which were available to the end of sustaining life2 and out of this grew agriculture1 weaving1 housebuilding and a range of operations which grew in number and elaboration as the requirements of life increased4 ,here is the origin of what ,mr4 ,veblen has called the ,instinct of ,workmanship4 #b4 ,the ,impulse of ,reproduction4 ,this in its elemental form expresses itself in the begetting of children4 ,but as man became more familiar with the objects round about him1 in the course of handling them for the ends of self-preservation1 this impulse became associated with the instinct of workmanship1 and man began to attempt to reproduce himself in other media than his flesh4 ,he came to do certain work which was not required by the exigencies of his physical subsistence2 and this work he did--as it were--for the joy of doing it4 ,he attempted to express himself upon such materials as were capable of receiving his impress2 and his delight in his handicraft became the beginning of ,art4 ,presently he learnt to set line and colour and sound in combinations that pleased him1 and in which he was conscious of the joy of fatherhood4 ,this is the ,instinct of ,creativeness4 ,it is not always perceived that there is a very profound distinction to be drawn between the workmanlike and the creative activities4 ,miss ,helen ,marot appears to assume 7in her book ,the ,creative ,impulse in ,industry71 that a democratic form of co-operation1 and an understanding of industrial processes will satisfy the creative instinct in industry4 ,it is difficult to see how this can happen under the conditions of the modern large-scale machine industry4 ,miss ,marot rightly insists that the creative impulse is not merely an affair of individual self-expression4 ,nevertheless1 it is only possible to a group when the group is comparatively small1 and every member is in active touch with the whole process4 ,the instinct of workmanship is of a routine productive character1 the instinct of creativeness is original and reproductive4 ,nothing on this earth can make our highly specialised machine processes into opportunities of self-expression4 ,this1 however1 does not mean that the machine industry has no place in the future social order4 #c4 ,the ,impulse of ,association4--,man has always lived with men2 and there is perhaps nothing so distinctive of human nature as its faculty for association4 ,we are so made that we only find ourselves and each other as we live together in societies1 that we only find ourselves as we find one another4 ,the exchanges of love and friendship1 the riches of fellowship--these are the most fruitful experiences of life4 8,we are members of one another02 and are fulfilled in each other4 ,our mutual need has released in us the ,instinct of ,sociability4 ,the weakness of this kind of analysis is that it appears to untwine threads that cannot be untwined in practice and never are separated in experience4 ,human instincts do not operate independently2 they blend into each other continuously and inextricably in countless ways4 ,we have seen how the reproductive impulse fused with the instinct of workmanship into an impulse toward creative art4 ,but the debt has been repaid in the introduction of requirements of beauty into the exercise of workmanship4 ,in the era of craftsmanship1 the two impulses were very intimately blended1 workmanship and creativeness going hand in hand in the erection of stately minsters1 or in the making of harness for the squire's horses4 ,it is due to the development of the machine that these two impulses have been so widely parted in our time1 to the immense injury of both2 and it is one of the tasks1 perhaps the chief of the tasks1 facing us in the future to restore them to something of their old-time intimacy4 ,of this restoration1 the great modern prophet is ,william ,morris1 who saw hope neither for the worker nor for the artist except in a closer association of industry with beauty1 and who laid the foundation of this revived association by his own pioneer work as a house-decorator4 ,this does not require1 as some suppose1 the scrapping of the machine industry1 even though that were possible2 it only requires that we understand the true place of the machine industry and put it there4 ,similarly1 the instinct of sociability coalesced with those of workmanship and creativeness4 ,the signal instance of this combination is to be found in the spirit of the medival ,guilds2 but there are other instances in plenty4 ,most of the great human achievements in thought1 religion and art1 have had a social origin1 in schools of philosophers and prophets1 in groups of artists and the like1 and conversely new departures in thought1 religion and art have become the foci of new groups4 ,of all this the moral would seem to be that we must treat the energy of personality1 its characteristic outgoing1 as a single undivided indivisible stream2 yet we must recognise it also as a stream containing a certain range of ingredients4 ,therefore1 what we shall require of our ideal society is that it shall generate an atmosphere and an environment in which the constituent ingredients of personal energy shall find opportunity of full1 co-ordinated and parallel development4 ,it will be a society in which the instinct of workmanship1 creativeness and sociability will grow side by side and hand in hand toward 8the perfect man1 of the measure of the stature of the fulness of ,christ40 ,of this society then1 we may say1 that its marks will be that first every man shall have the opportunity of a secure and sufficient physical subsistence1 second1 that its work will press upward to the plane of art1 and that its sociability will grow into vital and purposeful fellowship4 ,by these tests we shall judge the soundness of democratic progress4 ,our analysis has hitherto taken account only of the common man without reference to natural divergencies of genius or capacity4 ,professor ,geddes has lately been emphasising ,comte's doctrine of history as an interplay of the temporal and spiritual powers1 and his classification of the four ,social types--,chiefs1 ,people1 ,emotionals and ,intellectuals4 ,mr4 ,arnold ,bennett found men on the ,clyde sorting themselves out into ,organisers1 ,workers1 ,energisers and ,initiators1 which classification1 as ,professor ,geddes justly points out1 corresponds closely to ,comte's4 ,these types1 however1 reduce themselves to two1 namely those chiefly animated by the impulse of action1 and those chiefly animated by the impulse of reflection4 ,of course1 these types shade off imperceptibly into one another1 because the impulses which give them their peculiar colour are native to and present in universal human nature4 ,and while it is certain that nature will see to it that mankind will be delivered from the doom of a dead uniformity1 it is nevertheless necessary that we should aim at the full development of both the active and reflective impulses in every man4 ,would that all the ,lord's people were prophets6 ,hitherto1 we have considered man as actuated mainly by the impulse of action2 but the release and development of the impulse of reflection is essential to the growth of society4 ,for the experience which is the sequel of action is condemned to sterility except it be reflected upon4 ,reflection upon experience is the appointed guide of further action4 ,we must1 therefore1 add to our tests of sound democratic progress1 a fourth1 namely1 that it shall be of a kind to stimulate and encourage reflection4 ,it must1 that is1 include a method of education whereby every man shall as far as possible become capable of independent thought and sound judgment4 ,out of all this emerges immediately one certain conclusion4 ,the kind of society which encourages creative self-expression1 independent judgment and a living expanding fellowship must necessarily be conceived and created in freedom4 ,for to these essential human impulses1 freedom is the very breath of life4 ,the initial problem of sociology is1 therefore1 the achievement of freedom2 upon that foundation1 and that only1 can it build for eternity4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,pecuniary ,,standard 8,the deeper cause of the oppression of the factory operative and of the terrible degradation and pauperisation of the agricultural labourer1 was not the mere fact that machines were invented which multiplied the efficiency of labour1 but the previous monopolisation1 in the period of the ,renaissance and the ,reformation1 and during the earlier part of the eighteenth century1 of the land and of education4 ,the great change then took place in the current philosophy of life1 which made the whole of the governing classes of ,england1 with exceptions practically negligible1 accept with avidity the idea merely more clearly formulated by political economists1 that the highest duty of man was to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market40 ,,patrick ,,geddes4 ,i ,,the saying that 8man shall not live by bread alone0 has been in familiar circulation so long and on authority so good that it is remarkable how slightly it has affected the general conduct of life4 ,bread and the things symbolised by bread in the saying are and must remain the first care of men1 but they are first only in the sense of being preliminary1 the necessary conditions of the main and supreme business of life4 ,yet modern civilisation as a whole has shown no manifest sign of a conception of life which requires that the chief interest and energy of men should be directed to ends of a higher order than that of maintaining physical existence4 ,this fact is to some extent obscured from us by the elaborate development of commercial organisation1 so that multitudes of men are engaged in enterprises and vocations apparently so removed from the actual business of clothing1 feeding and housing other men that they are not aware of being connected with it at all4 ,yet the entire structure of commerce rests upon the requirement that certain primary physical needs of men must be met4 ,that men shall be fed1 clothed1 sheltered1 provided with heat and light1--here is the source of commerce4 ,around these primary needs certain other demands have gathered--for elaboration in food and clothing1 comfort in the home1 and the like2 and a multitude of commercial activities of a secondary kind have been set afoot and added to the sufficiently complex business of providing society with the first necessities of life4 ,this secondary life of commerce is mainly parasitical and feeds upon the other1 and its vitality depends as much upon the success with which demands are ingeniously created as upon the power to produce the supply profitably4 ,added to this vast business of production is an enormous machinery of distribution2 and in these or in financial operations1 originally derived from them but now largely controlling them1 we are all more or less directly engaged4 ,there are a few professional occupations which remain outside this classification1 which 7to use ,carlyle's phrase7 8are boarded and lodged on the industry0 of the community to which they belong1--the doctor1 the clergyman1 the lawyer1 the teacher1 the actor1 the artist1 the journalist2 yet so strong and imperious is the commercial tradition that the non-productive vocations are required to justify their existence by providing the inspiration1 the health1 the recreation and the knowledge necessary to the effectual and prosperous working of the economic machine4 ,society seems 7outside the 8leisure class07 feverishly engaged in keeping itself alive4 ,yet if its only purpose were to keep itself alive1 it would not need to be so busy4 ,but to the first impulse of production and exchange has been added another interest1 that of making profit and accumulating wealth4 ,in the process of exchange the opportunity was found of securing a margin of personal advantage2 and gradually this margin of personal advantage has become the chief incentive to commercial enterprise4 ,it does not belong to our purpose to trace the history of this change2 it is enough that we should observe the fact that the profit-seeking motive has become the real driving force of modern commerce1 and that historical circumstances1 such as the introduction of large scale processes1 the world-wide ramifications of commerce through improved facilities of travel and transportation1 the invention of the telephone and the telegraph1 the growth of trusts1 combines1 and monopolies have made possible fabulous increments and accumulations of profit4#ab ,footnote #ab3 ,for an analysis of the process by which simple barter has grown into the modern intricate system of commerce1 with its fine flower in 8big finance10 see ,thorstein ,veblen1 ,the ,instinct of ,workmanship1 chap4 ,v41 ,,vi41 ,,viii4 ,more summarily in ,geddes and ,slater1 ,ideas at ,war1 ,chap4 ,,iii41 ,,iv41 ,v4 ,for a useful analysis of the current commercial organisation see ,cole1 ,self-,government in ,industry1 pp4 #agh1 #agi4 ,the effect of this upon a generation habituated to the profit-making temper has been to set up the multi-millionaire as the type of perfection toward which aspiring youth should be encouraged to strive4 ,we go into business not to feed and clothe each other1 but to make money2 and since from the nature of the case only comparatively few of us have the capacity and the opportunity to become commercial supermen1 the rest of us remain in business to feed and clothe ourselves1 or 7as we say7 to 8make a living40 ,commerce1 which owes its origin to social need1 has almost wholly lost the social motive4 ,if we are not making money ourselves1 we hire ourselves out as the money-making tools of others2 and while some of us aim at larger profits1 the rest of us hope for larger wages4 ,the economic motive is universal1 and it expresses itself exclusively in the pecuniary standard4 8,the ,almighty ,dollar0 is more than a gratuitous exercise in satire1 it describes the spirit of an age4 ,much has been heard since the war began of the profiteer1 on both sides of the ,atlantic1 and on both sides of the quarrel4 ,but the profiteer is not a phenomenon peculiar to war-time4 ,like the poor1 he is always with us2 the war has but served to reveal him more vividly in his proper character4 ,his peculiar crime is that he makes the extremity of his country the opportunity of private gain4 ,but what he does in time of war1 he does no less sedulously in time of peace4 ,his sin takes a deeper dye in war-time because the national need is greater1 and his opportunity is much enlarged4 ,yet the story of how 8big business0 has endeavoured1 and has largely succeeded in the endeavour to control the legislative machinery of the nations in its own interests in normal times1 is a very deplorable and shameful chapter in modern history4 ,it is1 of course1 no new thing that legislatures should show themselves tender to economic interests2 there is even yet no legislature in the world which is not more careful of the rights of property than of the welfare of men--except1 perhaps1 in ,russia4 ,by a curious paradox1 those who most jealously guarded the sanctities of property1 were once the implacable critics of commercial enterprise1 but that phase has passed away4 ,landed aristocracies1 no less than bourgeois manufacturers1 have been so seduced by the lure of large and swift gain that the old line of demarcation has disappeared2 and the doctrine of property rights has been invoked to secure the sanctity of the capitalist system of industry4 ,the 8governing classes0 in ,europe and ,america1 who to-day are the economically powerful1 have become an unholy alliance which exploits the state in the interests of trade4 ,it is not the ,english brewers and publicans only who say1 8our trade1 our politics10 though these particular people may be the only ones who have the effrontery to say so in public4 ,it is always the profiteer's cry2 and whenever in the past a piece of social legislation has been introduced in ,england1 he raises the scare cry that 8capital will leave the country10 which simply means that he esteems his profits more highly than he does his country4 ,he is the author of the inspiring doctrine that 8trade follows the flag02 which prostitutes national idealism to the sordid business of profiteering2 and so deeply has this poison entered into our life that ,christian missions to the non-,christian world are frequently commended on the ground that they do pioneering work for the trader4 ,all this is1 of course1 trite and commonplace2 and ever since the early part of the nineteenth century there has been a continuous and increasing note of protest against the modern commercial doctrine of competitive profit-making4 ,it must1 however1 be admitted that the protest has not gained much headway against the evil2 on the contrary the evil has1 during this same period1 grown by leaps and bounds1 so that the earlier twentieth century witnessed its supreme achievements4 ,mr4 ,john ,d4 ,rockefeller is the tragical culmination of the process in our generation2 and there is no reason to suppose that he is the last1 or greatest figure of the line of ,crsus4 ,nor will the subordination of life to the business of pecuniary gain be effectually stayed until we seriously take in hand the profiteering ideology which governs all our thought and conduct4 ,the main ingredient in the social heredity of this generation is the profit-making impulse2 that is the atmosphere which it has breathed and which constitutes its habitual universe of discourse4 ,art and religion alike have been infected with the spirit2 the current repute of an artist is fixed by the prices which his pictures command2 and the prosperity of a ,christian congregation is judged by its statistical returns4 ,it is required of education that it shall minister primarily to commercial efficiency2 and the outcry against the study of the classics1 and the demand for a more exclusively scientific and technical education reflect the essentially commercial orientation of our educational outlook4 ,it is1 perhaps1 the most deplorable aspect of this latter tendency that it so often becomes vocal in persons whose academic training should have provided them with a more discriminating view of life4 ,even in the universities1 which should be the impregnable citadels of spiritual idealism1 there is an inclination to capitulate to the monstrous and deadly doctrine that the end of national life is commercial supremacy4 ,commerce originated in social need and should be a social service2 nor indeed has its perversion to profit-making prevented it from rendering substantial services to society4 ,apart from its provision of the necessities of life1 many of its inventions have added much to the wealth of life independently of their immediate purposes4 ,the unique facilities for travel which we moderns enjoy owe their origins in the first instance to the demand for better commercial transport4 ,stephenson's first locomotive was intended to haul coal trucks4 ,the increasing socialisation of life in our time owes much to the economic motive that has popularised the telegraph and the telephone2 and the supreme achievement of ,mr4 ,henry ,ford is not a miracle of standardised production1 but the contribution which his car has made to the socialisation of the farmer's life4 ,our knowledge of the earth's surface and its peoples1 and through this1 one of the foundations of the coming internationalism1 we owe greatly to the enterprise of the trader4 ,for a hundred great services beyond its ministry to the elementary human needs of food and clothing1 we are debtors to commerce and to those merchant venturers in many ages who laid its broad modern foundations4 ,yet just because we acknowledge a manifest debt even to profiteering commercial enterprise1 it is the more necessary that we should assail its modern ascendency over life1 and its own perversion to individual aims1 and point out the havoc which its more modern developments have wrought4 ,it would be foolish and undiscriminating to say that it is the sole source of our social confusion1 but it is simple truth to say that it has become its chief direct occasion2 and the result is to be traced to the circumstances which have changed commerce from its essential function as a great social service to a scramble for private gain4 ,the restoration of commerce to its own proper place and office is bound up with a recovery of a true view of life as a whole1 with a new understanding of those things other and greater than bread by which it is ordained that men shall live4 ,,ii ,the paramountcy of the economic motive is no modern phenomenon1 and it would be a mistake to identify it exclusively with the modern commercial civilisation4 ,its modern beginnings are no doubt to be found in the appearance of the small merchant class in the era of craftsmanship2 and the difference between him and the merchant prince of the twentieth century is mainly a difference of scale--this difference being chiefly due to the high mobility of property when it assumes the form of money1 and the increased facilities for mobilising it through the development of the credit system and the improvement in the means of communication4 ,the fundamental impulses and instincts which determine the social order are broadly identical throughout history4 ,that is why ,marx' economic interpretation of history is probably the most luminous and fruitful clue to the course of human affairs that historical study has yet yielded to us4 ,we are not justified in assuming 7as some have done7 that it is the only valid clue2 still less are those disciples of ,marx justified who have developed his theory of historical interpretation into the metaphysical dogma of economic determinism4 ,that economic factors have controlled the general drift of human affairs in the past does not necessarily mean that they are predestined to do so in perpetuity4 ,yet even those who most vehemently denounce the existing profit-making organisation of society are still obsessed by the notion that social transformation is chiefly an affair of economic revolution4 ,their thought appears to run wholly within the economic circle4 ,it is in some respects the strangest paradox of modern times that the ,russian people with their long and unique tradition of spirituality should have been so completely captured 7to all appearance7 by the doctrinaire materialism of the ,marxian school and have accepted the view that the ,kingdom of ,heaven comes by a proletarian capture of economic power4 ,the circumstance is1 of course1 capable of explanation1 for in ,russia1 as elsewhere1 political power has gone with economic power2 and the ,russian revolutionary knew what the ,frenchman of #aghi did not know1 namely1 that no political revolution could be complete or permanent which was not an economic revolution at the same time4 ,that1 therefore1 the ,russian revolution should have been primarily economic is not strange--since ,marx had lived and written in the interval between #aghi and #aiag2 but it remains a somewhat singular fact that the spiritual idealism of ,feodor ,dostoievsky and ,lyof ,tolstoi have been so little manifest during these last surprising months4 ,this preoccupation with economic change is characteristic of the attitude of those everywhere who are most urgent in their endeavour after social transformation4 ,the advocates of the ,national ,guild ,movement are never weary of reiterating that political power belongs to those who wield economic power1 and of urging that the workers should make themselves masters of the economic resources of society as the necessary preliminary of laying hold of the political power4#ac ,this may be a sound counsel of immediate strategy2 but it is full of disaster if it is treated as a permanent principle of social practice4 ,for it leaves us still within the vicious circle where the purely economic interests are paramount4 ,whensoever we consent to the statement that the one thing needful to society is a more equitable distribution of the wealth which its industry produces1 we are still within the same hopeless universe of discourse4 ,a more equitable distribution of wealth is needed2 so much is obvious4 ,but having secured it1 what then8 ,will the ,city of ,god then come down from heaven8 ,or are we content with the hope of a redeemed society which goes no farther than a vision of a community of healthy and contented animals8 ,it is certain that1 so long as our thought of social regeneration moves chiefly within the existing framework of wealth production and wealth distribution1 our effort will create a range of new social problems of an acute and probably less soluble kind4 ,that we should labour to humanise and to socialise the existing commercial and industrial organisation goes without saying2 but there is no certainty that after we have done so1 the same economic pre-occupation will not still fill our minds4 ,it is not enough to work for change that only transfers the power to produce and to enjoy wealth from the hands of a small minority to those of the great majority4 ,that is indeed only change1 and not necessarily progress4 ,there will be fewer people with more butter on their bread than they need2 and fewer people with less than they need2 and that will be something gained4 ,but it does not necessarily follow that we will not still be chiefly concerned about bread and butter1 and whatever elaborations upon that simple theme that our enlarged resources may tempt us to seek4 ,footnote #ac3 ,this is not to be taken as meaning that the ,national ,guild ,movement is destitute of a spiritual outlook4 ,on the contrary1 see1 for instance1 the last chapter of ,s4 ,g4 ,hobson's ,guild ,principles in ,war and ,peace4 ,this is not in any sense an argument for spending less energy upon the urgent task of accomplishing the radical economic changes which social well-being plainly requires2 it is rather a renewed plea that we should ask ourselves whether we are moving conformably with a vision of man and life as a whole4 ,whether we rank as reformists or revolutionists we should endeavour to see the evils we hate and the manner and matter of the remedy in the light of a philosophy of comprehensive and coherent human good4 ,the scheme of social insurance established in ,great ,britain before the war was a response to a definite social need2 but it is now no longer open to question1 that both in respect of its content1 and the method of its institution1 its promoters failed to appreciate the precise nature and conditions of the need2 and the final solution of the problem which evoked the measure has been confused and retarded4 ,and generally1 so long as we think exclusively of social advance in economic terms1 out of relation to their context in life1 we are subordinating the greater thing to the lesser1 and are in continual danger of postponing the greater thing into an impossible future4 ,we become and remain virtual opportunists 7even though we call ourselves revolutionaries671 only moving spasmodically and incoherently within the very circle of institutions and tendencies which have wrought our present confusion1 until we have gained that social perspective in which the economic requirements of life take their proper place4 ,properly understood1 this place is a relatively humble one4 ,in our analysis of personality in the previous chapter1 four major instincts were defined4 ,the first1 the instinct of self-preservation has to do with the maintenance of physical life2 the second1 the third and the fourth1 as they appear in their full development1 are mainly concerned with the spiritual expression of life4 ,the first is the necessary basis of the other three--the foundation1 as it were1 upon which they build2 but the real significance and joy of life are associated predominantly with the impulses of creativeness1 sociability1 and reflection4 ,now1 the economic business of life has to do almost exclusively with the instinct of self-preservation2 its function ends with the provision of the conditions and materials of a wholesome physical existence4 ,yet to-day1 the economic interests absorb virtually the whole of life2 the ultimate interests of life--that range of things which we may broadly call spiritual1 if they are not subordinated to and absorbed in the economic motive1 are consigned to the odds and ends of time which we are able to spare from the sovereign business of making a fortune or making a living4 ,the distinctive human interests of religion1 thought1 art1 and recreation are no more than occasional alternatives which enable us to some extent to repair the wear and tear of the ceaseless economic drive4 ,the real revolution we need is the general conviction that to put it roughly--as the kitchen is to the home1 so the economic interest is to the rest of life4 ,the kitchen is indispensable to the home2 and there are exceptional persons to whom it is the most important part of the home4 ,yet it is no more than a strictly subordinate part of the home4 ,when we have finished with the business of procuring and eating bread1 then the real business of life begins4 ,it is indeed necessary that the kitchen should be in tune with home1 and that the work of producing and distributing the primary necessities of life should be organised so as to be consistent with the spiritual realisation of life4 ,we can1 of course1 no longer admit a dualism of material and spiritual2 for the spiritual may and must infuse the material and subordinate it to its own ends4 ,to-day the material has made the spiritual ancillary to itself2 and the soul is the drudge of the body4 ,the radical problem of the future is how to reverse this position and to enthrone the spiritual4 ,what the spiritual realisation of life implies we can no more than dimly guess4 ,we may speak of love and art2 but the potentialities of social and creative achievement in human nature have yet to be explored4 ,a material civilisation has largely kept mankind in a state of arrested development on every side save that which has to do with the conditions of its physical life4 ,psychology is busily1 though not yet very successfully1 explaining that hidden world of life which lies beyond the frontiers of consciousness2 there are 7and this is virtually all we can say7 vast possibilities and powers latent within us of which we have only occasional and indistinct intimations4 ,we have tested the power and the range of those endowments of which we are already aware2 and the triumphs of art and science show how nobly and richly our nature is equipped4 ,nevertheless1 all that art and science have yet accomplished are but the promise of that glory that is still to be4 ,but the full release of all our powers--known and unknown--is contingent upon a social setting more richly human1 that is to say1 more spiritual in temper1 and outlook1 than mankind has hitherto known4 ,this social setting will come when we make up our minds to break the tyranny of the economic motive and to deliver life from the infamous despotism of things4 ,no man knows to what heights of creative achievement and personal self-realisation we may not attain when once the economic preoccupation which swallows our best energies is dissipated1 and we are free to become all that we have it in us to be1 when powers of fellowship and creation now inert and unknown are awakened in us1 and we press on to those peaks of attainment of which prophets have spoken and which angels have desired to see4 ,,iii ,the task before us1 therefore1 is the deliverance of life from the ascendency of the economic motive2 and at bottom this means the redemption of commerce from the obsession of profit-making4 ,in other words1 commerce must be conceived and conducted as a social service4 ,it is true that in the early days of modern commercialism1 the principle of competition was regarded as the heaven-sent panacea for human ills4 ,men became dithyrambic about laissez-faire1 and though they perforce admitted that the growth of the commercial system had caused certain glaring evils1 yet they maintained that these were no more than the inevitable accidents of a process of readjustment4 ,let the system only work out its inherent logic to the end1 and there will be a golden age for everybody4 ,the system has had a fair trial2 and so far from achieving the results confidently predicted by its advocates1 it has failed hopelessly to provide even a tolerably secure and sufficient subsistence for the great mass of men4 ,it is indeed difficult to see how it could be otherwise or how those who uphold it could have expected a different result4 ,there is no doubt that the system has stimulated the production of wealth2 and this its protagonists accurately foresaw2 but they apparently supposed that the distribution of wealth would look after itself4 ,it had indeed done so1 in a fashion which has deprived the mass of toilers of that security of physical subsistence which is a necessary condition of liberty and of the liberation of the spiritual impulses4 ,so far from adequately fulfilling the elementary services of providing men with a steady and reasonable supply of the necessities of life1 it has made life itself insecure and precarious4 ,how this situation has come about may be stated summarily in a few words3 7a7 ,the pursuit of profit tends to lower the cost of production1 while it raises the price of the product4 ,chief among the costs of production is the payment of labour1--that is to say1 wages4 ,the result of this tendency is to depress the income of the worker and at the same time to raise his expenditure and since there is no limit fixed at either end the standard of life is in constant danger of being lowered beneath the point of reasonable subsistence4 ,it often happens that wages show an increase over given periods of time2 but it is an increase of money-wages and not of real wages2 since the period of wage-increase is generally also a period of a disproportionate increase in the price of commodities4 ,some check has been placed upon the decrease of wages by ,trade ,union action2 but this is offset by the partial elimination of competition in the markets through the growth of ,trusts and ,combines1 and the consequent upward tendency of prices4 7b7 ,this insecurity is accentuated by the fact that the maintenance of profits frequently require a check upon productivity in order to tighten the market by reducing the supply of commodities4 ,it is estimated that in ,america this interference with production has kept productivity down anywhere between twenty-five and fifty per cent4 below its possible maximum4 ,this obstruction is effected by such devices as the diminution of working hours1 dismissal of workmen1 and periodic stoppages of work4 7c7 ,a further element of insecurity is to be found in the circumstance that labour is itself treated as a commodity1 subject to market fluctuations1 its price governed by the relation of supply to demand1 like any other commodity4 ,in order to prevent an undue rise in the price of labour1 the industrial system has evolved a reserve of labour1 commonly called unemployment4 ,in normal times1 there is in every trade a chronic margin--varying in amount--of unemployed men2 and no man knows when his turn may come to fall into the reserve4 ,it naturally happens that the less efficient man goes first--the man least equipped to face the demoralising effects of unemployment4 ,the result is that he degenerates into an unemployable and swells the volume of the human driftwood of our social order4 7d7 ,insecurity arises also from the unquestioned and unchallenged authority of the owners or representatives of the invested capital1 against whose verdicts there is no appeal4 ,the worker is at the absolute mercy of the master or the foreman2 and he can usually find work only at the sacrifice of his freedom4 ,should he display any signs of restiveness and be dismissed1 the growth of ,trusts and ,employers' ,associations has made it possible to deny him employment within the area over which such bodies exercise control4 ,this takes no account of the dehumanising and despiritualising effects of the machine industry under the conditions of the profit system4 ,that is an aggravation of the situation which must be considered in another connection4 ,here we are concerned to note the failure of commerce under a profit system to provide the conditions of security of life for the mass of men4 ,and not the least disastrous consequence of this failure is the deep social schism it has engendered4 ,it has created the criminal antithesis of great wealth and great poverty in great cities1 and the virtually open warfare between capital and labour4 ,the investor and the employer are bent on larger dividends upon the outlay of capital2 the worker is seeking a larger return upon his outlay of labour4 ,in the struggle the worker is at a disadvantage4 ,for while capital and labour1 the producers1 are fighting1 the casualties of the struggle are chiefly among the consumers4 ,but the consumers are mostly composed of the labourer and the tenement-dweller1 that is to say1 the working-class itself4 ,so that the worker in the struggle is divided against himself4 ,if he is successful in his struggle for higher wages1 the advantage is lost through the increased price of commodities2 for the employer pays the higher wages out of higher prices4 ,in the issue1 the worker is caught in the vicious circle of a continuous struggle against himself1 which to dependence and insecurity adds an unending confusion4 ,no question is here raised as to the legitimacy of profit2 we are concerned only to point out the consequences of a system which permits an unlimited expansion of profits2 and it should be clear that the redemption of commerce and its restoration to the status of the social service it should be1 are to be wrought first by imposing a limit upon profit-making4 ,this requires two measures3 ,first1 the production and distribution of the necessities of life should be definitely placed outside the sphere of competition4 ,the ,british ,labour ,party in its memorandum on reconstruction1 proposes that the coal-supply shall be so organised that the ordinary householder shall be able to have his coal delivered at his door1 at a uniform price all over the country and all through the year--just as he buys postage stamps4 ,but the principle should be extended to all the essential commodities4 ,flour1 milk1 coal1 meat1 wool1 cotton and their immediate derivatives should be withdrawn from the circle of competitive commerce1 and be no more subject to the fluctuations of a market manipulated in the interest of profit-making than the water-supply is4 ,there is no reason why the supply of these primary articles should not be so regulated as to bear a reasonably constant proportion to the demand4 ,for those who argue that this would dislocate the customary economic processes1 a two-fold answer may be returned4 ,first1 that the customary economic processes deserve to be dislocated2 and second1 that the only possible justification of the customary economic processes is derived from an economic theory which is no longer relevant to the facts of life4 ,in point of actual fact1 the standardisation of prices has become in recent years increasingly common--the elimination of competition by the formation of trusts and combines has had the result of fixing prices with a considerable rigidity2 and during the war1 it has been done on a very large scale4 ,in neither case is it suggested by any one that it has had a deleterious effect upon commerce4 ,in this proposal for the standardisation of prices1 there is nothing new2 it is simply a revival of the medival custom of the justum pretium--according to which buyers and sellers and market authorities together determined a price for each commodity which should be equally fair to the producer and the consumer2 and a return to this practice--with such modifications as modern conditions require--is opposed only by those who still hold to the curious illusion that ,adam ,smith spoke the last word upon this subject4#ad ,footnote #ad3 ,revelations of after-war profiteering in ,great ,britain and ,america are creating a definite demand for standardisation of prices4 ,and if we are to have ,wages ,boards1 why not ,prices ,boards8 ,second3 ,a limit should be placed upon profits1 dividends1 incomes and fortunes4 ,this may be done by taxation1 inheritance duties and other devices already familiar to the managers of public finance4 ,we should agree to make it cease to be worth anyone's while to exploit the public1 by fixing rigid bounds to the accumulation of private wealth2 and this we may do with a good conscience4 ,for all wealth is socially produced2 and the society which produces it has the first claim upon it4 ,this is a position which can be challenged only by those who still hold that the possession of property confers upon its possessors a 8divine right0 to take the lion's share of the wealth produced by the industry of the whole community4 ,it will be maintained that measures of this kind will take away the incentive to industry and commercial progress4 ,but it may be pointed out in reply that the economic end of ,british life so far from being disastrously undermined by wholesale interference with economic laws during the war1 seems to have been in a rather healthier condition than it had ever known previously4 ,profits were limited2 prices were standardised2 the old competitive basis was largely suspended4 ,virtually all those incentives of self-regard and gain which we have been told were essential to economic development were put out of business4 ,yet production reached an unprecedented point1 both in quality and in amount4 ,another incentive was indeed operative2 but this incentive was not of the personal kind4 ,the peril of the nation in the great hazard of war evoked a social solidarity which proved a more powerful incentive to industry than the self-regarding instincts ever provided4 ,this is our sufficient answer to those who still hold to the cynical superstition that the only motives on which we can rely in dealing with human nature are those of selfishness4 ,what is needed to stimulate effort and devotion is the sense of direct participation in a great social task2 and there is no reason to suppose that the systematic education of a couple of generations may not make this same social idealism the normal driving force of national effort4 ,it is no doubt true that1 as things are1 only such a challenge to patriotic feeling as war brings1 could achieve such a result2 but it is our business to discover the stimuli which will make this same intensity of devotion a permanent fact4 ,but1 it may be said1 the economic conditions of wartime are abnormal1 and economic 8laws0 must be disregarded in the stress of national crisis4 ,this is1 of course1 partly true and partly untrue4 ,so far as production is concerned1 the only change that war requires is greater speed and greater volume2 the difference is one of degree and not at all of kind4 ,it is only in the region of finance that war-time conditions work havoc with economic 8laws02 and the experience of war-time has taught us the useful lesson that these 8laws0 have no permanent character4 ,they are on the contrary contingent and derivative affairs1 being no more than general statements concerning economic tendencies which are set afoot and sustained by the ways in which men habitually act4 ,if men could be induced to act differently1 then we should require to formulate a new set of 8laws40 ,the greatest revelation of the war in many respects is the tremendous achievement of industrial production in ,great ,britain under the influence of a social emotion1 and without any of the common incentives of personal advantage4 ,it may be conceded that this social emotion was to some extent stimulated by a group antagonism1 but in the main it was the love of and the desire to preserve--in spite of its faults--that particular social synthesis described as ,british that lay behind this great performance4 ,and once more let it be repeated that the peril of war is not the only organ of social vision4 ,it is not pretended that commerce will be redeemed automatically by placing a limitation upon the profit-motive2 but without such a limitation1 it cannot be redeemed at all4 ,it must enter into our scheme to provide means of kindling the social vision which will transform commerce into a social service2 and this implies certain changes of temper and method in the system of education4 ,there is no reason why we should not come to regard the business of feeding and clothing the people as much a department of the public service as that of educating or that of providing them with water or the time of day1 or of transmitting their correspondence2 and there is no reason for supposing that a right education will not provide in time as effectual a spur to patriotism as the peril of war4 ,,iv ,it is1 however1 not enough to standardise the cost of living and to impose a limit upon profits2 for we have still no adequate guarantee against a lowering of the standard of life4 ,it does not necessarily follow that the surplus profits will go to the raising of wages1 or that standardised prices will make for a sufficient living4 ,it is necessary to define a minimum standard of life4 ,the demand for a minimum wage is a beginning in this direction1 but under the profit system1 the minimum wage defined as a money-wage is something of a snare4 ,for so long as prices tend to fly upward1 no minimum wage can effectually prevent a depression of the standard of life4 ,it is only as we succeed in fixing a minimum 8real wage0 which takes account of the cost of living that we approach a satisfactory estimate4 ,but1 again1 under the present system--the relation of supply to demand in the labour market will render even a minimum 8real wage0 exceedingly precarious4 ,the only satisfactory solution of this difficulty is to dissolve the connection between work and wages4 ,the assumption that men will not work unless they must is not true2 but it is the truth that while men are compelled to work by the coercion of fear--whether of hunger or of punishment--they will not do the most or the best work of which they are capable4 ,that workmen nowadays are apt to do as little as they can for as much as they can get is not to be disputed2 and organised labour combines with its demand for larger wages another demand for fewer working hours1 and under certain conditions imposes restrictions on output4 ,but this is simply the answer in kind which labour returns to capital4 ,it is the vicious sequel of a vicious system4 ,capital buys in the cheapest and sells in the dearest market2 and labour having been brought up in the same school does the same thing4 ,if capital tries to extort as much as it can out of labour1 it is not to be wondered at that labour should take a hand in the game4 ,we have to recognise that the best workmanship requires two conditions2 first--that the worker shall have a direct interest in the thing he produces1 second1 that he shall enjoy the freedom which comes from a sense of guaranteed security4 ,to the former we shall have to return at a later stage in the argument4 ,concerning the latter1 we have seen how the present system exposes the worker to a grave and vexatious insecurity4 ,it is stupid to suppose that men will habitually put their best into their work under such conditions as these4 ,the whole system is intrinsically demoralising to all whom it touches4 ,it is demoralising to the employer because he comes to regard the worker as a mere 8hand10 a tool2 and that is a frame of mind which saps his own manhood4 ,it is demoralising to the worker because it treats his physical energy as a thing to be bought and sold at a price1 the highest price he can extort2 and since a man's labour is actually inseparable from his person1 it reduces him to a condition of servility1 which1 within a certain limit1 is as real as that of a chattel slave4 ,he has neither independence nor security4 ,over against this state of things1 we must affirm that a man's subsistence shall be guaranteed to him as a customary practice1 in good weather and in bad1 in sickness and in health1 in work or unemployment4 ,the ,british ,labour ,party's proposal of a national minimum standard of life universally enforced is certainly one of the cornerstones of a wholesome social order4 ,the cynic will probably say that this will be the paradise of the slacker2 and no doubt there would be some persons base enough to evade their share of productive labour4 ,but we can count upon the public opinion of a society in which freedom has created a new sense of social obligation and a new quality of fellowship1 to make a slacker's life not worth living4 ,it may very fairly be doubted whether at the worst the slacker who remained incorrigible would constitute so great a tragedy--either in number or in kind--or constitute so clear evidence of the bankruptcy of a system as do the innumerable and increasing derelicts of the present industrial order4 ,these three measures1 the standardisation of the cost of living1 the limitation of profits1 the institution of a minimum standard of life are necessary to the redemption of commerce4 ,for to redeem commerce1 we must in the first instance1 take away from it the power and the opportunity of exploiting life for the ends of private gain4 ,but this process secures another result4 ,it ensures for the mass of the people a reasonable security and sufficiency of physical subsistence1 so that the pre-occupation with self-preservation need no longer arrest their spiritual development4 ,we establish the foundations of freedom--freedom from fear1 from anxiety1 from the autocracy of the employer or his agent--and confer upon the ordinary man a new status1 in which we may with good hope expect to find him susceptible to a social vision powerful to evoke his devotion and to bring his will into captivity to its obedience4 ,commerce and industry will then no longer be a vast scramble of competition and exploitation1 but a generous social co-operation4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,iv4 ,,the ,,redemption ,,of ,,work4 8,and the men of labour spent their strength in daily struggling for breath to maintain the vital strength they laboured with4 ,so living in a daily circulation of sorrow1 living but to work1 and working but to live1 as if daily bread were the only end of a wearisome life1 and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread40--,,daniel ,,defoe4 8,and perfect the day shall be1 when it is of all men understood that the beauty of holiness must be in labour as well as in rest4 ,nay6 more1 if it may be1 in labour2 in our strength rather than in our weakness2 and in the choice of what we shall work for through the six days and may know to be good at their evening time1 than in the choice of what we pray for on the seventh1 of reward and repose4 ,with the multitude that keep holiday we may perhaps sometimes vainly have gone up to the ,house of the ,lord and vainly there have asked for what we fancied would be mercy2 but for the few who labour as their ,lord would have them1 the mercy needs no seeking1 and their wide home no hallowing4 ,surely goodness and mercy shall follow them all the days of their life1 and they shall dwell in the ,house of the ,lord for ever40--,,john ,,ruskin4 ,,the clue to the approaching change in the social order is to be found in the mind of organised labour4 ,what organised labour is resolved to achieve1 that it will achieve soon or late4 ,hitherto we have been concerned in these pages with an enquiry1 more or less speculative1 into the conditions and measures required for a wholesome social evolution4 ,how far does the present tendency of organised labour correspond with the general lines of progress which our enquiry has so far constrained us to define8 ,it will not be necessary1 in order to answer this question1 to survey the whole field of labour policy4 ,for our present purpose we may neglect on the one hand the conservative element in the labour movement1 and the extreme revolutionary element on the other4 ,this does not imply a judgment on either2 it simply means that we shall reach a safer judgment upon the direction in which labour is minded to go by considering the central mass of the movement2 and of this central mass it may be affirmed with some assurance that its best mind has received a more coherent and detailed interpretation in ,great ,britain than elsewhere4 ,we shall1 therefore1 consider the general tendency of the progressive elements in the ,british ,labour ,movement4 ,it will not be necessary to raise the question of ways and means at this point4 ,it is a question upon which strong views are held on both sides--whether labour is to attain its goal by political or industrial action1 by gradual approach or by some catastrophic method such as the general strike4 ,but the question of method does not arise at this point2 our present object is to examine so far as we may the goal which organised labour is pursuing4 ,i ,the ,trade ,union movement originated in the necessity to provide some remedy for 8the helplessness in which since the industrial revolution1 the individual workman stood in relation to the capitalist employer and still more in relation to the joint-stock company and the national combine or trust40 ,in this initial stage it was governed by what ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb has called the 8,doctrine of ,vested ,interests10 and it was chiefly concerned with securing those concessions and safe-guards which constitute the 8,trade ,union ,conditions0 to the suspension of which ,british ,labour consented for the period of the war4 ,these conditions affected the rate of wages1 the length of working day1 overtime1 night work1 ,sunday duty1 mealtimes1 holidays1 and included a countless multitude of details affecting processes1 machines1 the employment of boys and girls1 the limitation of output1 and other related subjects--the whole being an inconceivably intricate patchwork of concessions and advantages gained as the result of innumerable local skirmishes and negotiations4 ,the policy at this stage may be properly described as one of 8nibbling0 at the enemies' lines1 of raiding his trenches as opportunity offered or need required2 and it is a commonplace what large and substantial advantages these operations have yielded to the workers as a whole1 whether unionists or not4 ,but it was not possible that these piece-meal tactics should continue to be the chief weapon of a growing1 highly organised movement which was gaining a kind of self-consciousness and a common mind2 and gradually out of the experience of the ,unions grew the 8,doctrine of the ,common ,rule40 ,the main emphasis has now shifted from the local and sectional problem to that of establishing and maintaining a ,standard ,rate of ,wages and a normal ,working ,day4 ,this change is naturally marked by the appearance of a large scale strategy in place of the local and occasional tactics of the earlier stage2 and the earlier type of labour leader is rapidly disappearing in favour of persons who are able to bring some gifts of statesmanship to the problems of labour4 ,this is not to say that the earlier doctrine has been abandoned2 rather it has been supplemented and overshadowed by the new orientation4 ,but a situation has recently arisen which will probably bring about the permanent and general supremacy of the ,common ,rule doctrine4 ,the urgencies of war-production made it desirable and necessary that the achievements of the earlier unionism should be suspended2 and all the intricate machinery of safeguards and restrictions was willingly laid on one side for the period of the war4 ,but it is now evident that even with the best will in the world1 this restoration1 as it was originally guaranteed1 has become impracticable4 ,events in industry have moved so rapidly that it is impossible to retrace our steps to the ante-bellum period and to pick up the lines of life where we dropped them in #aiad4 ,at first sight it would appear that this result proved that the whole achievement of the earlier union activity had been of a peculiarly fragile and slender kind4 ,yet1 despite this circumstance1 the ,british ,trade ,unions have grown considerably during the war1 this growth being doubtless due to the increasing sense that only a strong corporate movement of the workers will be able to establish for them the necessary conditions of a secure and independent life1 and in particular such improvements in their position1 in respect of wages and other matters1 as they have been able to gain during the war4 ,it now seems likely that the outcome of the situation created by the impossibility of restoring the status quo ante1 and the increase of ,trade ,union strength1 will be the general acceptance of the ,doctrine of the ,common ,rule and a programme based upon it2 and the demand for the ,restoration of ,trade ,union ,conditions may take the form of a demand for certain general standards of life and labour4 ,already1 it is fairly evident that the least that labour will demand will be what ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb calls 8the ,new ,industrial ,charter0 in which there are five articles3 7i47 the prevention of unemployment2 7ii47 the maintenance of standard rates of wages2 7iii47 a 8constitution0 for factory and industry1 i4e4 the introduction of a measure of democratic control over the conditions of work2 7iv47 no limitation of output2 7v47 freedom for every worker4#ae ,the 8charter0 as it stands1 represents a minimum demand2 it certainly does not run to revolutionary excess and contemplates no organic change in the existing framework of the industrial order4 ,with its probable economic effects we are not now concerned1 but it is important to notice the emphasis which it lays upon the standing of the worker4 ,the charter aims to give him security against unemployment1 a share in the control of the conditions under which he works1 and freedom from the autocratic dictation of employer or foreman1 and from the coercion of necessity4 ,even this moderate measure would undoubtedly bring a great accession of independence to the ordinary worker4 ,further1 this charter applies to all workers1 not to unionists alone2 for once the ,standard ,rate and the ,normal ,day are conceded1 the old invidious necessity of making war upon non-unionists disappears2 and with it1 to the great good of all concerned1 the demoralising custom of imposing restrictions upon output4 ,footnote #ae3 ,the whole position is discussed in its relation both to the employer and to the worker in ,mr4 ,webb's brochure3 ,the ,restoration of ,trade ,union ,conditions4 ,since these passages were written1 the increased demands here foreshadowed have been definitely made4 ,,ii ,this 8charter0 will not be granted without a struggle4 ,the greed and amour propre of some employers1 and the stupidity of others1 will interpose great obstacles to its institution4 ,the great growing strength of organised labour1 however1 guarantees a comparatively early capitulation of the intransigent employers4#af ,but it would be a mistake to suppose that this is all that is implied in the present temper of labour4 ,a good deal of what labour is looking to has not yet reached the stage of articulation1 but it is impossible to misapprehend the general direction in which it is moving4 ,the socialist propaganda1 even if it has not always been as prolific of conversions as its promoters desired1 has been a singularly potent instrument of education1 and if the workers as a whole have not accepted the conclusions of the socialist1 it is most certain that they have been profoundly moved by his premises4 ,probably more than any other influence it has stimulated the spirit of revolt against a permanent division of society by a line of economic privilege2 and it has encouraged a very real insurgency against the idea1 so comforting to the fortunate classes1 that it is the duty of all persons to be content in that station of life into which ,providence has been pleased to call them4 ,while the rich believed that their duty to their less fortunate neighbours was an affair of charity1 the ,socialist had taught the poor to cry for justice4 ,the chief achievement of the ,socialist movement up to this time lies less in the acceptance of its doctrines than in the new sense of right which it has succeeded in awakening1 even in many to whom the very term socialism still represents a dangerous and forbidding spectre4 ,and it is this sense of right1 the refusal to accept as permanent and just a state of exploitation1 with the demand for economic freedom and independence1 which is working as an irresistible leaven in the mind of the worker-mass of our time2 often indeed1 inarticulately enough1 but in the minds of the better educated and most thoughtful workers1 beginning to express itself in specific requirements which far outstrip ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb's conservative interpretation of the present need4 ,footnote #af3 ,since these paragraphs were written1 a ,national ,industrial ,conference convened by the ,british ,government1 and composed of equal numbers of employers' and workers' representatives1 has reported unanimously in favour of a universal minimum wage and a universal maximum week4 ,the ,socialism popularly advocated during the last half-century1 is1 however1 not likely to capture the working-class of to-day4 ,the movement for the nationalisation of the means of production and distribution--especially of the primary necessities of life--has indeed gained strength during the war2 and the public ownership doctrine of orthodox socialism is in no danger of being discarded1 though it may be modified in the extent of its application4 ,but the orthodox socialist plan of vesting economic and industrial control in the state will not survive the war4 ,the modern doctrine of the state reached its apogee during the war2 it is already in process of rapid discredit4 ,this is chiefly due to the revelation of the logic of state-absolutism1 which the ,german performance in the war has yielded2 and we are likely to witness a strong reaction from the doctrine of the sovereign omni-competent state in the coming generation4 ,moreover1 in ,england the working of the ,munitions ,act has proved that the state may be as harsh and troublesome an employer as a private individual or a corporation2 and the workers are not minded to emancipate themselves from the plutocracy to hand themselves over to a bureaucracy4 ,but how is public ownership to be made practicable without slate control8 ,the experiences of war-time have revealed a possible solution of the difficulty4 ,the ,garton ,foundation and the ,whitley ,committee1 the former a private1 the latter a parliamentary body1 and neither committed to 8labour0 views1 have been led by the study of industrial conditions in war-time to advocate introduction of democratic control into industry1 and experiments in democratic control which have been made1 have plainly demonstrated its practicability and its economic value4 ,in the woollen trades that centre upon ,bradford1 in ,yorkshire1 various troubles interfered with the output of cloth4 ,early in #aiaf the ,war ,office requisitioned the output of the factories for the production of khaki1 blankets1 and other war-material2 and a little later the ,government purchased all the available wool on the market4 ,the distribution of this wool to the factories was left by the ,army ,contracts ,department to a ,board of ,control which it established for the whole industry4 8,the allocation10 says a recent account of the matter1 8is carried out by means of a series of rationing committees4 ,there are district rationing committees of spinners1 of manufacturers1 and a joint rationing committee on which the ,trade ,unions are represented4 ,these committees ascertain all the facts about an individual firm's consumption of wool1 and the kind and quality of machinery that has been used4 ,from these data the rations are arranged for the several mills of the district1 while the ,government committee settles the rations for the several districts4 ,it is an extraordinarily interesting example of an industry regulating its life on a principle of equity instead of leaving the fortune of different mills and the fortunes of thousands of workmen's homes to the blind scramble of the market40 ,it is of interest further to observe concerning this experiment that when the ,government requisitioned the mills1 it established a method of payment which eliminated profit-making1 and the spinner and the manufacturer became virtually government servants4 ,this is worth remembering when it is urged that the incentive of profit is essential to industrial development1 especially in view of the conspicuous success of the experiment4 ,more to our immediate point1 however1 is that this is a definite experiment in democratic control1 for the organisation in which the ultimate control of the woollen industry was vested is composed of thirty-three members1 eleven each being appointed by the ,government1 the ,employers' ,associations1 and by the ,trade ,unions4 ,the experiment in the woollen trades goes farther than the measure of democratic control suggested by ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb in his charter4 ,for he contemplates no more than a democratic control of the actual conditions of work1 while the control of raw material is vested in the ,board of ,control of the woollen industries4 ,mr4 ,webb's suggestion is for 8workshop committees or shop stewards0 in every establishment having more than twenty operators1 to whom the employer should be required to communicate at least one week prior to their adoption any proposed new rules1 and also any proposed changes in wage-rates1 piece-work prices1 allowances1 deductions1 hours of labour1 meal-times1 methods of working and conditions affecting the comfort of the workshop4#ag ,mr4 ,webb himself would probably like a good deal more than this2 but in his brochure1 he frankly writes as one who believes that 8the most hopeful evolution of society 444 lies always in making the best rather than the worst out of what we find at the moment to hand40 ,but in point of fact1 very considerable extensions of the principle are already being canvassed2 and it is unlikely that organised labour will be long content with the timid bid for a share of industrial control which ,mr4 ,webb's proposal represents4 ,it is symptomatic of the present tendency that in the ,building ,trades a movement initiated by ,mr4 ,malcolm ,sparkes1 a ,london ,master ,builder1 looking toward the formation of an ,industrial ,parliament for the building trades1 has already been the subject of serious discussion both by the employers' associations1 and the trade unions concerned4 ,mr4 ,sparkes suggests that the ,parliament should be composed of twenty members appointed by the ,national ,association ,building ,trades ,council1 and twenty appointed by the ,federation of ,building ,trades ,employers1 and that it should meet regularly for constructive1 and not at all for arbitral or conciliatory purposes4 ,to this parliament would be remitted such matters as the regularisation of wages1 unemployment1 technical training and apprenticeship1 publicity1 and the investigation of possible lines of trade improvement4 ,but obviously such a parliament as ,mr4 ,sparkes suggests could have vitality and authority only as it stood at the top of a hierarchy of analogous bodies all the way up1 through provincial and district councils1 from the committee of the single shop4 ,footnote #ag3 ,the ,restoration of ,trade ,union ,conditions1 p4 #ie4 ,the principle of democratic control in industry has come to stay2 together with the doctrine of public ownership it will probably fix the accepted social policy of progressive labour4 ,already1 indeed1 this combination is to be found in the ,british ,labour ,party's memorandum on 8,labour and the ,social ,order40 ,the ,party 8demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist1 individual or joint-stock40 ,it stands 8unhesitatingly for the national ownership and administration of the ,railways and ,canals1 and their union1 along with ,harbours and ,roads1 and the ,posts and ,telegraphs 444 in a united national service of ,communication and ,transport1 to be worked1 unhampered by capitalist1 private and purely local interests1 and with a steadily increasing participation of the organised workers in the management1 both central and local1 exclusively for the common good40 ,and again1 the ,party 8demands the immediate nationalisation of mines1 the extraction of coal and iron being worked as a public service1 with a steadily increasing participation in the management1 both central and local1 of the various grades of persons employed40 ,it is no exaggeration to say that the principle of democratic control in industry1 especially under the conditions within which the ,british ,labour ,party contemplates it1 carries with it an entire change in the status of the worker4 ,for when we remember that with democratic control in industry1 the ,british ,labour ,party demands a universal application of the policy 8of the ,national ,minimum1 affording complete security against destitution1 in sickness and in health1 in good times and bad alike1 to every member of the community of whatever age or sex10 it is evident that we have the two requirements of that necessary revolution in the worker's standing which is the corner-stone of a worthy social order4 ,the worker is no longer dependent1 a pawn in the game of production1 an employed wage-earner1 a 8hand20 he has become a partner1 possessing both the freedom and the responsibility of partnership4 ,and it is no less evident that a great stride has been taken in the direction of separating work from the means of subsistence and abolishing 8wagery40 ,,iii ,there can be little doubt that the principle of public ownership with democratic control has received a great impulse from the able advocacy of what has come to be known as ,guild-,socialism4 ,the work guild in this connection is something more than a reminiscence of the medival institution2 the present movement has quite definite affinities with its historical precursor1 notably in the principle of combining all the members of a craft in co-operation4 ,but the 8national0 guild goes beyond its forbear in two respects--in the fact of being national where the older institution was local1 and in the account it necessarily takes of the more complex and specialised character of modern industry4 8,a national guild10 says ,mr4 ,s4 ,g4 ,hobson1 8is a combination of all the labour of every kind1 administrative1 executive1 productive1 in any particular industry4 ,it includes those who work with their brains and those who contribute labour power4 ,administration1 skilled and unskilled labour--every one who can work--are all entitled to membership40 ,this body of people will lease from the community the right and the means to carry on the industry with which it is concerned1 always providing that it shall be under conditions which safeguard the interests of all the people in respect of the products of the industry4 ,in the eyes of the guildsman1 the 8original sin0 of the existing industrial system is production for profit4 ,in his ,guild ,principles in ,peace and ,war1 ,mr4 ,s4 ,g4 ,hobson puts side by side 7inter alia7 the following figures1 7the particular year to which they belong is not given73 ,iron and ,steel ,railway ,industries4 ,construction4 ,net output #cj1idh1ajj #ag1ajc1ajj ,persons employed #bfb1bbe #bda1ebj ,net output per person #aah #ga ,average wage per person #fg #fg ,here are revealed two facts of great interest4 ,the first is that in railway construction1 which is chiefly for need and use1 the disparity between the average output and the average wage per person is only four pounds1 whereas the iron and steel industries1 where production is for profit1 the disparity is as high as fifty-one pounds4 ,railway construction represents output in locomotives1 rolling-stock and so forth which the railway companies make for their own use2 whereas the products of the iron and steel industries are destined for the market4 ,where product is for profit1 the excess of average output over the average wage is more than twelve times as great as where the production is for use4 ,this is connected with the fact that the iron and steel industries are chiefly concerned with the provision of dividends1 whereas in railway construction there is no such direct necessity4 ,the second fact of importance is that in both cases the average wage is the same4 ,this is the result of two circumstances--first1 the commodity-theory of labour1 according to which labour-power is regarded as a measureable marketable affair1 subject to the law of supply and demand and separate from the personality of the worker2 and second1 that reserve of labour commonly called unemployment1 the existence of which tends to moderate the fluctuations of the labour market4 ,it is in the interests of capital that there should be a permanent margin of unemployment in order that the price of labour should not become excessive at any time by reason of its scarcity4 ,in the past1 the maintenance of the unemployed was1 so far as their own members were affected1 assumed altogether by the ,trade ,unions2 but by the provisions of the ,national ,insurance ,act this has partly been laid upon the employer and upon the community as a whole4 ,but1 says the guildsman1 since the existence of a reserve of labour seems under present conditions inseparable from the conduct of the industry2 and since further1 it is impossible to secure that under no conditions there will not be some margin of unemployment1 the charge for the maintenance of the reserve of labour should be made to fall on the industry itself4 ,this1 however1 immediately destroys the commodity-theory of labour4 ,under such an arrangement1 the worker will be regarded not as a potential vendor of so much labour-power1 subject to the law of supply and demand1 and liable to lose his subsistence and that of his family by the chances of the market1 but as a regular member of a society which provides a financial reserve for the purpose of maintaining him when he falls into the labour reserve4 ,so once more1 we see the status of the worker transformed4 ,he ceases to be a 8hand10 and becomes a partner4 ,the 8national guild0 is really no more than the systematic development of this idea of partnership2 and because it insists that this partnership shall be real and not fictitious1 it rejects all schemes of democratic control in industry which 7like the ,garton ,foundation and the ,whitley schemes7 still retain the commodity-theory of labour1 and all schemes of profit-sharing which is the voluntary bounty of the employer4 ,the guildsman holds that the worker has a direct interest in the thing produced apart from his hire1 and that his contribution in the way of labour entitles him to a partnership in the industry as real as that of his employer1 and much more real than that of the investor who does no more than rake in his dividends4 ,to this principle of partnership1 there is1 of course1 no logical end but the elimination of the private employer1 whether an individual or a company1 and the combination of the administrative1 executive and productive labour in a given industry in some such way as is contemplated in the 8national guild40 ,under these conditions1 production for profit will be subordinated increasingly to production for need and use4 ,industry will be organised no longer in the interests of capital1 but in those of the community2 and the profits that may accrue will go to the community4 ,the conduct of the industry will be vested in a hierarchy of representative bodies which will consist of persons chosen to act on behalf of the various departments of production and administration2 and these bodies will range all the way up from the small shop council to the national council4 ,the guildsmen extend their vision further to a combination of national councils1 which will become the economic parliament of the nation1 empowered to handle its commercial and industrial affairs and leaving the legislature to occupy itself with those aspects of public life such as education1 health1 art1 local government and so forth which are now so grievously neglected and subordinated to the exigencies of the commercial life of the nation4#ah ,footnote #ah3 ,the proposed ,national ,industrial ,council recommended by the recent ,national ,industrial ,conference is plainly an instalment of the ,national ,guild ,council4 ,that roughly is the guild theory4 ,its great advantage is that while it eliminates competitive profit-making1 it also avoids through its emphasis upon democratic control1 the danger of excessive centralisation and bureaucratic control inherent in state socialism4 ,on the other hand it does not fall into the syndicalist error of antagonism to the state4 ,it is not without interest to point out here 7in anticipation of later discussion7 that the national guild reflects on the economic side the current tendency in political philosophy towards a doctrine of the state which regards it as multi-cellular in nature1 and would make it federalistic in practice1 in contrast with the emphasis of the last generation upon its unitary and absolutist character4 ,it would appear that sovereignty is destined to be distributed among a series of democratic functional controls4 ,the pressure of events has already validated many of the contentions of the guildsman4 ,we have seen how in the case of the woollen industries the ,government has initiated the practice of treating employers as its own paid servants1 has recognised the principle of democratic control1 has assumed the purchase and control of raw materials1 and has superseded production for profit by production for use2 we have here all the essentials of a national guild save one2 and that one thing needful is the short step from government control to public ownership4 ,naturally the end of the war will bring some reaction from the position thus achieved2 yet it is impossible not to believe that the need to increase the aggregate normal productivity of the nation1 imposed by the financial burdens of the war1 will ultimately compel a further development of these wartime tendencies4 ,certainly we have in the ,british ,labour ,party some guarantee that this movement will continue4 ,its memorandum on reconstruction virtually presupposes where it does not explicitly affirm the underlying principles of the guild-movement4 8,standing as it does for the ,democratic ,control of ,industry1 the ,labour ,party would think twice before it sanctioned any abandonment of the present profitable centralisation of purchase of raw materials2 of the present carefully organised #8rationing1' by joint committees of the trades concerned1 of the several establishments with the materials they require2 of the present elaborate system of #8costing' and public audit of manufacturers' accounts1 so as to stop the waste heretofore caused by the mechanical inefficiency of the more backward firms1 of the present salutary publicity of manufacturing processes and expenses thus ensured2 and on the information thus obtained 7in order never again to revert to the old-time profiteering7 of the present rigid fixing1 for standardised products1 of maximum prices at the factory1 at the warehouse of the wholesale trader1 and in the retail shop40 ,,iv 8,the question10 the ,memorandum continues1 8of the retail prices of household commodities is emphatically the most practical of all political issues to the woman elector4 ,the male politicians have too long neglected the grievances of the small household1 which is the prey of every profiteering combination40 ,and this brings us to the answer to our question how far the present orientation of labour satisfies the conditions we have laid down as necessary to worthy social progress4 ,the rigid fixing of the retail prices of household commodities1--the primary necessities of life--plainly substitutes the principle of production for need and use for that of production for profit2 and while this of itself does not eliminate the profiteer altogether1 it tends so to limit the area of exploitation as to bring the small household1 which is after all the unit of society1 within reasonable distance of a healthy security of material circumstance4 ,moreover1 the principle of the ,national ,minimum virtually dissolves the connection between work and the means of subsistence1 so that the worker gains security of maintenance and a large accession of freedom and independence4 ,still further1 the principle of democratic control brings to every worker complete immunity from exploitation by those upon whom an antecedent economic advantage has conferred power and enables him to graduate to the dignity and responsibility of partnership4 ,but what then8 ,having achieved this new status1 it is certain that he will not be satisfied4 ,for the thing that is stirring in the mind and heart of organised labour to-day is something much deeper than a desire for a more satisfactory physical life or for economic independence4 ,labour is indeed unable to make articulate more than the margin of the new desire of which it is aware2 but the phenomenon which we have called 8labour unrest0 properly understood1 is the result of a craving1 imperious and not to be denied1 for a larger life4 ,of this larger life the worker instinctively feels that economic security and independence are the indispensable pre-requisites4 ,according to the measure of his intelligence and insight1 he is aiming for these things4 ,that is the inwardness of the present stirrings of organised labour4 ,the worker knows that while he is compelled to hire himself out at a price in order to provide himself and his children with bread1 under conditions which make a sufficiency of bread permanently uncertain1 and which virtually deny him the opportunity of being anything more--from his first working day to his last--than the tool of interests from which he is powerless to detach himself1 he can never become the man he might be or experience the joy of life which his intuitions declare to be his rightful inheritance4 ,the greater part of life1 and especially of the worker's life1 is an unredeemed and unexplored tract2 and the possibilities hidden in those regions beyond1 eye hath not seen neither hath ear heard4 ,but dimly and indistinctly the worker has caught glimpses of this promised land and he has set his face that way4 ,but he has justly perceived that between him and the promised land lies the 8great divide0 of economic disinheritance with all that it entails of insecurity and bondage4 ,to-day he has come so far as to be in the very act of crossing this divide4 ,that he does not discern clearly what manner of life awaits him in his promised land is no wonder2 for none of us know1 since as yet none of us have tasted save only in brief and transitory moments the rare quality of the fellowship and the creative urge which belong to the life of spiritual freedom4 ,the ,british ,labour ,party speaks of 8the promotion of music1 literature1 fine art1 which have been under capitalism so grossly neglected1 and upon which1 so the ,labour ,party holds1 any real development of civilisation fundamentally depends40 ,this is a hint of the 8milk and honey0 of the promised land1 and it is only in hints we can speak until we have entered upon our inheritance of spiritual life1 and have begun to explore its untold riches4 ,but the road into that land is the road of economic freedom and independence2 and that is the road which organised labour is making to-day4 ,it has discovered that 8society1 like the individual1 does not live by bread alone1--does not exist only for perpetual wealth production40 ,if it makes bread and produces wealth1 it is only that men may live1 and living may together strive to achieve the glorious liberty of the sons of ,god4 ,it is a fair conjecture concerning the results of this general movement1 that it will ultimately assign to the economic interests of life their own proper secondary place4 ,with the gradual disappearance of private profit and wages will pass the present ascendancy of the economic motive over the whole of life4 ,it is significant of the intrinsic impulse of this movement that the promoters of the national guild movement should contemplate the separation of the conduct and control of the commercial and industrial elements of national life from the business of the national legislature1 so that that body may attend to things other and greater than bread4 ,this does not mean that the economic aspects of life will lose their proper importance2 it simply means that they will be deprived of their present paramountcy2 and how much that means for the right kind of social progress1 for the development of a completely human order of life1 it is impossible to do more than fancy4 ,but it will be a great day when men awaken to the fact that the centre of gravity of life is not in the body but in the mind4 ,v ,to have transformed the status of the worker is1 however1 only a part of the problem of work4 ,an industrial democracy may conceivably be no better than a glorified capitalist1 a national profit-making concern4 ,but this keeps us still within the vicious circle of economic domination1 with the dangers of degeneration greatly increased4 ,for in place of individuals exploiting individuals1 we should have nations endeavouring to exploit nations--with two certain consequences1 war and a reaction to competitive individualism2 and our last state would be worse than the first4 ,our complete emancipation from the economic motive requires not only a new status for the worker but a new doctrine of work4 ,industry must no more be conceived as a means of national wealth than of individual wealth4 ,the true doctrine of work is present in germ in the ,british ,labour ,party's formula of 8workers whether by hand or by brain40 ,the inclusion in one category of the industrial and professional classes should exert a very profound influence upon the popular attitude to manual labour4 ,much of the traditional habit of looking upon manual labour as being intrinsically inferior to brain work is due to a stupid lack of discrimination4 ,for skilled labour often requires as nice a co-ordination of mind and hand1 and as sensitive a nervous organisation as the most recondite surgery4 ,the competent engineer is in no sense the mental inferior of the accountant2 probably the engineer has on the whole the more highly organised mind2 yet the engineer is popularly assigned to a relatively lower social rating4 ,the conventional social divisions of those who work are entirely absurd and seem chiefly to depend upon the clothes one wears4 ,that toil is regarded as inferior which cannot be performed without soiling clothes of a more or less ceremonial cut4 ,but when once it is realised that the work of the physician or the clergyman is different only in kind and not in social worth from the work of the machinist or the farm-labourer1 we shall have a more reasonable basis for classification2 and though it is true that the minister 7being no more immune from the pressure of social atmosphere than other men7 has not been unmindful of his stipend or the doctor of his fee1 yet both callings have preserved enough of the ideal of disinterested social service to pass on something of the same impulse into occupations which the common mind regards solely as means of livelihood4 ,this indeed1 must be the first element in our doctrine of work4 ,it must be regarded primarily as a social service4 ,john ,ruskin long ago tried to teach us that in every nation there were four great intellectual professions3 the soldier's1 to defend it2 the pastor's1 to teach it2 the lawyer's1 to establish justice in it2 and the merchant's1 to provide for it2 and it was1 he added1 the duty of each of these on due occasion to die for it4 ,what was novel in ,ruskin's doctrine was that there was a due occasion on which a merchant should die for his country4 ,but why should we stop at the merchant8 ,there is no reason why this principle should not be extended to every kind of labour essential to the life of the nation4 ,at least there should be nothing inconceivable in the idea that every member of the community should develop the same degree and quality of social devotion4 ,and 7let it be repeated once more7 the industrial records of this time of war do make this expectation into something more than a chimra4 ,the splendid social devotion which the emergency of war has discovered and released should and could be made a permanent asset4 ,it is entirely a question of the right kind of education4 ,if the impending revolution in the worker's status brings with it 7as it should7 a sense of genuine partnership1 its natural sequel should be a growing consciousness of participation in a great social task4 ,every man would come to look upon his job as an integral and indispensable part of the common service4 ,this would add a new interest and worth even to the purely mechanical tasks which the growth of large-scale production has so greatly multiplied4 ,it would be no more than a partial solution of the entire problem involved in routine mechanical toil2 but it would go a great way towards mitigating its inevitable dreariness1 and it would certainly bring with it a quality of personal satisfaction in work which working for a living at a job in which one's sole interest is one's hire cannot possibly afford4 ,,vi ,yet neither the habit of regarding work as participation in a social task nor the element of comradeship which we may reasonably expect to grow out of such a way of conceiving work1 nor yet the amelioration of the purely external conditions of modern industrial production1 can possibly be accepted as furnishing a final solution of the problem of work4 ,it is probable that under existing conditions1 some such changes as these are all we can hope for over large areas of industrial life2 perhaps1 indeed1 without a general recognition of the real social significance of large scale production1 the best we can ever do will consist of further modification of industrial conditions along these lines4 ,yet all this does virtually nothing to make work a means of worthy self-expression4 ,the high degree of specialisation which has followed the introduction and improvement of industrial machinery1 confines large multitudes of people to occupations which consist of repeating the same small routine operation all day and every day2 and the mentally benumbing and demoralising consequences of this type of work is one of the commonplaces of social observation4 ,not the least of the social services of ,trade ,unionism is that it has furnished to men occupied in purely mechanical work an interest which has helped to keep their minds alive4 ,it is rarely recognised how inevitably certain of our graver social evils are connected with the devitalising influences of modern industrial conditions4 ,undoubtedly one of the most powerful causes of the deadly grip of the drink traffic upon society is the opportunity it provides of reaction from the depressing and deadening round of the shop4 ,the saloon strikes a kind of psychological balance with the factory4 ,the well-meaning persons who suppose that open spaces1 museums1 art galleries1 and the like will furnish effectual off-sets to the public house1 overlook the fact that the peculiar depression to which the factory worker is subjected demands a relief more vivid and more violent than these more refined avenues of diversion offer4 ,temperance reformers have greatly neglected this aspect of their problem2 and prohibition without any accompanying provision for the healthy equilibration of human energies is likely to have consequences that may astonish and perhaps confound its advocates4 ,but the remedy for this and the other penalties which society has to pay for its industrial system is not to be found in the abandonment of large-scale processes and reversion to an earlier fashion of production4 ,machinery certainly supplanted a more human1 kindlier way of life2 and not even the extensive factory legislation which has tempered the worst excesses of the new way1 has compensated for the passing of the amenities of the older system4 ,we have1 however1 to count upon the permanence and the still further extension of large-scale processes4 ,obviously it is not intrinsically an evil thing1 potentially it is an asset of incalculable value to society4 ,even its monotonies have their uses2 for a certain amount of routine work is good for every man4 ,it is only evil when it is excessive4 ,the disadvantages which belong to large-scale production are on the whole incidental1 and owe their origin chiefly to laissez faire and the economic motive4 ,once this vicious connection is dissolved and production for need and use becomes the general rule1 the very proficiency of our large-scale processes will liberate a great volume of human energy for the pursuit of the spiritual ends of life4 ,for the elimination of the profit-interest1 and the regulation of production on the basis of calculated demand1 will at once lead to a very considerable diminution in the number of working hours4 ,it is questionable whether1 with industrial processes properly organised1 it would be necessary for any man to spend more than four hours a day in the actual production of necessities4 ,this refers1 of course1 to the strictly mechanical departments of production4 ,in agriculture1 which depends upon seasons and weather conditions1 it is obvious that a standardised day is impracticable4 ,moreover1 agriculture is an avocation which has its own peculiar compensations4 ,it is carried on in the open-air and has elements of variety and change to which the industrial worker is a stranger4 ,yet1 even in agriculture the great extension of mechanical and labour-saving instruments should go far to mitigate the acknowledged disadvantages of the life4 ,the evils attaching to the work of the farmer and his labourer are1 however1 largely extrinsic4 ,it is the dullness and monotony of his spare hours that weigh most heavily upon him4#ai ,with the industrial1 it is different4 ,he does not lack opportunity of social life in so much as he lives normally in large populous centres2 but the atonic condition to which he is reduced by the circumstances of his work1 renders him incapable of creating and enjoying the best kind of fellowship4 ,he is either too weary for any kind of fellowship and sits at home reading the newspaper1 and then to bed2 or he turns in his need of compensating excitement to the questionable atmosphere of the public-house4 ,a small minority of tougher mental and nervous fibre will cultivate an allotment or seek diversion in books or sport2 but the majority have neither inclination nor energy for any active pursuits4 ,the remedy for this trouble lies in the drastic shortening of the working day for all men who are engaged in the mechanical process of production4 ,with the increasing application of science to industry1 under conditions of production for use1 it is impossible to say how short the necessary working day may become4 ,and if it became the rule1 as it probably should1 that no member of society should be exempt from a share in the work of maintaining its natural life and so take his part in mechanical production1 there is no reason why the indispensable mechanical toil expected of the individual should not be reduced to a very low point indeed4 ,footnote #ai3 ,the present wholly inadequate remuneration of the agricultural labourer does not come under discussion here1 as the argument assumes that the principle of the national minimum is accepted4 ,this assumption is the more reasonable in view of the fact that in ,england a minimum wage for agricultural labourers has been fixed and is to operate for five years4 ,if in addition men are trained from childhood to take the view that this toil is a necessary social task1 and therefore1 intrinsically noble and honourable1 the whole atmosphere in which it is discharged would be organically changed4 ,to-day1 the prevailing note of speed and competition reduces the place and sense of comradeship to very narrow limits4 ,the general attitude of antagonism between capital and labour infects the air1 and not only makes co-operation between the administrative and productive functions impossible1 but introduces a subtle poison of disintegration into the mutual relations of the operatives4 ,the only comradeship which appears to exist is that which is created by the need under present conditions of safeguarding class interests4 ,when men of all classes have been brought up to regard a certain amount of mechanical toil as an honourable obligation to the society to which they belong1 they will naturally accept their share in the common task and bring themselves to it in a spirit of comradeship4 ,,vii ,but it is useless to suppose that we have done all that is needed when we have thus relieved the irksomeness of the day's work4 ,indeed1 we have 7if we leave it at that7 only created a great peril--the peril of deterioration which always attends unused or ill-used leisure4 8,satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do20 and the antidote to idleness lies in providing things to do that unoccupied hands will turn to do with readiness4 ,yet it were fatal to regard this as a problem of utilising spare time4 ,we have indeed a greater and worthier task on hand2 and the drastic shortening of the statutory working day provides us with our opportunity4 ,genuine social progress and content is1 as we have seen1 to be achieved only under conditions where men have the opportunity1 and are trained in the exercise of the instinct of creativeness4 ,for the great majority of men1 the means of this self-expression must be found in some sort of manual activity4 ,it must take the form of work4 ,perhaps the solution lies in the principle of 8one man1 two trades02 of which one shall be some part of the mechanical toil involved in social upkeep1 and the other a craft in which a man may exercise and express something of his own independent mind4 ,possibly we may distinguish the two types of occupation as utility-trades and vocations1 the one necessary quality of the latter being that men should be able to put their whole souls into their tasks2 and in so far as these tasks are of a direct productive kind1 since they are not tasks of mere utility1 they may fitly be tasks of beauty as well4 ,we require something of the nature of a revival of the older type of craftsmanship in which the sthetic faculties found room for expression2 and in the matter of clothing and house-furniture and decoration there is ample room for the development of a revived craftsmanship where use will go hand in hand with beauty4 ,it should plainly be an organic part of educational policy to provide for the early laying of the foundations of original and creative craftsmanship4 ,in any wise system of education1 the period of adolescence should be marked by a very definite differentiation of vocational training 7without neglecting the other elements of a generous education74 ,aptitudes should be watched for2 and the growth of the youth should be stimulated along the lines of his natural inclinations4 ,especially should any signs of independent and original creative power be encouraged4 ,change of this sort can1 of course be brought about only gradually2 but it should be faced seriously if society is ever to be emancipated from its baleful subjection to the economic motive4 ,that we find it difficult to believe that any change along these lines is possible is due chiefly to a lack of acquaintance with any other conditions than those which exist to-day4 ,but ,william ,morris and ,john ,ruskin found no difficulty in believing that men would work 8for the joy of the working10 provided that they had work to do which had in it the elements of joy4 ,it was so that they worked themselves2 and the substance of their teaching was a plea that work should be made once more a delight by being raised to the plane of art--that is to say1 that it might become the avenue of independent creative self-expression4 ,it would doubtless take several generations before this doctrine could be established as a habit of mind and society organised conformably to it1 but it is no cheap speculation which foresees1 arising out of a progressive liberation and discipline of the creative instincts of a community1 a new birth of art4 ,the creative urge would1 like the sun1 shoot out coronas of flaming achievement2 art itself might climb to a plane it has never hitherto known and break out in directions which we in our present state of spiritual purblindness cannot anticipate4 ,at least1 it is something to be remembered that those days in ,england in which industry was alive with a fine craftsmanship and a generous comradeship1 were also the days which produced the finest monuments of ,english art4 ,,viii ,the organisation of society upon lines of this kind would be a protracted and difficult task2 and here one is concerned more with the definition of a tendency rather than the precise measures necessary to make it effective4 ,obviously there must be large exceptions to any rule of life in any vital and developing social order4 ,but the reduction of mechanical toil to the lowest practicable point1 and a generous development of the idea and practice of the vocational life seem to be essential4 ,and the general principle which we desire for mechanical tasks of production should be applied in other regions1 as for instance in the distributive trades and in those occupations which are concerned with the disposal of waste4 ,the increasing emphasis on hygiene has led to the multiplication of a number of 8waste-occupations10 the street-cleaner1 the drain-man1 the garbage-man and so forth4 ,within this region we have every right to expect so large an extension of scientific and mechanical methods of dealing with the waste products of life as to make some at least of these occupations wholly superfluous4 ,this type of occupation has meantime1 the very undesirable and injurious effect of relegating those who are engaged in it to a condition of much social inferiority2 and this is the more unjust1 insomuch as the health of the community depends so greatly upon its being faithfully performed4 ,it was a happy inspiration to clothe the ,new ,york street-cleaners in white2 and it should have a sacramental suggestion for their fellow citizens4 ,for we are familiar with a word which describes a multitude 8arrayed in white garments40 ,the innovation established a point of contact between urban cleanliness and holiness2 and it is within this cycle of social judgment that the waste occupations should be placed4 ,we should then take more kindly to the only equitable solution of the problem presented by this class of work1 namely that it should be shared out and that all the members of the community should be liable to be called out in companies1 as they are now for jury service1 to do their part of this indispensable work4 ,this brings the waste occupations into the same category as the productive trades2 in point of fact1 it is there they really belong4 ,there can be no intrinsic difference of worth between the work of providing for the needs of society and the work of disposing of its waste4 ,for without either of these1 society cannot live4 ,the only class for which there should be no room in a healthy social order is the social parasite4 ,it is to this class that the 8idle rich0 belong1 the people who neither toil nor spin yet fare sumptuously every day at the expense of the labour of others4 ,to this class also belongs the large 8flunkey0 class--butlers1 footmen1 door-openers1 and other uniformed persons who are arrayed in fine apparel doing little things for us that we ought to do for ourselves4 ,it is just neither to these persons nor to society that they should be allowed to continue in careers of such complete uselessness4 ,so far as ,europe is concerned this class has already largely disappeared1 for the ,army or industry has swallowed it up2 and it is not likely ever to re-emerge on the pre-war scale4 ,we must add also to this parasitic class those who are engaged in luxury trades--with the caveat that it is exceedingly difficult to draw a strict frontier line between necessity and luxury on the one hand1 and on the other1 between luxury and the thing that may minister to the legitimate comfort1 the health1 the beauty and the general enrichment of life4 ,but there are some things so palpably on the wrong side of the line that there should be no difficulty in identifying them4 ,it is a subject worth some reflection here that the war is teaching us to do without many things which we had come to regard as necessities4 ,it is a sad commentary upon the civilisation we had produced1 that it left us with a hunger which we endeavoured to appease by an elaboration of the fringes of life4 ,we had gradually accumulated a range of comforts and conveniences1 and not a few superfluities1 which had come to be regarded as indispensable4 ,but the war has taught us how few things are after all needful4 ,we have all the materials of joyful life when we have food to eat1 a home to live in1 freedom and congenial work1 comradeship and love4 ,and unless these become more and more the sure possession of all1 our social progress is no more than a laborious sham4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,v4 ,,the ,,achievement ,,of ,,freedom4 8,when we say that one animal is higher than another1 we mean that it is more able to control its own destiny4 ,progress is just this3 ,increase in ,freedom40--,,stewart ,,mcdowall4 8,ne vous laissez pas tromper par de vaines paroles4 ,plusieurs chercheront a vous persuader que vous tes vraiment libres1 parce qu'ils auront crit sur une feuille de papier le mot de libert et l'auront affich tous les carrefours4 ,la libert n'est pas un placard qu'on lit au coin de la rue4 ,elle est une puissance vivante qu'on sent en soi et autour de soi1 le gnie protecteur du foyer domestique1 la garantie des droits sociaux1 et le premier de ces droits4 99 99 99 99 99 ,la libert luira sur vous quand1 a force de courage et de persvrance1 vous vous serez affranchis de toutes ces servitudes40 ,,lamennais4 ,i ,,political and religious freedom cannot be complete without the winning of economic freedom4 ,that economic dependence cuts the nerve of all freedom needs no proof2 the history of landownership is full of instances--even in recent times--of the coercion of dependants in matters of opinion and religious observance4 ,so long as one man's subsistence depends upon the will of another1 it is foolish to suppose that he can in any real sense be free2 and it is to be counted for righteousness to the ,trade ,unions that by binding the workers together1 they have been able to resist encroachments on the part of the vested interests upon liberty of thought and conscience4 ,nevertheless1 while the present acceptances of the industrial order prevail1 the worker still lacks that liberty of the person without which the liberty of the mind1 the crown and safeguard of all liberty1 can never be more than partial4 ,it is true that the serf was tied to the land in a way in which the modern worker is not tied to his job4 ,yet the difference is more apparent than real2 for the worker has obtained this freedom at the cost of that security of subsistence which the serf did undoubtedly to some extent enjoy4 ,the worker may also choose his master as the serf could not2 but it is nevertheless the choice of a master1 a man who dictates the terms and conditions of employment1 except in so far as the principle of collective bargaining has succeeded in entering in and modifying the magisterial power of the employer4 ,freedom of thought and conscience is a vain thing except a man be able to translate thought into act and to obey the injunctions of his conscience2 and so long as a system1 industrial or other1 imposes restrictions upon a man's control of his own person1 he does not possess that mobility with which his own personal growth and his ultimate social efficiency are organically bound up4 ,to complete our heritage of freedom1 it is essential that the worker should receive a guarantee of economic security4 ,his mind and his conscience mud be delivered from the fear of starvation2 for to-day it is only at the risk of exposing himself and his children to hunger that he is able to assert his liberty within the industrial region4#bj ,footnote #bj3 ,upon the broader effects of the economic factor of property rights upon liberty1 see pp4 #bdf;f4 ,it is further to be noted that industrial conditions circumscribe the mind in another more subtle and probably more dangerous way2 for a man may assert--and indeed men have often done so--his liberty of thought1 and so save his mind even at the risk of starvation4 ,the evolution of the machine industry has been in a direction which continually decreases the activity of the mind4 ,it requires no more than habituation to a routine process which makes no demand for initiative and independent judgment on the part of the worker4 ,this is apt to lead to a mental inertia which accords well with that bondage of the person which the wage system entails2 and this is no doubt the reason 7at least in great part7 of the general apathy of large masses of the workers in the past to progressive industrial movements4 ,and so long as there is ample and easy opportunity for those parts of the physical and nervous organism which have laid inert through the working day to strike a balance of expenditure with the rest--in the drinking-shop or elsewhere--there seems to be no reason why a large proportion of the workers should not sink into a permanent helot class4 ,we are apt to forget that the progressive elements of the labour movement have not hitherto constituted or represented by a great deal the total mass of the working population2 and there has been a real menace to the growth of liberty involved in the possibility that the apathetic elements of the working class might be hardened into a virtual serfdom4 ,for the presence in any society of a permanently unprivileged and disabled element which is condemned in perpetuity to do its menial work is the undoing not only of liberty1 but at last of the society itself4 ,the problem of liberty resolves itself therefore into that of the liberty of the mind4 ,the coming achievement of economic independence is due largely to the circumstance that the ,trade ,unions have afforded a sanctuary for intellectual freedom against the danger of encroachment upon it by the system of private capital and the conditions of the machine industry4#ba ,it must1 however1 be remembered that the freedom of the mind is dependent on factors other than external2 and chiefly upon the capacity to use mind in coherent and purposeful ways4 ,a mind capable of such use will not long remain bound4 ,this aspect of the problem belongs properly to the sphere of education2 and it is in that setting only that it can be profitably handled4 ,at this point our concern is with the external conditions of mental freedom4 ,footnote #ba3 ,it is worth noticing that on the other hand1 the growth of the machine industry has itself indirectly co-operated in this process4 8,it follows as a consequence of the large and increasing requirements enforced by the machine technology that the period of preliminary training is necessarily longer1 and the schooling demanded for general preparation grows unremittingly more exacting4 ,so that1 apart from all question of humanitarian sentiment or of popular fitness for democratic citizenship1 it has become a matter of economic expediency1 simply as a proposition in technological efficiency at large1 to enforce the exemption of children from industrial employment until a later date and to extend their effective school age appreciably beyond what would once have been sufficient to meet all the commonplace requirements of skilled workmanship40 7,thorstein ,veblen1 ,the ,instinct of ,workmanship1 p4 #cji47 ,this educational process has had consequences beyond those immediately sought4 ,the quickening and enlargement of mind which have followed even the very inadequate education hitherto provided in the common schools1 have made a very considerable contribution to the movement for economic emancipation4 ,,ii ,lord ,acton's definition of liberty1 already quoted1 as 8the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes to be his duty against the influence of authority1 custom and opinion10 suggests that the test of the quality and measure of liberty in a particular community1 lies in its attitude to and its treatment of dissent--or to put it in another way1 its treatment of minorities4 ,and it is plainly true that the freedom of the mind is a pure fiction except it be freedom to dissent from the common acceptances of the community4 ,speaking generally1 the common tendency is toward the suppression of dissent especially if it be of a radical type1 in all kinds of communities1 democratic or otherwise4 ,in some cases1 the suppression is dictated by the obvious requirements of an authoritarian polity1 in which case it is systematic and deliberate2 but this is on the whole less dangerous than the informal and unorganised suppression or opposition which springs out of the mental inertia of the multitude1 the lethargy which is bred of hatred of change1 and especially out of the prejudice which is easily and successfully generated in the minds of the ignorant by those whose interests would be imperilled by change4 ,it is only by a recognition of the social significance and value of dissent1 and the important part it has played in historical progress1 that we are likely to reach a proper understanding of the true democratic attitude to it4 ,in the history of religion1 it is plain that dissent has almost always proved to be the organ of advance1 and if not of advance1 at least of a saner balance of religious faith and practice2 and it may be said with not a little assurance that whether in church or state1 the dissent that has gained a reasonable following has been evoked by the need of vindicating some natural right or emphasising some truth or fact of experience which was neglected or obscured in the traditional syntheses4 ,it may still further be stated1 that whereas dissent has been denounced by its contemporaries as disruptive and hostile to social solidarity1 it has in point of fact been the product of a larger social vision than that current in the existing conventions4 ,dissent has usually been created by the desire to broaden the basis of human fellowship4 ,this will be seen by an appeal to the mental outlook of the dissenter4 ,of course every dissenting movement has been hampered and prejudiced1 and its ideals muddied by the adhesion to it of temperamental rebels1 and the type of crank which gathers around any standard of revolt1 just as the opposition to dissent has been degraded by its readiness to accept the help of 8lewd fellows of the baser sort40 ,but when one penetrates to the core of the movement in the mind of its chief exponents we find ourselves in a peculiarly pure and stimulating air4 ,the great historical rebels have almost invariably been actuated by a social passion4 ,some day perhaps a competent student may give us a work upon the psychology of the rebel4 ,that there is something typical about the mentality of the great rebels may be gathered even from a cursory reading of a few obvious biographies4 ,there is usually an abnormal mental sensitiveness combined with great physical restlessness1 a keen craving for comradeship1 combined with fondness for solitude and lonely meditation1 a vivid perception of present evils together with a passion for a future which should restore some ancient simplicity1 a tendency--once the first step in revolt has been taken1--to broaden the rebellious front to include other issues1 a frequent admixture of integrity of character with a certain irregularity of conduct4 ,yet this is only the psychological basis2 and the real differentia of the true rebel lies in the character of the occasion which crystallises his mental make-up into a definite course of action4 ,disraeli used to speak of the 8two nations0 which inhabited ,england4 ,these were the privileged people and the disinherited4 ,but that is a phenomenon peculiar neither to ,england nor to the modern world4 ,it is the great permanent line which divides the human race from top to bottom into two classes4 ,we belong either to the exploiting race or the exploited1 are either top dogs or under-dogs4 ,the ,greek cities with all their emphasis upon freedom yet thought of it as the prerogative of the few4 8,there were vague beginnings of a new ideal in ,athens1 but even in ,athens personal liberty such as is now connected with the word #8democracy' was confined to a very small percentage of the population40#bb ,the remainder were women and slaves upon whose subordination the entire social order rested4 ,the line of division has not always been political or economic4 ,in our own time the acute sense of disinheritance has been the main-spring of the feminist movement4 ,in religion especially the cleavage has been conspicuous4 ,the ,reformation controversy about the layman's rights to receive the chalice in the ,sacrament was at bottom a repudiation of the tradition of a privileged caste2 and every considerable reformation of religion has involved a challenge to priestcraft on the part of a disinherited laity4 ,footnote #bb3 ,g4 ,d4 ,burns1 ,greek ,ideals1 p4 #gf4 ,it is the clear perception of this circumstance--the subordination of that mass which we commonly designate 8the people10 the appeal of a disinherited class1 of 8the army of workers10 as ,lord ,morley said1 8who make the most painful sacrifices for the continuous nutrition of the social organisation10 which constitutes the decisive factor in shaping the rebel's mind and course of life4 ,it sometimes happens that a combination of circumstances throws the need of the disinherited into sharp relief1 and the ensuing ferment creates the leader ad hoc1 as it were4 ,the disintegration of the old feudal bonds in ,england liberated the social discontent which roused ,john ,ball and made him the inspirer of the ,peasants' ,revolt4 ,dr4 ,lindsay in his ,history of the ,reformation tells us of the existence of an active and wide-spread evangelical piety in ,germany long before the ,reformation1 and it was the sharp contrast between the spiritual hunger of the people and the barren externality and corruption of medival ecclesiasticism1 at last brought to a head by ,tetzel's peddling of indulgences1 that precipitated ,luther's crisis and with it the ,reformation4 ,the crisis in the early development of ,kansas undoubtedly marked a stage in ,john ,brown's development4 ,but whether we may be able or not to trace decisive occasions of this kind in the life of the rebel1 the common mark of the rebel mind is a passion for the common people4 ,it has been said of ,rousseau that 8it was because he had seen the wrongs of the poor not from without but from within1 not as a pitying spectator but as one of their own company1 that he by and by brought such fire to the attack of the old order and changed the blank practice of the older philosophers into a deadly affair of ball and shell40 ,similarly ,professor ,dowden says of ,shelley that 8it was the sufferings of the industrious poor that especially claimed his sympathy2 and he thought of publishing for them a series of popular songs which should inspire them with heart and hope40#bc ,tolstoi1 according to ,romain ,rolland1 had for the labouring people a 8strange affection1 absolutely genuine10 which his repeated disillusionments were powerless to shake4 ,sometimes1 as in the case of ,glendower1 ,mazzini and 8nationalist0 rebels generally1 it is not the case of a disinherited class but of an oppressed nation which shapes the rebel's course4 ,the great rebel in every case is made by the lure of the disinherited4 ,footnote #bc3 ,dowden1 ,life of ,shelley1 p4 #dcg4 ,the 8,songs and ,poems for the ,men of ,england10 were published in #ahai1 after ,shelley's death4 ,but it is not only compassion for the disinherited which moves the rebel1 but a profound faith in their power to work out their own salvation4 ,the appeal to the people has been of the essence of rebel policy4 ,the ,peasants' ,revolt in ,england was stimulated by ,john ,ball's doggerel verse1 which was specially intended to stir discontent4 8,wyclif10 says ,john ,richard ,green1 8appealed1 and the appeal is memorable as the first of such a kind in our history1 to ,england at large4 ,with an amazing industry1 he issued tract after tract in the tongue of the people itself40 ,he wrote 8in the rough1 clear homely ,english0 of the ploughman and trader of his day4 ,the ,tractarians of a later date were only imitating their great ,oxford precursor when they went distributing their tracts from door to door4 ,but ,wyclif did not confine his popular appeal to tracts4 ,his order of 8poor preachers10 8whose coarse sermons and long russet dress moved the laughter of the clergy1 formed a priceless organisation for the diffusion of their master's teaching40 ,john ,brown addressed his propaganda at an early stage to the negro2 and it is hardly doubtful that his hopes chiefly centred at last upon a general rising of negroes in support of his campaign4 ,long before1 ,john ,hus had carried his appeal to the ,bohemian people1 as ,arnauld of ,port ,royal1 convicted of ,jansenism at the ,sorbonne1 designed to place his case before the ,french4 ,pascal's ,provincial ,letters were deliberately composed as an appeal from the ecclesiastics to the public4 ,the great emphasis upon public preaching during the ,reformation was derived from this same faith in the efficacy of popular appeal4 ,it is sufficiently well known to need no further remark than the reminder that in this way the rebel has made important contributions to the literary as well as the social and religious history of his people4 ,the paradox of the rebel1 then1 is this1 that while he has been assailed as a subverter of social order1 his own driving force has been a social sense quicker and broader than that of his orthodox contemporaries4 ,he attacked the existing social organisation only to break down walls that hindered fellowship4 ,he heard the call of the disinherited and it became in his heart a call to lead them into that heritage of opportunity of which they were cheated by the cupidity and cunning of the great4 ,he assailed the ,bastilles of constituted authority1 and battered hoary institutions that people might--at this point or that--come into their own4 ,he sought to fling out wide the frontiers of privilege that the poor and the outcast might come into a world of larger life4 ,mr4 ,wells has recently told us that 8from the first dawn of the human story0 man has been 8pursuing the boundary of his possible community40 ,but the prime agent of this pursuit has been the dissenter4 ,dissent has proved itself to be the growing point of society4 ,yet the dissenter has been stoned and hanged by his contemporaries4 ,must it ever be so8 ,is there no conceivable social order in which it shall be unnecessary to treat the moral pioneer as a criminal8 ,as yet we have not achieved it4 ,our limit hitherto has been a kind of toleration rather grudgingly accorded so long as the dissenter does not disturb us over much4 ,but no society will ever be truly free until it has reached the point not only of frank toleration but of the serious encouragement of dissenting opinion4 ,for dissent is after all only a manifestation of the 8elan vitale0 of a living society2 and it should be greeted with a cheer4 ,a society incapable of dissent or of tolerating it has entered upon its last phase4 ,,iii ,the problem of dissent1 however1 goes deeper than the realm of opinion4 ,dissenting opinion would not trouble ,israel so long as it remained pure opinion4 ,the difficulty begins when opinion is translated into action4 ,william ,james said that a belief always discharges itself in an act2 and this supplies us with a convenient working distinction between a belief and an opinion4 ,but this brings us into a region where other forces begin to operate1 and particularly that inner constraint to act in obedience to one's belief which we call conscience4 ,from the days when ,plato spoke of his ,greek3 daimn to ours1 the dissenter has always claimed that he acted because he 8could do no other40 ,he submitted to what he believed to be the instance of a moral order from which he could not appeal4 ,his contemporaries either derided his conscience or charged him with hypocrisy2 but it is worth some consideration that the contemporary judgment was reversed in almost every case4 ,it is essential that we should attempt to work out the problem of the relation of conscience to the achievement of liberty in view of the extreme danger which lurks in the recent contemptuous criticism of the conscientious objector4 8,the duty of obeying conscience at all hazards0 7to quote ,newman71 is valid only so long as we agree with ,newman that conscience is 8the aboriginal vicar of ,christ10 that is to say1 that it is the inner embodiment of an irrevocable and infrangible moral order4 ,this does not1 of course1 imply that every 8conscientious objector0 interprets the moral order rightly1 but simply that it is1 as and in so far as he sees it1 the moral order for him4 ,his judgment may be fallacious2 but what is in question is not so much the soundness of his judgment as the sincerity of his conviction2 and we are rather apt to forget that moral sincerity is a greater asset to society than a logical correctitude4 ,it is difficult to see how any one who takes a 8religious0 view of the world can escape this conviction4 ,even ,lord ,morley1 who speaks of 8the higher expediencies0 where a religious believer might speak of an ultimate moral order1 reaches the judgment that this is a region in which no man ought to compromise4 ,it is on this account singular that the most drastic criticism of the conscientious objector1 both in ,england and ,america1 has come from ministers of religion2 and it is more singular still that this severity of criticism should have chiefly come from ministers of the non-authoritarian churches which were born out of the struggle for the rights of conscience4 ,when ,gladstone challenged ,english ,catholics to say how they would act in the event of a collision between the commands of the ,queen and the ,pope1 the greatest of modern ,english ,catholics took up the gage and gave answer4 8,it is my rule10 said ,newman1 8both to obey the one and to obey the other2 but that there is no rule in this world without exceptions2 and that if either the ,pope or the ,queen demanded of me an #8,absolute ,obedience1' he or she would be transgressing the laws of human nature and human society4 ,i give an absolute obedience to neither4 ,further1 if ever this double allegiance pulled me in contrary ways which in this age of the world ,i think it never will1 then ,i should decide according to the particular case1 which is beyond all rule and must be decided on its own merits4 ,i should look to see what theologians could do for me1 what the ,bishops and ,clergy around me1 what my confessor1 what my friends whom ,i revered1 and if1 after all1 ,i could not take their view of the matter1 then ,i must rule myself by my own judgment and my own conscience40#bd ,he then goes on to insist upon 8the duty of obeying our conscience at all hazards0 and supports his view by an appeal to weighty ,roman authorities4 8,certainly10 he concluded1 8if ,i am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts 7which indeed does not seem quite the thing7 ,i shall drink--to the ,pope1 if you please--still to ,conscience first1 and to the ,pope afterwards40#be ,footnote #bd3 ,letter to the ,duke of ,norfolk1 p4 #fi4 7,new ,york1 #ahge47 ,footnote #be3 ,letter to the ,duke of ,norfolk1 p4 #hf4 ,for a luminous discussion of this episode see ,h4 ,j4 ,laski1 ,studies in the ,problems of ,sovereignty1 pp4 #aba;f4 ,forty years before this ,english controversy1 a great ,french ,catholic found himself in this dilemma4 ,no man had more consistently maintained the duty of submission to the ,pope than ,lamennais4 ,his hard fight for religious liberty in ,france was precisely for the right of the ,catholic to render the ,pope a full and undivided allegiance in all matters relating to the content and practice of faith4 ,but a time came when the ,pope came to exact from ,lamennais a submission he was unable to make4 ,as he would not allow the state to have jurisdiction in the spiritual sphere1 so he denied to the ,pope jurisdiction in the civil4 ,the ,pope would not consent to this modification of his claim to authority and demanded of ,lamennais an unqualified submission4 ,whereupon ,lamennais replied1 8,most ,holy ,father1 a word from your ,holiness is always enough for me1 not only to obey it in all that religion ordains but to comply with it in all that conscience allows40#bf 8,outside the ,church10 he wrote to the ,countess de ,senfft1 8in the strictly temporal order1 and more particularly in that which touches the affairs of my country1 ,i do not recognise any authority which has the right to impose an opinion upon me or to dictate my conduct4 ,i say it emphatically1 in that sphere which is not that of the spiritual power1 ,i will never renounce my independence as a man2 nor will ,i1 for thought or action1 ever take counsel but of my conscience and my reason40#bg ,in this course1 ,lamennais followed the judgment of ,cardinal ,jacobatus1 in what ,newman calls his 8authoritative work upon councils40 8,if it were doubtful whether a precept 7of the ,pope7 be a sin or not1 we must determine thus3 that if he to whom the precept is addressed has a conscientious sense that it is a sin and injustice2 first1 it is his duty to put off that sense2 but if he cannot nor conform himself to the judgment of the ,pope1 in that case it is his duty to follow his own private conscience1 and patiently to bear it if the ,pope punishes him40#bh ,footnote #bf3 ,boutard1 ,lamennais1 sa via et ses doctrines ,,ii41 p4 #chb4 ,footnote #bg3 ,ibid1 ,,ii41 p4 #cgj4 ,footnote #bh3 ,quoted in ,newman1 ,letter to the ,duke of ,norfolk1 p4 #he4 ,nevertheless1 when ,lamennais followed the instances of his conscience1 ,pope ,gregory ,,xvi4 in the ,bull ,mirari vos took occasion to describe 8liberty of conscience0 as 8cette maxime absurde et errone10 8cette pernicieuse erreur10 8cette libert funeste40 ,at first sight there appears to be no real analogy between the case of the conscientious objector to war1 as we have recently known him1 and that propounded by ,newman4 ,newman postulates a conflict of loyalties to two societies whose requirements are at a given point antagonistic1 before invoking the arbitrament of conscience4 ,the conscientious objector is conceived as setting his own private judgment against the will of the only society to which he owes allegiance4 ,that is1 at least1 how it looks on the surface4 ,but in point of fact1 the conscientious objector as a rule bases his action on the ground of loyalty to a certain view of human relationships1 that is to say1 to a social ideal2 and in the case of a man like ,stephen ,hobhouse whose social idealism has been validated by a unique realism of self-renunciation and sacrifice1 it would be idle to deny that the conflict of loyalties was very concrete and authentic4 ,the ,socialist conscientious objector who sees in the ,international1 if not the city of ,god1 at least its threshold1 and who does not conceive himself absolved from his loyalty to it even though the ,german socialists betrayed it1 is moved by no personal eccentricity1 but by a real social emotion4 ,a sympathetic study of the conscientious objector brings him according to his measure into the same category as the historical leaders of dissenting movements4 ,the decisive moral surrenders which quicken and ennoble life are acts of obedience to a social vision2 and the only really moral attitude to men who make these surrenders1 however variously they may make them1 is that of the dedication of a recent volume--8,to all who are fighting for conscience' sake1 whether in the trenches or in prison40#bi ,it is well for the community that it should have those within it who are ready to endure obloquy and imprisonment rather than be guilty of what is to them a moral apostasy4 ,footnote #bi3 ,dr4 ,orchard's fine ,the ,outlook for ,religion4 ,the conscientious objector--whatever the subject matter of his dissent--has always been an exasperating figure to his orthodox contemporaries4 ,this is1 of course1 largely due to the inertia and the dislike of dissent which settle upon middle-aged communities2 but at the present time it is probable that the impatience with the conscientious objector springs from other and more respectable sources4 ,yet by a curious paradox the two principal sources are logically antithetical4 ,the first is the circumstance that the mental habit of this generation has been profoundly affected by the supremacy of the machine4 ,its characteristic intellectual achievement is the pragmatist philosophy2 and as much in religion and sociology as in the physical sciences its main pre-occupation is with processes4 ,it requires efficiency for immediate concrete objects rather more than faithfulness to what seems to be remote and imponderable abstractions4 ,conscientious objection is irritating because it is so palpably futile1 and indeed so vexatiously obstructive of the business in hand4 ,not only does it not work1 it actually hinders the work in which the multitude is engaged4 ,it puts the machine out of gear2 in a supreme emergency when all hands should be at the pumps1 the conscientious objector puts us to the trouble of putting him in irons4 ,that is obviously--and naturally--how the case looks4 ,the gulf between the conscientious objector and common opinion is made by a difference of emphasis upon principle and process4 ,the conscientious objector--being perhaps a sort of reversion to a less sophisticated age--puts the process to the test of principle and finds them incompatible4 ,common opinion1 in the exercise of a presumably more realistic judgment says1 8,this is the only process available2 let us make the best use of it we can1 and take the risk of coming to terms with principles afterwards1 if that be necessary40 ,the one hitches his wagon to a star2 the other hitches it to anything that is going his way4 ,upon the merits of this kind of controversy1 contemporary judgments are notoriously unsafe2 unfortunately1 none of us will be living at the time when it will be possible to say with assurance who was in this case the true realist after all4 ,meantime1 the conscientious objector1 however despised1 may help us to a healthier balance between ultimate principle and immediate process than any of us have had this many a day4 ,but along with the mechanistic habit of thought1 there is a survival of the ,hegelian idealism which has been chiefly responsible for the modern apothesis of the national state4 ,it is not the ,prussian only who has affirmed the sovereignty and omnicompetency of the state and its right to undivided obedience2 but being more mechanically and remorselessly logical than his neighbours1 he has carried the doctrine to a more definite point4 ,but it seems to be generally assumed in all popular political thinking that our loyalty to the state should be not only first but absolute over all the other loyalties of life4 ,in our day this view has received1 particularly in democratic communities1 a subtle and plausible reinforcement from the growing emphasis upon the fact of social solidarity with its implication that the consensus of the community fixes the norm of conduct4 ,a man's conscience should reflect the collective conscience of the society4 ,moreover1 the egalitarian populates of republican democracy are construed to require a uniformity of conduct no less complete than that demanded by the political theory of autocracy2 and the unpardonable sin is to break the ranks4 8,the true democratic principle10 says ,lord ,acton1 8that every man's free will shall be as unfettered as possible1 is taken to mean that the free will of the collective people shall be fettered in nothing40#cj ,democracy which has sloughed the archaism of aristocracy has yet to outgrow the ,austinian doctrine of sovereignty if it is not to be in danger of ceasing to be the sanctuary and becoming the grave of liberty1 and with liberty of much else beside4 ,when it no longer tolerates the nonconformist and the moral pioneer1 8its doom is writ20 for once more let it be repeated that historically dissent of this type has always proved to be the growing point of society4 ,footnote #cj3 ,lord ,acton1 ,the ,history of ,liberty4 ,this is not a plea for the conscientious objector but for democracy4 ,newman said that if the ,pope spoke against conscience1 8he would commit a suicidal act4 ,he would be cutting the ground from under his feet40 ,the authority of the ,pope is not shaken because he concedes to conscience the liberty of dissent2 rather it is confirmed4 ,even more so do the stability and growth of democracy depend upon its recognition of the inviolability of the individual conscience2 for democracy cannot live except its roots be deep struck in the moral nature of man4 ,the ultimate battleground of democracy is in men's hearts2 and its appeal must at last ever be to men's consciences4 ,but the appeal to conscience has no meaning unless conscience be free2 and when democracy constrains men's consciences it is writing off its own spiritual charter4 ,even in time of war it is safer for democracy to let a hundred shirkers go scot-free rather than run the risk of penalising an honest conscience4 ,for by its affirmation of the sovereignty of conscience it reinforces the consciences of all its members and wins the deeper loyalty of those who are constrained to dissent from its policy on particular issues4 ,,iv ,the growth of the democratic ideal is bound up with the acceptance of the freedom of the mind in all its consequences--even at the risk of some disorder2 and the difficulty which political democracy is apt even in normal times to find in conforming to this view is due to the fact that it has not yet perceived the logic of its own first principles4 ,this in its turn is at least to some extent to be accounted for by the survival in democracies of medival conceptions of authority4 ,we do not need to take into account those doctrines of authority which are begotten of the divine right of kings and are now clearly at their last gasp4 ,the divine right of kings is1 however1 assumed to have fallen upon democratic governments2 and though they may not exercise authority for the same ends as an autocrat of the old style1 yet they conceive of it as operating in the same way4 ,theoretically1 authority in democracies is exercised in the interests of social justice2 but we still suppose that the discipline of social justice must be imposed upon men from without4 ,apparently the assumption underlying the authoritarian position is that human nature is incurably anarchic1 that it is its instinctive tendency to be wayward and disruptive1 and that there is no remedy for this state of things except that of putting it in a cage1 of surrounding it with a fine mesh of arrests1 checks and restraints4 ,this view may owe something of its modern strength to the theological doctrine of the total depravity of human nature--a dogma no longer held by sane people4 ,we know that if we do hold a doctrine of original sin it must be held together with the no less true doctrine of original goodness4 ,but the authoritarian is theologically orthodox2 man to him is a born rebel1 a natural anarchist2 he holds that he is organically antisocial2 and there is therefore nothing to do with him but to treat him like a wild animal and put him behind bars4 ,it is of course possible to subdue anarchy in this way1 and to produce some kind of order--for a time4 ,but it should be observed that what happens is that liberty is not so much disciplined as denied2 and as it appears to be the inherent1 and incurable tendency of authority to feed upon itself and to grow fat1 the natural consequence is the progressive destruction of liberty4 ,the historical reaction from the excess of authority is a violent revulsion to wild and bloody anarchy2 and over against authority1 the only hope of liberty is to divide and to keep it divided4 ,as a matter of fact in democratic communities1 there is a curious discrepancy between theory and practice2 and--somewhat unusually--our practice is better than our theory4 ,the medival doctrine of authority still haunts our political and social thinking2 but there are few people in a democratic community who behave themselves only when and because there is a policeman about4 ,the whole structure of law 7of which the policeman is the symbol7 rests upon the proposition that it is possible to define and to enforce those moral obligations which are essential to the cohesion and the order of the community1 those things which members of a society must do or abstain from doing if the society is to hold together at all4 ,law does not do more than state the lowest common terms of social duty4 ,it does not cover 8the whole duty of man40 ,the maximum of legal obligation is the minimum of moral obligation4 ,that is why the law does not touch ordinary folk--except1 of course1 in formal adjustments of affairs of business or property4 ,in the region of personal conduct1 law is for decent folk in normal times a pure irrelevancy4 ,we not only keep the law but we to some degree transcend it1 and we do so without thinking about it4 ,the policeman has no terrors for us because we do not approach his frontiers2 and he has terrors only for the wilful social misfit whose native anarchy is still untamed4 ,law1 that is1 imposes the discipline of social justice only upon the exceptional case1 the individual who is contemptuous or negligent of his social duty4 ,upon the great majority of people it is imposed from within--sometimes indeed by the fear of public opinion1 but chiefly by a more or less effective social sense4 ,we are free from the law not because we take care not to break it1 but because a higher principle has lifted us outside and beyond its bounds4 ,our righteousness truly exceeds the righteousness of the ,scribes and the ,pharisees1 that is1 of the legal mind2 and that is because a higher principle of righteousness is at work within us4 ,this higher principle of righteousness is of course no other than our own independent and energised sense of social obligation4 ,the degree to which it is effectual may and does vary in different persons2 but it is not to be questioned that democracy exists because of the increasing efficiency of the inward sense of social obligation in its members4 ,its further development is contingent upon the measure in which this inner constraint supersedes coercive machinery as the organ of social justice4 ,it is1 of course1 better for men to live under law than in anarchy4 ,what we have to understand concerning law and its machinery is that it is a stage in the evolution of social order and in our education into true freedom4 ,at the same time it must not be forgotten that the law itself may become a real hindrance to this process4 ,just because law is a definition of obligation1 it tends to be regarded as fixing the outmost limits of social duty2 and whatsoever we do beyond these limits ranks as work of supererogation4 ,that is bad enough2 but worse may happen4 ,one may suppose that outside these limits1 any kind of conduct is admissible2 and law1 despite its intention1 may therefore arrest the growth of the social sense4 ,the social sense1 that is1 is expected to operate up to frontier line defined by the law2 beyond that point1 it is not called upon to act4 ,we require to introduce into men's minds a different conception of law from that popularly current4 ,it is the office of the law to make itself superfluous2 and its administration requires not a superstitious veneration of its majesty or a pedantic respect for its letter1 but humanity and common sense4 ,the law is overmuch conceived as our gaoler2 properly understood1 it is1 as ,st4 ,paul said of the ,mosaic ,law1 our 8schoolmaster40 ,but so long as we talk about 8vindicating0 the law more than reclaiming the offender--as the legal mind is apt to do--so long will men tend to regard the law not as a stepping-stone to higher things1 but as an irksome restraint2 and while we indulge in tall talk about the majesty of the law1 we make law-abidingness 8the law and the prophets10 and jeopardise our chance of effecting that increasing enfranchisement of the social sense in which alone is the hope of the democratic ideal4 ,the further development of the democratic principle and the achievement of a genuine freedom would appear to be contingent upon the growth of the interior discipline of social justice with a consequent diminution in the influence of exterior legal sanctions4 ,if society is to be regarded as in any sense truly organic1 and if consequently its vitality is to be measured by its capacity for variation1 it is plain that it must be released from the tendency to uniformity which is entailed in a 8reign of law40 ,augustine's definition of liberty is pertinent here--,love ,god and do as you please1 and translated out of the idiom of religion into that of sociology 7which is like unto it7 the rule runs3 ,love your neighbour and do as you please4 ,authoritarianism makes inevitably for regimentation2 and while it may in this way repress the waywardness of individualism1 it does so at the expense of that precious thing1 individuality4 ,the task of democracy is that of destroying individualism and of cultivating individuality4 ,liberty is the condition in which a man may be true to himself through everything1 and may live out the logic of his own distinctive spiritual endowments4 ,but because personality is essentially social1 a man cannot be true to himself until he is in a true sense delivered from himself4 ,an effectual social discipline is a necessary condition of a real liberty4 ,it is not a check upon liberty but its indispensable concomitant4 ,without it1 liberty overshoots its bolt and destroys itself4 ,but this relation is a mutual one4 ,not only does a social conscience safeguard and discipline liberty2 but its own mating with liberty works for its liberation4 ,we have seen how the influence of legalistic preconceptions tends to arrest the growth of the social conscience2 how the school of law may become the prison of legalism4 ,the social conscience is something more than a moral critic or invigilator2 it has the quality of a creative energy2 and once it is 8free from the law10 it is for ever trying to outdo itself4 ,it is indeed only an adventurous social conscience of this kind that will avail to overcome those distinctions of class which constitute the immemorial and multiform schism of our race4 ,we have to work not only for the socialisation of liberty but also for the liberation of our social instincts2 and this is to be done by an equal mating of liberty and the social conscience4 ,this is1 in the main1 the office of the teacher and the preacher1 but meantime a great deal is to be done by a systematic effort to multiply and develop those social contacts which already exist either actually or potentially4 ,the final reason for this mating is not merely to make room for dissent in the community4 ,that1 indeed1 is only an incidental thing which serves to test the quality and extent of the community's freedom4 ,freedom is necessary because it is the only condition under which creative self-expression becomes really possible4 ,the human spirit must have independence and initiative if it is to be its whole self4 ,it was not made for regimentation2 it was made for a distinctive life of its own4 ,but its very constitution tells us that if it is to attain to a fruitful freedom1 it must achieve something besides freedom4 ,the motto of a democracy resolute to live out the full implicates of its first principles must not be freedom alone1 but freedom and fellowship4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,vi4 ,,the ,,practice ,,of ,,fellowship4 8,we are members one of another40--,,st4 ,,paul4 8,forsooth1 brothers1 fellowship is heaven1 and lack of fellowship is hell2 fellowship is life and lack of fellowship is death2 and the deeds that ye do on earth1 it is for fellowship's sake that ye do them2 and the life that is in it1 that shall live on and on for ever1 and each one of you part of it1 while many a man's life upon the earth from the earth shall wane4 8,therefore ,i bid you not to dwell in hell but in heaven2 or while ye must1 upon earth1 which is part of heaven1 and forsooth no foul part40--,,william ,,morris1 ,the ,dream of ,john ,ball40 8,sans d'galit donc1 point d'unit2 sans libert point d'galit2 mais point de libert non plus sans des devoirs mutuels volontairement accomplis1 c'est-a-dire accomplis par la volont se portant d'elle-mme et sans contrainte a tout ce qui produit l'union entre les tres gaux2 autrement chacun n'aurait d'autre rgle que son intrt1 sa passion4 ,et du conflit de tant de passions1 de tant d'intrts opposs natraient aussitt1 avec la guerre1 la servitude et la tyrannie4 ,or1 l'obissance libre au devoir est une obissance d'amour2 libert lorsque l'amour s'affaiblit1 la libert dcline mme proportion4 ,a la place de l'union volontaire et morale1 dont il est le principle1 la force1 loi des brutes1 opre une union purement matrielle40--,,lamennais1 ,affaires de ,rome4 ,,it is usually assumed that the distinctively social end of life begins 8after business hours40 ,there is1 we say1 8no room for sentiment in business10--which is part of the intolerable price we pay for our subjection to the economic motive4 ,in business the presumption is that we are all competitors2 when business is over we are prepared to be friends4 ,the formality and the insincerity of much social intercourse in our time--not to speak of its utter fruitlessness for any healthy human good--has its origins largely in the banishment of fellowship from the 8business end0 of life4 ,this is not to say that there is not a great deal of wholesome human intercourse in modern life or that there are not genuine friendships between business competitors and between principals and subordinates in industry2 but it is generally true that we conceive of commerce and industry as admitting of no extensive exercise of the humanities2 and for this habit of mind we are punished by a deep impoverishment of life4 ,there is a sense in which the struggle for liberty may be regarded as being essentially a struggle to broaden the basis of human fellowship2 and it is undoubtedly true that forms of privilege are the most prolific causes of social schism4 ,no community possesses the conditions of real fellowship while it is 7as modern communities are7 divided into topdogs and underdogs1 whether the topdogs be aristocrats or plutocrats1 and the underdogs be serfs or wage-slaves4 ,for the poison of privilege is apt to permeate the whole body2 and an exploited class may itself be composed of exploiters4 ,in our day the quest and the possession of pecuniary advantage has so grievously muddied the springs of fellowship that we live in a chronic temper of mutual suspicion and distrust4 ,we do not constitute living societies2 we are but collections of individuals who live together because we must1 and come no nearer to each other than is necessary for the indispensable common operations of life4 ,lord ,morley has pointed out that the business of the ,irish ,land ,league lay as much in adjusting feuds among its own members as in carrying on their common feud against the landlords4 ,within small circles there is1 of course1 much genuine friendly exchange and co-operation2 there are holiday occasions when good temper and good fellowship rule2 but for the rest1 we chiefly live under jungle law4 ,it is essential to the creation of a living society that we should recognise that the principle of fellowship is a condition of the highest fruitfulness of human effort in every part of life4 ,but fellowship in this connection means something more than the casual and superficial camaraderie of one's leisure hours4 ,it must be translated into concrete policies and into organised and sustained co-operation4 ,in this sense its application to industry is one of the first conditions of its restoration in other regions and in other senses4 ,indeed1 it may be regarded as the natural complement of that change in the worker's status which we have seen to be impending4 ,free men will flow into fellowship as the cistern to the river2 and the 8democratic control0 of industry is the name we give to the practice of fellowship in industry which is the clear sequel to the doctrine of partnership4 ,mr4 ,sidney ,webb1 as we have seen1 advocates the grant of a 8constitution0 to industry2 but this proposal suffers from the inherent defect of the well-meaning experiments in co-partnership and profit-sharing of which there have been not a few in recent years4 ,this defect is that all alike preserve the line of privilege4 ,the benefits are granted as concessions from above2 and generally as incentives to greater assiduity4 ,there can be no objection to the granting of concessions from above so long as those who are above come down and stand on the same footing as those below4 ,but so long as a vestige of the old differentiation of superior and inferior1 of master and servant remains1 not all the nominal co-partnership and profit-sharing in the world can satisfy the conditions of real partnership4 ,while for instance the administrative and executive branches of an industry remain out of the sphere of co-partnership1 the partnership is a polite fiction2 and it is only by the passing of all the departments of an industry1 administrative as well as operative1 into the control of all who carry them on1 that democratic conditions can be established4 ,the theory of partnership implies an actual interest in and an actual control over all the divisions of an industry2 and1 while this does not imply that direction and leadership and the powers of discipline will not still be vested in individuals1 these individuals will owe their position not to any antecedent privilege but to the will and consent of the workers as a whole4 ,on the surface there seems to be a danger lest such an arrangement may lead to an exclusive and particular fellowship within separate industries and therefore may militate against the larger fellowship of the community1 a fellowship1 that is1 of producers against consumers4 ,but it is not contemplated that the control of the workers--whether operative or administrative--shall be absolute over their industry4 ,that will in turn be subject to the will of the commonwealth as a whole--this superior authority being made effective by such devices as the control of raw material4 ,this particular danger may1 however1 be very easily exaggerated4 ,after all1 every producer is a consumer2 and the co-operative societies have shown that it is possible to create a very fruitful fellowship of consumer and producer4 ,moreover1 this is a danger which we imagine largely because we argue from existing conditions4 ,it will be greatly diminished as the economic motive ceases to exercise its withering influence upon men4 ,but it stands to reason that men will do better and more faithful work under conditions which give them a direct interest in and control over their work4 ,both the quantity and quality of work suffer to-day because nothing is left to the worker's sense of honour and responsibility4 ,it is only a more or less irksome necessity to which the worker goes apathetically and from which he turns with relief4 ,but convert it into a social task in which fellowship may be actually realised in a genuine participation in control1 where management is an affair of common counsel and not of autocratic fiats1 where the ideal of public service has superseded the purpose of private gain1 and you set free potentialities both of quality and quantity of workmanship of which under the present demoralising conditions it is not possible to form a conception4 ,clearly the reality of fellowship in industry must be validated by making every position of greater responsibility open to every worker2 and appointment to such positions should be by choice of the workers4 ,that the workers may be trusted to make good appointments is demonstrated by the sagacity which has generally been manifested in the selection of their ,union leaders2 and this is a far more certain guarantee of effective management than the present system which often assigns incompetent men to important positions on grounds of kinship or 8influence40 ,it further goes without saying that a genuine partnership implies the right of withdrawal4 ,a man must be free to choose his work and the place where he works4 ,freedom is of the very essence of fellowship4 ,anything of the nature of coercion or conscription would be deadly to the spirit which it is desired to create4 ,,ii ,naturally a living society will require a living fellowship in the ordering of its public affairs2 and it is true that the arrest and corruption of democracy--wheresoever those ills have befallen it--are due more to the ignorance and the indifference of the mass of the people in respect of their common affairs than to any other single cause4 ,this is ever the opportunity of the demagogue and the spoilsman4 ,where there is no vision1 said the ancient scribe1 the people perish2 but the people perish no less certainly where there is no common thought4 ,the mental indolence and inertia of the public and the incompetency of public criticism is the danger of the statesman1 and the very life of the carpet-bagging politician4 ,the extent of this ignorance and apathy--beyond the narrow limits where our pockets are concerned--is appalling4 ,especially in regard to the external relationships of their respective states1 the common people have lived in the past in great darkness1 and as the war has shown1 in the shadow of death4 ,if the masses of the ,european peoples had been in #aiad1 as well-informed concerning their neighbours as they are to-day 7and this does not say very much71 the war might well have never happened2 and it is well that we should remember that the democratic control of foreign policy1 of which we justly hope much1 will prove a vain thing without systematic education of the people in the matters which are gathered up in the expression 8foreign policy40 ,and1 indeed1 the main root of indifference is ignorance2 for we are vitally interested in nothing of which we do not know something4 ,it is to education that we must look for our main remedy4 ,some gleams of light have indeed already begun to pierce our darkness4 ,we have commenced to educate school children in the rudiments of civic obligation2 and there is no reason why history and geography should not be taught1 not as at present to stimulate national pride or commercial efficiency1 but to generate a sympathetic and comprehensive outlook upon human relationships4 ,to this subject we shall need to turn in more detail presently2 here all we need is to premise that the stimulation and mobilisation of common thought requires an education which shall equip the citizen with a system of knowledge and ideas which will enable him to respond to the challenge of the problems of common life and approach them with intelligence and sympathy4 ,no one who is familiar with the proceedings of parliaments and congresses will require proof of the existence of this need4 ,but this is no more than a beginning4 ,to education must be added the opportunity of free and unfettered discussion4 ,every manner of embargo or restraint on thought must be removed4 ,when a ,cambridge don once said that morning chapel should be compulsory on the ground that if there were no compulsory religion there would be no religion at all1 ,thirlwall1 afterwards ,bishop of ,st4 ,david's1 replied that the distinction was too subtle for his apprehension4 ,no less does restraint upon thought lead to the destruction of thought4 ,yet thought1 just because it is free1 requires some method of test and correction2 and this is supplied by discussion4 ,in this region especially is fellowship the necessary co-efficient of freedom4 ,at present the comparative paucity of opportunities of systematic discussion1 outside small circles and coteries1 has led to that lack of mental independence to which the modern press owes its ordinate power4 ,the pathetic1 not to say tragic1 readiness of the multitude to follow any demagogue in the press who shouts loudly enough is a manifest sign of dangerous mental incompetency4 ,the ,northcliffes and the ,hearsts owe their influence to the incapacity of the multitude to think for itself2 and no multitude will ever be able to think which does not acquire the habit of thinking together4 ,it is impossible to estimate the value of the ,new ,england ,town ,meeting as an organ of discipline in common thought2 and some such focus of public discussion there should be in every community4 ,nowadays the community elects a board or a council and relegates the function of discussion to this body1 and so far as its local affairs are concerned goes to sleep until the next election1 except perhaps for a small minority chiefly composed of hostile critics4 ,this elected body rarely reaches a plane of initiative and leadership in thought even within the narrow province committed to its care4 ,its discussions chiefly gather around minor points of administration2 rarely do they reveal any degree of constructive originality4 ,yet the public spirit which is the life of a community needs continual stimulus2 and this stimulus is dependent on discussion4 ,it is a frequent1 almost a constant complaint against municipal bodies that they are composed of persons who have axes of their own to grind1 or who1 though they are not personally corrupt1 are promoting the advantage of particular interests4 ,there is no way out of this difficulty save by the creation of community centres for regular and free public discussion4 ,those who are charged with the conduct of public affairs--whether local or national--should be open to continuous and reasoned popular criticism for which an election allows no opportunity4 ,the rapid extension of the public ,forum in ,america takes to some extent the place once filled by the ,town ,meeting2 but its outlook is too general and its constitution too casual to enable it to discharge the functions of the latter4 ,yet it has a very important office to fill2 and in many respects it is the most promising object in the outlook for democracy in ,america4 ,as yet it is too dependent upon the platform2 and questions do not form an adequate alternative to reasoned discussion4 ,these are1 however1 defects which will be remedied as the movement develops4 ,it is not at all improbable that the churches may find a way of recovering their social usefulness by the promotion of the ,forum method4 ,dr4 ,kirsopp ,lake has a theory that just as the sacramental stage of religion has passed1 so now the 8sermon0 stage is passing1 and we are entering upon the 8discussion0 stage4 ,it may be so4 ,certainly no human concern so stands in need of vigorous and radical discussion as does religion2 and now that it becomes increasingly evident that the day is wholly gone when religion could be cultivated as an isolated interest unrelated to the secular concerns of life1 it will be of untold advantage to the church and to society1 in the interests of truth and right thinking1 that the free discussion of religion and public affairs in the closest possible relation to one another should be seriously fostered4 ,neither religion nor any view of the world which does not touch life at every point is likely to survive in an age which is slowly learning the unity of all life4 ,in modern ,england1 the ,trade ,union branches have in many cases proved to be educational centres of the utmost value2 but even more than the ,trade ,unions has the ,socialist propaganda1 with its challenge to discussion1 proved a fruitful organ of common thought on public affairs4 ,when we pass from the plane of local to that of national interests we find a state of things which provokes wonder that any shred of democracy has survived it4 ,the system of political parties has its roots in human nature2 and we are never likely to outlive it4 ,the quip that we are all born either little ,liberals or little ,conservatives has beneath it the fact of a profound and perhaps permanent difference of temperament4 ,there are those--and probably will always be--who take less kindly to change than others2 and in this difference there will always be ample room and occasion for discussion and criticism4 ,it is also well to remember that the conflict of sincerely held opinion is one of the most fruitful forms of co-operation in the search for truth4 ,but there are few existing lines of party division which reflect a genuine cleavage of conviction4 ,the present opposition of ,republican and ,democrat in ,america seems to have only a distant connection with that profound division of opinion in which the opposition first originated4 ,in ,great ,britain1 ,liberal and ,conservative have stood ideally for the two necessary principles of freedom and order1 progress and stability2 but the party conflict has raged chiefly in recent times around the question of power4 ,it has been a duel of the 8ins0 and 8outs40 ,there are1 of course1 ,liberals like ,lord ,morley1 and ,conservatives like ,lord ,hugh ,cecil1 whose political attachments rest upon deep and reasoned conviction2 but reasoned conviction is not the main subject of interest in the ,whips' offices4 ,the final judgment upon the nature of the party struggle is to be sought in the practical business of electioneering4 ,direct corruption is on the whole rare in democratic countries2 but the organisation of the party vote--whether in ,england or ,america--is a wholly scandalous and deplorable business4 ,the practice of canvassing for votes1 attended frequently with intimidation and generally with a good deal of insincere cajoling1 the easily made and easily forgotten electioneering promises1 the frantic shepherding of sluggish voters to the polling booth1--these things show how little substance of conviction and thought there is in the modern political game4 ,canvassing is sometimes defended as a method of political education2 occasionally in competent hands it no doubt is so2 but anyone who is acquainted with electioneering methods knows that the education is merely incidental to securing the promise of a vote4 ,canvassing would conceivably serve a useful purpose if the attempt to extract the promise of a vote were declared to be in fact what it is in spirit--a violation of the ,ballot ,act4 ,it is questionable1 however1 how long the practice of canvassing would survive this curtailment4 ,and in addition to this1 all inducements to drag unwilling and indifferent citizens to the poll should be made illegal4 ,democracy is not necessarily government by the mob4 ,it is rather government by the intelligent and the interested2 and the remedy for popular apathy here1 as elsewhere1 is proper education4 ,the two-party system of ,great ,britain1 and in the ,united ,states1 may in time be replaced by the group system as it prevails on the continent of ,europe4#ca ,the group system is subject to the evils and the disadvantages attending the two-party system2 but it has the distinct advantage of making possible a larger range and variety of criticism4 ,nevertheless1 whether under the two-party or group conditions1 it is doubtful whether the present territorial arrangement of representation can ever secure a truly democratic government4 ,the territorial arrangement is derived from a period which long antedates the railroad2 and improved means of communication have created national groups with specialised but ultra-local interests1 and for the purposes of democratic government the ,labour ,union 7for instance7 is as important a unit as the county4 ,it is absurd that the only way in which the specific interests of organised labour can be represented in the ,house of ,commons is by putting ,labour candidates in competition with ,liberals and ,conservatives in mixed constituencies4 ,some alleviation of this anomaly may be found in the plan of proportional representation2 but this does not fully provide for the necessity of securing direct and adequate representation of functional and cultural associations in the councils of the nation4 ,it is an anachronism that to-day the mind of the nation should be gathered solely on a geographical basis1 when the actual living mind of the nation increasingly resides in the various groups into which men form themselves on the basis of interests that are no longer determined by local considerations4 ,the representation of non-territorial constituencies in the councils of the nation raises the question of the nature of the state which must be considered separately4 ,footnote #ca3 ,the results of the last ,general ,election in ,england seem to bear out this anticipation4 ,freedom and fulness of discussion is the very breath of life to popular institutions1 and wheresoever any problem or range of problems is withdrawn from public discussion1 there is a virtual denial of the democratic principle4 ,when1 for instance1 and in particular1 foreign policy is conducted behind closed doors1 a control over the destinies of the people is vested in individuals or in a class of individuals which is as real and as monstrous as that of an autocrat2 and democracy is denied in its most sensitive and critical part4 ,it is true that the practice of secret diplomacy has survived because nations have been too little concerned about their external affairs2 and no plausible arguments about 8delicate situations0 and the like could resist for a moment the insistence of an intelligent democracy upon the management of its own affairs4 ,if democracy is to survive at all1 it must make up its mind speedily that the principle of its inner life shall not be denied in its outer4 ,but if democracy is to have a mind at all1 it must learn to use the mind it has2 and the chief stimulus to this end would be the multiplication of centres of discussion4 ,this would be materially helped if government departments were required to produce not only ponderous blue-books which only bewilder the common man1 and official documents intelligible only to the expert1 but popular accounts1 published regularly1 of their proceedings4 ,the press should be used far more extensively for this purpose2 and even the children of the public schools should be provided with appropriate graded summaries of the acts of the national government4 ,then on the basis of this material for discussion1 the social debating society1 the reading circle1 the ,forum and all such groups would become the living and increasing springs of democracy4 ,in speaking of education we are far too apt to confine the word to the education of children2 but what may be done in the education of adults and at the same time in the stimulation of fellowship in thought1 is well shown by the achievement of the ,workers' ,educational ,association in ,england4 ,the education of the working class is an idea which dates back to the social and political ferment of the early nineteenth century--the earliest expression being the ,mechanics' ,institute movement4 ,this was followed by the ,working ,men's ,college movement under ,frederick ,denison ,maurice and his friends4 ,then came the educational experiments1 first of the ,rochdale ,pioneers in #ahdj1 and then of the ,co-operative ,societies1 out of which grew ultimately the ,university ,extension movement4 ,the existing ,worker's ,educational ,association originated in an alliance of the educational activities of the ,co-operative1 ,trade ,union and ,university ,extension movements4 ,it was based upon 8the vital principle that there could be no complete education of working people unless it was a result of the combination of working men and women and scholars1 respectively experts in demand and supply40 ,it is certain--and the war has provided many instances of it--that this alliance of worker and scholar has done much to break down the partition wall of class prejudice2 and the 8tutorial class0 has in particular been a very fruitful agent of fellowship and education4 8,the days of the ,w4,e4,a40 7as it is called7 says ,mr4 ,alfred ,mansbridge1 its devoted and able secretary1 8have been few so far2 but it has already demonstrated the soundness of its theories--to take one instance alone--by the development of the ,university ,tutorial ,class movement which conforms in method to that of ,plato so far as question and answer developed in discussion are concerned4 ,in ,england alone over eight thousand men and women have passed through these courses which are organised in connection with every ,university and ,university ,college4 ,if it were not for the clear demonstration of experience1 it would seem fatuous to expect that men and women who have undergone no educational training other than that provided in the few years of attendance at the elementary school would be willing to attend classes for three years1 and in some cases for as many as seven or eight years4 ,it must be remembered that the discipline of the class though self-imposed is severe4 ,no absence is allowed for other than unavoidable causes4 ,moreover1 their purpose is the acquisition of knowledge as assisting the fulfilment of an educational ideal which is conceived not in the interests of the individual but in the interests of citizenship4 ,the level of intellectual achievement testified to by many eminent educationists is such as to warrant the ,board of ,education in making a regulation to the effect that #8the instruction must aim at reaching within the limits of the subject covered1 the standard of ,university work in honours4'0#cb ,while the emphasis in this account is laid chiefly upon the educational aspects of the movement those who are acquainted with its working lay much stress upon the part which the practice and realisation of fellowship play in it4#cc ,the sense of common quest is at once a source and a result of the movement3 and it is not open to any question that the ,w4,e4,a4 is one of the most powerful organs of the new democracy now existing4 ,alongside the ,w4,e4,a4 in ,great ,britain is also the ,adult ,school movement1 which chiefly under the auspices of the ,society of ,friends is doing much similar1 though not so severe work4 ,it gathers together every ,sunday morning in all parts of the country thousands of working men and women in its many hundred schools to study not only 8the principles of the life and teaching of ,jesus1 but the manifold and perplexing problems of national and international life40 ,in such fruitful activities as these will the mind and the temper of the coming democracy be created4 ,these men and women are learning the practice of freedom and fellowship in thought1 which is the fundamental democratic method4 ,footnote #cb3 ,contemporary ,review1 ,june1 #aiah4 ,footnote #cc3 ,an interesting sign of where the members of the ,w4,e4,a4 themselves feel the essence of the movement to lie is seen in the inscription on a memorial cross erected in the ,parish ,church of ,lambeth1 ,london1 in memory of three tutors of the ,w4,e4,a43 8,in memory of ,philip ,anthony ,brown1 #ahhf-aiae4 ,alfred ,edward ,bland1 #ahha-aiaf4 ,arthur ,charleswood ,turner1 #ahha-aiah4 ,tutors of the ,workers' ,educational ,association4 ,they lived for ,fellowship in ,england and died for it in ,france40 ,the ,challenge1 ,july #aith1 #aiah4 ,,iii ,now that we have come to acknowledge not only that ,jack's vote is as good as his master's1 but that ,jill's vote is as good as ,jack's1 we have laid the train of a further change in the relations of men and women4 ,for just as surely as the worker has discovered that political equality does not of necessity remove economic disability1 and is now beginning to demand economic emancipation1 so also women will pass on from the acquisition of political equality to a demand for economic equality4 ,indeed1 the demand is already being made4 ,the war has served to reveal the arbitrary and illusory character of the assumptions which closed certain occupations to women4 ,we know that the number of occupations for which women are temperamentally or physically unfitted is comparatively small4 ,there are obvious reasons for believing that some few trades will remain permanently undesirable for women2 but the immediate fact that confronts us is that the traditional line of demarcation has been swept away under the stress of war needs2 and that we shall have to work out in the school of experience a new classification of occupations more consonant with the new facts4 ,some years ago there was much discussion in ,england concerning a high legal decision that a woman was not a 8person0 within the meaning of a certain ,act of ,parliament4 ,this was symptomatic of a general survival of the view which assigned women to a slightly sub-human class2 and the vitality of this view is still more considerable than many hopeful minds are willing to think4 ,yet it is only when we have educated ourselves into the conception of woman which attributes to her a distinct personality of her own1 with an end in and for herself1 and with all the rights and privileges1 the freedom and the independence appertaining to it1 that we shall approach the problem of the relations of men and women from a genuinely democratic standpoint4 ,woman is commonly regarded as having a function rather than an individual end4 ,it is her part to preserve the race4 ,her peculiar vocation is child-bearing4 ,it cannot1 however1 be affirmed with too much emphasis that the perpetuation of the race is no more the task of woman than of man4 ,the heavier end of the physical burden of race-preservation certainly falls upon the woman2 but this fact does not indicate that this is the purpose for which she exists4 ,her traditional assignment to this role1 and the consequent limitation of her circle of experience and interest1 the virtual incarceration of the great majority of women to the 8home10 and the denial to them of any real participation in the larger concerns of the common life1 must cease if social existence is to achieve the balance necessary to stable and healthy progress4 ,the preservation of the race can be left to look after itself4 ,race-suicide only becomes a peril when the relations of men and women become perverted and unnatural as they commonly do in our present social order4 ,when at one end of society1 the bringing up of families entails an economic burden too heavy to be borne1 and at the other1 the hedonism which accompanies excessive wealth tends to a sensuality which refuses to accept the natural risks and to pay the natural price of the sex-relation1 a poisonous arrest is unavoidably laid upon the normal operation of the sex-instincts4 ,the most easily perverted endowment of human nature is sex1 and it cannot retain a balanced and healthy functioning under disordered conditions of life4 ,the incessant discussion of marriage and divorce misses the point largely because it ignores the background of the problem4 ,while we regard the physical distinction of sex as the primary fact to be considered in relation to woman1 and still cling to the obsession so dear to bourgeois respectability that her business is motherhood and 8her place is the home10 so long1 that is1 as we regard her life and its purpose as dependent upon man1 so long will judgment be deflected from its true pole at its very source4 ,wholesome and free men and women will continue to fall in love with one another and will want to have children of each other1 where to-day because their relations are unwholesome and unequal1 they tend only to seek possession of one another1 without any disposition 7not to speak of eagerness7 to welcome the fruit of their union2 and too often with the deliberate intention of preventing the fruitage4 ,for the disorder which leads to this confusion of the sex-relation1 the first remedy is to establish the independence of the woman4 ,the problem of marriage will remain acute--and1 indeed1 ultimately insoluble--until the contracting parties enter it upon the basis of an equal partnership4 ,the conception of marriage as a 8career0 for women has done much to destroy the only conditions under which marriage can ever be successful4 ,the freedom and spontaneity of the relation between men and women is made impossible by those calculations of position and wealth which the career theory of marriage requires4 ,while it is nominally the case that no woman is compelled to marry1 it is actually the fact that many women--in the bourgeois classes1 most women--are so brought up that marriage becomes their only escape from indigence4 ,the fact of woman's independence should be made concrete and real by requiring that every woman shall be self-supporting1 that is to say1 that she shall share in the necessary industrial processes of the community or do some work of acknowledged social worth4 ,naturally the latter category includes the bearing and upbringing of children2 for than this there is no work more fundamental or of greater social worth4 ,this requires the economic independence of the mother2 and since the social reconstruction postulated in these pages1 involves in some form or other the establishment of an universal minimum standard1 the mother will not only be economically independent but will also be released from the harassing task of bringing up a growing family upon a stationary income4 ,it will be argued against such proposals as these that they endanger the sanctity of the family4 ,but this criticism possesses neither grace nor force in a generation which has permitted industrial conditions to prevail which have virtually destroyed the home-life of the working-classes4 ,the only assumption on which it is safe to proceed in dealing with this question is that anything entitled to be called a 8home life0 is quite exceptional among large masses of the population4 ,both the physical setting of the home--the house--and the economic condition of its members rob the home of that quality of sanctuary and base which is of the essence of a genuine home4 ,our problem is to recreate the home1 the setting of that social group of man1 woman and child1 which we call the family1 and which is the natural nucleus of the commonwealth1 and the moral gymnasium where the young should best learn the arts of fellowship4 ,the housing question has its own importance in the problem2 but of infinitely more importance to the recovery of home life is the establishment of the economic independence of the woman4 ,so long as custom and necessity place her in a position of dependence on the man1 so long will she be denied the freedom which is essential to perfect comradeship4 ,her present status denies the equality which is necessary to fellowship2 and much of the unhappiness of modern marriage is due to the intelligible chafing of women against the conditions which dependence and inferiority of status impose upon her4 ,that many married people succeed in overcoming this initial handicap is true2 but that is due to certain qualities in themselves and does not in the least alter the fact that where marital relations go awry the evil is largely in the conditions which govern those relations in our present social order4 ,the relaxing of marriage ties is no remedy2 it is only a relief to persons of incompatible tempers4 ,both the advocates and the opponents of greater facilities for divorce seem to argue their case out of all relation to the existing social environment of marriage4 ,the evils for which a remedy is sought in easier divorce are not to be found in the nature of the marriage relation but in the conventional and legal status of women4#cd ,while the social and economic sources of the trouble are left untouched1 no amount of ,catholic emphasis upon the sacramental character of marriage is going to stay the demand for the greater dissolubility of a tie which existing conditions do much to make difficult and frequently intolerable4 ,even under the best conditions1 the mutual adjustments of the man and woman in married life are not easy2 but when one party enters the relation in a position of more or less explicitly acknowledged dependence and inferiority1 there are seeds of ineradicable trouble4 ,footnote #cd3 ,this does not imply that the present writer does not recognise the need of some extension of the grounds of divorce in ,great ,britain4 ,it simply means that he thinks that the problem cannot be rightly approached until the economic independence of women has been established4 ,it is not for a moment argued that the establishment of the economic independence of woman is a cure for all the ills that afflict the family4 ,but this is fundamental2 and we shall simply be beating the air so long as we do not accept this principle4 ,for it is the only method which holds a promise of restoring the life of the home4 ,at the same time1 it is no less necessary that the woman being by reason of her motherhood economically independent should not be regarded as the economic handmaid of the state4 ,if the endowment of motherhood is only a provision for increasing the economic and military human material of the community1 then we are better without it4 ,for the poison which vitiates our life will return to it at its most delicate and sensitive point4 ,to regard the marriage relation simply as the means of supplying a constant stream of military and economic units for the state is to deny the spiritual nature of man at its very source1 and to reimpose on ourselves the deadly incubus of materialism4 ,this is the danger which the ,eugenics movement threatens us with4 ,to introduce the principle of selective breeding into human relations may result in a community of persons1 healthy1 vigorous and efficient for economic and military purposes2 but we are learning how little physical heredity has to do with the ultimate purpose of life4 ,in so far as ,eugenics will lead to greater precautions against the propagation of diseased and mentally and physically degenerate persons1 and quickens a greater vigilance and a more insistent demand for sound minds and sound bodies in those about to give themselves in marriage1 it brings a necessary and valuable reinforcement to the influences that make for human welfare4 ,but when it goes beyond this point1 it becomes a danger to the spiritual conception of life and society4 ,what we must insist upon is that marriage shall be a partnership1 deliberately entered into by two equal persons1 economically independent of each other1 attracted to each other by that physical and temperamental affinity which we call love2 and that we shall import into the relationship no extraneous notions of state-service or of race-preservation which may interfere with the freedom and spontaneity of the relation thus established4 ,the bearing of children may be a service to the nation2 but no child is well-born who is not born simply of the joyful mutual selfgiving of man and woman4 ,yet it may be held that the partnership is an affair so momentous that none should be permitted to enter it so precipitately as the marriage laws of the ,united ,states allow4 ,some degree of deliberation should be insisted upon before legal recognition of the union is granted4 ,the demand for greater facilities for divorce is probably not unconnected with the extreme facility with which persons can enter upon the marriage relationship4 ,but the establishment of right relations between the sexes must begin before the period when men and women have reached the condition of personal independence4 ,it should be plain that the sense of sex-difference which emerges in adolescence should not be allowed to develop in the unregulated and capricious manner in which our false modesty compels it to develop to-day4 ,the processes of initiation into the mysteries of sex should begin sufficiently early to avert so far as possible the danger of its being discoloured and perverted by the undue obtrusion of its sense-accompaniments4 ,there is no real reason why the frank comradeship of boys and girls should not be maintained through adolescence into youth1 but the criminal negligence which we have shown concerning the means by which sex-knowledge is communicated to growing children has succeeded in creating a gulf between men and women which persists more or less permanently and constitutes the most obstinate difficulty in the way of perfect freedom of fellowship between men and women4 ,it is no exaggeration to say that the attitude of most men to women is poisoned--perhaps beyond perfect recovery at any time--by the conditions under which as boys they received their first intimations of the nature of the sex-relation4 ,a good deal has already been done to pave the way of change in this matter2 and an increasing number of parents are assuming the responsibility of communicating this knowledge to their children4 ,but there is still unfortunately a great mass of unhealthy prudery to be overcome before rational dealing with this problem becomes anything like universal4 ,the problem of the fellowship of men and women1 however1 extends beyond the institution of marriage4 ,now that the enfranchisement of women is opening up the question of their availability and qualification for national legislatures1 we are confronted with a very large possibility of change in the tone and temper of government4 ,much nonsense is talked about the psychological differences between men and women2 and of this nonsense1 the emptiest is that which assumes that women are dominated by sentiment and emotion1 while men are guided by reason4 ,an unprejudiced observer1 watching deliberative gatherings of men over any space of time would certainly arrive at the conclusion that the occasions on which they acted upon purely rational grounds were rare and exceptional2 and it has been the experience of the present writer that in deliberative groups of men and women the women are on the whole more likely to display a dispassionate rationality in arriving at their judgments than the men4 ,it is a region in which broad generalisations are bound to be unsound2 and the progress of the higher education of women is undoubtedly obliterating any patent difference of mental operation between men and women4 ,at the same time1 there are certain differences which are embedded in the physical structure of sex and which may be therefore permanent2 but so far from disqualifying women from a share in government1 those very differences entitle them to it4 ,quite apart from the fact that the problems of food and clothing in their incidence on the home are of peculiar importance to women1 and that the woman's point of view should always be represented in discussion of the large-scale problems of production and distribution1 the mind of woman brings a check and balance to the operations of the male mind which they very acutely need4 ,there can1 for instance1 be no question that the male mind tends to an inordinate faith in force and coercive processes2 and while it would hardly be correct to say that the female mind possesses an antithetic bias of a reasoned kind1 it does normally display a certain hesitancy to apply the closure of compulsion which the too ready real-politik of a purely male assembly is prone to adopt when it sets out to translate its emotions into enactments4 ,the truth of the matter1 in fine1 is this--that because humanity is bi-sexual1 its affairs cannot be reasonably and fruitfully determined save through the common counsels of men and women4 ,we have already made a beginning in the admission of women to the councils of the community4 ,a woman has sat in the ,congress of the ,united ,states2 women have long been at home in ,british municipal bodies1 and their right to a place in ,parliament has been acknowledged4 ,it is only a matter of time when the logic of the enfranchisement of women will reach its inevitable conclusion in their admission to all public deliberative bodies on equal terms with men4 ,they have a contribution to bring to the corporate direction of affairs without which the nations can no longer do2 and the fact that as a class they may take some time to become habituated to the mechanics of legislation is an argument for hastening their complete admission to it4 ,there were those who in the 8militant0 stage of the 8,votes for ,women0 campaign foretold that the economic class-war would presently be superseded or complicated by a sex-war2 and some women there were whose utterances undoubtedly pointed in that direction4 ,for the time1 however1 this danger has dropped over the horizon4 ,the war has evoked a community of suffering in which men and women alike have shared too deeply1 and in which their mutual need has been too overwhelming to make the notion of a sex-war even thinkable to-day4 ,but we should be rejoicing prematurely if we supposed that all possible sources of sex-antagonism have disappeared4 ,the political enfranchisement of women certainly removes one source2 but the new industrial complications caused by the entry of women into occupations which have hitherto been a male monopoly1 and in which their employment has been fully justified by the character of their workmanship may1 when the transition to peaceful life is being made1 breed grievances and troubles in which the line of cleavage will be determined by the sex-factor4 ,but if we assume the establishment of the 8national minimum10 applicable to men and women alike1 and therefore securing the economic independence of women1 we shall have robbed this prospective danger of much of its substance4 ,for the rest1 there seems to be no reason why women should not be freely permitted to engage in occupations for which they are competent1 on equal terms with men2 and the comradeship of men and women in the control and the operation of industrial processes would do much to fix the now dominant sex-interest in its proper place in life4 ,the primacy of the sex-interest in determining the relations of men and women works definitely toward the retention of women in a subordinate1 parasitic and exploited position1 and while this lasts1 we shall still have with us the seeds of sex-antagonism4 ,all this does not overlook the fact that there are kinds of work for which women are physically unsuited1 and that there are times in the life of the married woman when she should be exempted from all manual work save of the lightest sort4 ,but these problems are in essence present even in the working conditions of men4 ,all men are not suited for all classes of work2 and there are few men whose work is not occasionally interrupted by sickness4 ,what is needed in the case of women is simply a further application of those principles of selection and accommodation which already operate in every industry4 ,unless some such position as this is frankly accepted1 we may be presently confronted with a new militancy and a new sabotage at the hands of women who have tasted the experience of economic independence and are unwilling to surrender it to a convention of inequality which they claim their own war-time performance has permanently discredited4 ,,iv ,difficult as the realisation of a perfect fellowship between men and women may be1 it presents a problem comparatively easy of solution by the side of that entailed in the division of a community by a colour-line4 ,in itself the colour-line is not insuperable2 its difficulty lies in its symbolical character as representing a difference and an inferiority of tradition and history4 ,the chief difficulty in the ,united ,states arises out of the memory of the former slavery of the negro population2 and the consequent persistence of a prejudice against according equal treatment to a class regarded as1 if not sub-human1 at least permanently inferior in capacity4 ,it is useless to press the assumption that a necessary physical aversion must always separate the white from the black1 in the face of the existence of a vast number of palpably cross-bred persons in the community4 ,this does not1 of course1 mean that mixed marriages should be encouraged or regarded as normal4 ,the problems raised by miscegenation are much too difficult to permit us to remove the colour-line by the off-hand method of race-fusion4 ,the fusion of two races separated from one another not only by the memory of two centuries of slavery but by unnumbered centuries of widely different culture1 would probably create more problems than it solved4 ,the colour-line would be superseded by a multiplicity of shade-lines2 and confusion would be worse confounded4 ,it is probable that the level of the more advanced race would be depressed more than that of the more backward race would be raised4 ,houston ,chamberlain is probably right 7in spite of his capacity for being so frequently and so colossally wrong7 in holding that the finest racial types are produced by the fusion of two peoples not too widely separated in physical and historical character1 followed by close inbreeding4 ,the gulf between black and white in ,america and ,south ,africa is far too deep1 as yet at least1 to make the removal of the colour-line by fusion a subject of hopeful discussion4 ,but equally the solution is not to be found in segregation--certainly so far as these two countries are concerned4 ,the admixture of the black and the white elements in the population has gone much too far to make segregation a practical proposition4 ,it would1 moreover1 have the distinct disadvantage of stereotyping two different types of cultural development within the same commonwealth and of consequently endangering its unity by setting up the possibility of rivalry and antagonism4 ,in any two-race community the ideal must be to secure so far as may be possible a substantial identity of outlook and culture2 and this is to be done not by segregation1 but by contact4 ,but it is just this 8contact0 that is denied to the negro race both in ,america and ,south ,africa4 ,the races are really segregated as effectually as though they lived in separate reservations2 they live in quite different cultural 8climates40 ,the negro though no longer a chattel-slave yet constitutes a servile class2 the duties assigned to him in the community are essentially of a menial kind4 ,it is characteristic of his position in ,america that the higher ranks of military command are closed to him2 and while a woman has made her way to ,congress1 there is as yet no negro congressman2 the idea is still barely thinkable4 ,yet no community has thrived permanently which permitted a helot class to exist within itself2 and the position of the negro--now that education is quickening his mind to the sense of class-disinheritance and race-consciousness--may become a grave menace to the inner harmony of the ,republic4 ,the logic of ,lincoln's proclamation has yet to be worked out in the minds of white ,americans4 ,to abolish slavery is not indeed to make a black man white2 nor does it at once equip him for the responsibilities of freedom4 ,but it does confer citizenship upon him2 and the gift of citizenship should be validated by two things2 first1 by a frank and generous recognition of equality of standing1 and second1 by a thorough-going policy of education4 ,perhaps the former was more than could be justly expected4 ,just as the slave was ill-equipped for freedom1 so the white man could hardly rise at once to the plane of regarding the negro as his free and equal brother4 ,but it is a fair criticism of the public treatment of the negro that he has not been supplied with the opportunity of rising to his white brother's plane of culture4 ,there have been voluntary philanthropic efforts in this direction1 but this work should not have been left to the precarious chances of charity4 ,just because negro emancipation was a public act1 the full cultural education of the negro was a public responsibility4 ,by reason of this failure on the part of the white man1 the negro has not advanced to such a point as two generations of liberty would seemingly entitle us to expert4 ,he has inevitably retained much of the mentality and many of the habits of his servitude2 and these are effectual bars to that type of social contact which the negro's growth requires4 ,that there is no inherent impossibility in educating the negro up to the average plane of the ,anglo-,saxon has been proved in a multitude of instances2 and people who are devoid of race-prejudice find no difficulty in establishing frank and fruitful fellowship with educated coloured persons4 ,america and ,great ,britain in her dominions and dependencies have to face the logic of their democratic ideals by a sustained resolution to provide the opportunity to their coloured fellow-citizens to reach their own plane of culture4 ,as things are they deny their democratic professions by permitting their race prejudices to consign their coloured fellow-citizens to a condition of permanent social inferiority4 ,if they wish to be democratic in fact and not merely in name1 they will need to be true to the implications of their democracy through everything1 even through the physical repugnances which the personal habits of backward races are apt to evoke4 ,the colour problem was created for this generation by its forbears--by those who sold and owned slaves and those who established colonies in distant countries4 ,but though the problem is not of our making1 we cannot absolve ourselves from the moral responsibility which it lays upon us2 and it is only by means of an inveterate good-will that we shall discharge this responsibility4 ,such a good-will must rest upon the truth--however unpalatable to our prejudices it may be--that the black man whether in ,new ,york or in ,cape ,town is equally with ourselves endowed with the human differentia of personality1 and that he is morally entitled to all the rights of life and light and liberty that we claim for personality4 ,with this truth must be accepted the task imposed upon us by our superior advantages 7which like our responsibilities we owe to our fathers71 to raise the more backward races with whom we live to a plane on which there can be free and enriching fellowship between them and ourselves4 ,we cannot hopefully go on to make the world safe for a principle of common life which our present habits show that we do not believe in at home4 ,v ,however complete and well-organised the provision may be against destitution in any society1 it can never prevent the distress which ensues upon the accidents of life1 sickness and sorrow1 loneliness and old age--these we shall not wholly escape even in our earthly paradise4 ,we may indeed lessen the occasions of sickness and of premature death by a wiser and more scientific ordering of the physical setting of life and of personal habit2 but no ingenuity or skill can overcome the inevitable brokenness of life in a world of time4 ,but this very circumstance provides fellowship with the opportunity to do its most perfect work4 ,and real fellowship will be possible for the simple reason that 8charity0 will be superfluous4 ,in modern life1 the material destitution of large numbers of people has necessitated the organisation of relief on a large scale1 both public and private2 and while the charitable impulse is intrinsically admirable1 the conditions under which it has come to be exercised have in effect widened the gulf between the rich and the poor4 ,on the one hand the rich have contracted the habit of condescending patronage2 and the poor have fallen into a habit of cunning obsequiousness4 ,in self-defence the rich have built up a machinery of investigation and distribution which has had three disastrous results3 first1 it has set up the monstrous and unfair test of deservingness1--8the deserving poor0 is a phrase in which the well-to-do have forever crystallised their pharisaism2 second1 it has set a premium upon the petty tactics of evasion and deceit among the poor1 and upon a corresponding cunning and astuteness in those entrusted with the business of investigation2 and third1 it has eliminated from charity the one element which could make it tolerable and preserve the grace which should properly go with it--namely1 friendly contact4 ,for the most part1 the relief of destitution through charitable organisations1 has--because it eliminates the direct personal touch between need and supply--produced and aggravated a deep and deplorable social schism4 ,nor is the case any better with the public organisation of poor relief4 ,the ,english poor-law has been so completely discredited and is so near dissolution that it is hardly necessary to discuss it here4 ,it is more impersonal in its operations than a charity organisation society2 but its most evil consequence is that it has so worked as to attach a stigma to honest poverty--for the person who has received poor-relief is denied the rights of citizenship4 ,old age has fortunately been provided for in ,great ,britain in the only worthy way1 by a grant of state-pensions1 though the actual amount of the pension is pitifully inadequate4 ,yet the fact of the provision indicates a distinct advance in the sense of public justice4 ,but we shall not make much more progress until we realise that the pauper like the plutocrat is a social product2 and that such destitution as prevails to-day is due less to personal perversity than to a vicious social order4 ,no one is so foolishly hopeful as to suppose that even the most radical social change will eliminate the prodigal and the spendthrift and the sensualist4 ,nevertheless1 it is no longer open to question that a revolution in economic conditions would do much to remove the auxiliary causes of pauperising excess4 ,but the chief evil which attends our method of dealing with poverty is that it has tended to perpetuate a pauper class4 ,whether in the relief work of religious and charitable societies1 or in the administration of public relief1 we have been chiefly governed by the fact of an immediate need4 ,we have lived in the fond hope that if the present corner could be turned1 something might transpire to save the recipient of relief from another crisis2 and not even the obvious fact that the crisis is chronic in the case of multitudes has shaken us out of our preoccupation with symptoms into an investigation of causes4 ,in one of the supplementary reports of the ,british ,poor-,law ,commission1 it was stated that the investigation of the cases of applicants to whom 8out-door0 relief was denied 7the alternative being to go into the 8house071 showed that only in one instance where such persons had been helped by religious organisations was there any attempt to place the person concerned on an independent economic footing4 ,this is symptomatic of the ineptitude of our common thought about the poor4 ,we appear to accept the fact of their dependence as chronic and incurable2 and by the process of 8doles0 we aggravate this dependence and turn it into what we suppose it to be4 ,this same ineptitude has pursued society in its dealings with another class--the criminal4 ,criminologists do not nowadays assume the existence of a natural criminal class2 but our way of treating criminals has created such a class4 ,both for the pauper and the criminal we require a new diagnosis4 ,instead of treating the pauper as an incurable social parasite we should regard him as a personal inefficient2 and rather than put a premium upon his inefficiency by a continual gratuitous relief of his necessities1 we should impose some discipline which may lead to personal efficiency and an ordered habit of life4 ,as for the criminal1 he is a social inefficient2 and his treatment should include some provision for his training in the sense and arts of social responsibility4 ,it is a practical recognition of this need that constitutes the contribution which men like ,messrs4 ,thomas ,mott ,osborne and ,homer ,lane are making to the solution of a difficult problem4 ,that some plan of temporary segregation is necessary in the treatment of the inefficient--whether personal or social--is not open to question2 but the poorhouse and the prison1 as we know them1 only aggravate the evil which they are intended to cure4 ,our increasing attention to the problem of the social misfit at an earlier stage--through the new study and treatment of mentally deficient children--will considerably reduce the proportions both of pauperism and crime4 ,we are a long way from ,samuel ,butler's vision of the time when the liar will be sent to hospital and the sick person to jail2 nevertheless1 the point of ,butler's extravaganza is becoming recognised in the double fact that a good deal of disease is due to preventable causes1 the disregard of which is already treated as a legal offence2 and that much of the delinquency that prevails originates in pathological conditions rather than in moral depravity4 ,especially are we on hopeful lines when we take the mentally deficient child and regard him as the subject of medical rather than of legal treatment4 ,and we shall go yet farther when we realise that though we cannot and dare not eliminate the factor of personal responsibility1 yet our social misfits are the products of our social disorder1 and it is seen that while justice requires that a man shall pay the penalty of his sins1 yet the same justice requires that the society which produced the sinner shall feel a corporate responsibility for his restoration4 ,and restoration is indeed the very centre of our problem in dealing with the social misfit4 ,for our task with the pauper and the criminal is that of making each capable of entering freely and vitally into the fellowship of free men4 ,yet when we have dealt with the social misfit there will remain1 life being what it is1 a number of people in every community for whom the burden of life has proved too heavy or whose lives are clouded by sickness or loneliness or death4 8,the poor10 said ,jesus1 8ye have always with you40 ,he did not mean that we need always have physically destitute people with us2 ,he knew better1 as we know better4 ,but the smoking flax and the bruised reed we shall ever have with us2 and no society can afford to despise a ministry of comfort4 ,indeed1 fellowship will lack its native grace if it fails to produce an unfailing stream of sympathy and consolation to the distressed4 ,here will be the test of the vitality of our fellowship4 ,for our ideal of fellowship may become hardened in organisation2 and personal spontaneity may be lost in a routine habit of life4 ,and to whatever else we may be able to give an organised and official form1 it is at least sure that when the ministry of comfort and help loses the touch of personal directness and spontaneity1 it is from henceforth a dead and useless thing4 ,,vii ,up to this point we have considered the more general problems of fellowship in the community as a whole2 we have still to consider some of the questions raised by the more particular associations which form themselves within the community1 and in which by far the largest measure of the community's vitality resides4 ,f4 ,w4 ,maitland1 in an interesting passage1 reviews the endless variety of social forms in which men group themselves together4 ,he speaks of 8churches1 and even the medival church1 one and catholic1 religious houses and mendicant orders1 nonconforming bodies1 a presbyterian system1 universities1 old and new1 the village community1 which ,germanists have revealed to us1 the manor in its growth and decay1 the township1 the ,new ,england town1 the counties and hundreds1 the chartered boroughs1 the guild in all its manifold varieties1 the ,inns of ,court1 the merchant adventurers1 the militant 8companies0 of ,english condottieri who1 returning home1 help to make the word 8company0 popular among us3 the trading companies1 the companies that became colonies1 the companies that make war1 the friendly societies1 the ,trade ,unions1 the clubs1 the group that meets at ,lloyd's ,coffee ,house1 the group that becomes the ,stock ,exchange1 and so on even to the one man company1 the ,standard ,oil ,trust1 and the ,south ,australian statutes for communistic villages40 ,the prevailing political philosophy of our time has stated its problem almost wholly in terms of an abstract state over against an abstract individual2 and one of the most heartening signs of the invasion of political thought and practice by a more healthy humanism is the growing recognition of these many-coloured nucleations of life4 ,there are important and difficult questions bearing upon their political and legal status1 but these are only to be answered by a frank acknowledgment that groupings of this kind come into being because they meet a real need and answer to certain facts of life and human nature4 ,no political philosophy is likely to stand the racket of historical experience which does not stand upon the assumption that these associations have a real and inherent right to form themselves1 to exist1 to thrive and to multiply2 for it is in groups that are voluntarily formed around a living interest that the most significant and important part of our life is lived4 ,to the more direct political implications of this type of association we shall turn at a later point2 here we are concerned only to emphasise the need and the right of such bodies to live1 and their importance for the preservation of the balance of life1 and therefore1 of stable social progress4 ,their real importance may be seen from the circumstance that the struggle for religious liberty in ,england1 which has historically been the spring of civil and political liberty1 was a struggle not for the liberty of the individual but of the small voluntarily associated group4 ,these voluntarily associated groups will form themselves around any interest of sufficient importance2 and1 as we have seen1 they are of the most various character and raise the most various questions concerning their relation to the commonwealth4#ce ,this is a subject still in the earlier stages of exploration and likely to be of increasing importance for our political and social philosophies1 especially as it comes to be recognised that for the most part the groups which are here spoken of represent interests and needs more vital to human nature than the accidental aggregations represented by political states4 ,it may1 moreover1 be held that the multiplication of such groups within the commonwealth1 insomuch as they bear upon real interests of life1 is much to be encouraged2 and the commonwealth which knows what is good for its people will impose no restrictions upon their power and readiness to form themselves into combinations of this kind4 ,and indeed1 however absolute the authority of the state1 it cannot prevent the formation of voluntary associations4 ,if it be not permitted to form these associations openly1 they will be formed secretly2 and the secret society is the undoing of commonwealths4 ,footnote #ce3 ,the commonest and the oldest type of freely associated group within the commonwealth is of course the ,church1 and on this point the reader may be referred to the present writer's book ,the ,church in the ,commonwealth4 ,as a matter of fact1 the state has always been apprehensive and suspicious of combinations of any kind within its own bounds and has endeavoured either to repress them or to establish the principle that they exist only on sufferance4 ,but no attempts at repression when they are directed at associations that represent real human concerns have been permanently successful4 ,the repeal in #ahbd of the ,british ,acts against combination1 intended chiefly to frustrate industrial unions1 whether of employers or of workers1 is typical of the fate of such legislation4 ,these ,acts went against the actual facts of the human situation and naturally proved disastrous4 ,it is in this region of industrial combinations that we have the best modern illustration of the spontaneity and inevitability of voluntary human association4 ,in the ,guild period it was broadly true that ,capital and ,labour being in the same hands had interests which were identical2 but when power-driven machinery separated ,capital from ,labour and lodged them in different hands1 and as the rift widened through the operation of laissez-faire1 and the interests of ,capital and ,labour became antagonistic1 it was natural that the capitalists and the workers should severally combine in defence of their interests4 ,the state prayed a plague on both their houses at that time1 being equally afraid of both2 later1 the state became more complaisant to the powerful owning classes2 and looked askance only at the workers' unions--an attitude which led to a very material strengthening of the latter4 ,this schism of ,capital and ,labour dominates the present social situation1 and it is at this time1 even more than the state1 the gravest hindrance to the natural activities of social energy4 ,its disintegrating and antisocial effect is plain far outside the region where the immediate issue lies1 and it is questionable whether an organic social life is possible until the antagonism is overcome4 ,something has been done to mitigate the worst asperities of this unsatisfactory position by welfare work1 copartnership1 profit-sharing2 and still more will be done by the introduction of measures of joint control of the conditions of industry4 ,but the fact still remains that this antithesis and separation of capital and labour is artificial and unnatural1 as it is also essentially undemocratic4 ,for power goes with ownership under the conditions imposed by the current doctrine of property2 and concessions and benefits which are granted as from the voluntary bounty of the employer 7however worldly wise they actually are in their intention7 involve an assumption of patronage which the present temper of the workers makes entirely unreal and obsolete4 ,the danger of social disruption lies in this quarter2 and so long as the present tension remains1 it tends to retard the free and varied expressions of fellowship in which a living society should abound4 ,society divided into two camps1 with interests radically divergent1 is condemned to a state of tension which is hostile to the free ferment of association natural to men2 and this despite all well-meaning efforts to reconcile the conflicting interests by compromises which leave the framework of the schism untouched4 ,so that we have come to this--that it is not only the traditional attitude of the state which is hostile to the free efflorescence of social groups but the actual condition of society under the present industrial system4 ,a state of war1 even of suppressed war1 makes for a forced fellowship of partisans1 and not for the free fellowship of partners4 ,it is in the interests of the genuine socialisation of life that it is demanded that this social schism of capital and labour should be overcome2 and there is but one way of overcoming it1 namely the logical democratic way of putting the capital and the power it wields in the hands of those who labour4 ,towards this goal the first step has been taken in the movement toward democratic control in industry2 and from this it is inevitable that the worker should proceed to demand control not only of production1 but1 as ,mr4 ,cole says1 also of the product1 its sale and exchange2 and1 finally of investments4 ,the free variegated expression and embodiment of the natural society-forming instincts of mankind are not possible in a community where one class is in a position to impose its will upon another4 ,a state of conflict tends inevitably to a kind of flattening regimentation within the conflicting bodies2 and regimentation whether deliberate or unconscious is an obstruction to the free flow of life4 ,there is all the difference in the world between an organised society and a society that is essentially organic4 ,an organised society makes for uniformity2 an organic society will express itself in an endless number and variety of social forms4 ,if the state only knew it1 its security lies in the encouragement of voluntary associations of all types2 and even if it finds it difficult to rise to the plane of encouragement1 it should at least achieve an attitude of toleration4 ,for it is the only safeguard against the inevitable conflict of loyalties which is bound to arise when the state attempts to legislate for individuals in matters which touch the question of moral obligation4 ,indeed1 during the war1 we have seen the state in a somewhat lame and half-hearted way endeavouring to escape some of the consequences of its own legislation by having recourse to a recognition of the small group4 ,it was bound by the sheer nature of the falls to acknowledge the existence of conscientious objection to war2 and it proposed to acknowledge the genuineness of an individual conscientious objection to war if the person in question was a member of a religious society1 the doctrines of which contained a testimony against war4 ,it was assumed that if a man belonged to the ,society of ,friends1 it constituted respectable evidence that his objection to participation in war was sincere4 ,in this particular case1 the test proved hopelessly inadequate2 but it does at least indicate the condition under which the unity of the state can best be preserved4 ,it is plainly impossible for the state to avoid conflict with the individual conscience so long as it lacks the means of determining whether a conscientious scruple is merely a personal idiosyncrasy or arises from a reasoned and socially authenticated view of life4 ,by recognising the right of the members of a small group which has demonstrated its social worth to live their life out in their own way1 it saves itself from a dangerous conflict with the individual conscience2 while1 on the other hand1 as the individual conscience is safe-guarded from an anarchic eccentricity by the discipline of a freely chosen social environment1 the state has the assurance that it is dealing with a genuine manifestation of moral life which must at all costs be respected4 ,the small voluntary associated group is the saving middle term between the state and the individual4 ,it is not likely1 of course1 that it will prove efficacious without exception in solving the problems involved in the relations of the individual and the state2 but it would do much to mitigate the dangerous possibilities of the present practice4#cf ,footnote #cf3 ,this chapter pretends to do no more than discuss at large those questions of fellowship which directly abut upon the public affairs of democracies4 ,the promotion of fellowship in general opens up a large range of subjects which would not fall easily within the scope of this book4 ,no discussion of the practice of fellowship can1 for instance1 be complete which does not take account of the actual and potential social ministry of play and recreation4 ,but this matter involves questions with which the present writer is without competency to deal4 ,it would require an extended treatment of the social reactions of sport1 amateur and professional1 the revival of folk-dancing and the maypole1 the multiplication of play-centres for children and of open spaces2 of the drama and the public provision of music--and of other matters4 ,the subject is large and important enough for systematic discussion in a separate volume by someone capable of handling it4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,vii4 ,,the ,,organisation ,,of ,,government4 8,the people of ,england were then1 as they are now1 called upon to make ,government strong4 ,they thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest40--,,burke4 8,we may need and we may be moving towards a new conception of the state1 and more especially a new conception of sovereignty4444 ,we may have to regard every state1 not only the federal state proper1 but also the state which professes to be unitary1 as in its nature federal4 ,we may have to recognise that sovereignty is not single and indivisible1 but multiple and multicellular40--,,ernest ,,barker4 8,we find the true man only through group organisation4 ,the potentialities of the individual remain potentialities until they are released by group life4 ,man discovers his true nature1 gains his true freedom only through the group4 ,group organisation must be the new method of politics1 because the modes by which the individual can be brought forth and made effective are the modes of practical politics40--,,mary ,p4 ,,follett4 ,,the war has given the coup de grace to the ,sovereign ,state4 ,it was on its last legs before the war4 ,it is certain that ,mr4 ,combes' affirmation of state absolutism during the debates on the disestablishment of the ,catholic ,church in ,france1 was the last serious stand of this doctrine in democratic communities4 ,in ,england the doctrine was never securely rooted2 certainly it has not gained an unquestioned ascendency over political thought for any considerable period of time2 and the exploit of ,austinian legalism which 7in the ,scottish ,churches' case7 denied to a church the right to govern itself had virtually to be annulled by a special ,act of ,parliament4 ,during the war the claim of the ,state upon the individual has naturally attained a point which in normal times would have been unthinkable2 but this was confessedly the result of an emergency and not a rule for ordinary conditions of life4 ,the ,german performance during the war has revealed the logic of state-absolutism in far too vivid a fashion for any of the somewhat turgid exaltation of the state by academic people in the days previous to the war to survive on any terms4 ,to rebut the doctrine of state-absolutism at this time would be merely to flog a dead horse4 ,but long before the war the absolutist theory was being undermined4 ,in the region of law and political theory the criticism of ,f4 ,w4 ,maitland1 ,nevill ,figgis1 ,duguit1 and others had raised a very definite challenge to the doctrine of state-omnicompetency4 ,but of much greater influence in the actual business of modifying the current conception of the state was the growing tendency to form independent foci of authority within the commonwealth4 ,one obvious case of the kind is the institution of the ,bank ,clearing ,house which represents the last stage in the process by which the business of exchange has passed from the state into the hands of an independent body which exercises in its own sphere an authority which is hardly to be resisted2 and the present movement for the amalgamation of large banking concerns makes it not impossible that should the banking interest come into collision with the ,state1 there would be a very exciting tug-of-war4 ,the medical profession took up an attitude of organised opposition to the ,state in the matter of the ,british ,health ,insurance ,act2 and other professional associations are to-day so highly organised that in the event of a collision with the ,state1 it is at least doubtful how the issue would be decided4 ,in the case of the ,taff ,vale decision which rendered a ,trade ,union liable to prosecution for illegal action by its members1 so threatening a protest ensued that the legal decision had virtually to be reversed by special legislation2 and the growing solidarity of organised labour again creates a problem of state authority which is not easily soluble1 and which 7it is not inconceivable7 may at last have to be solved by a trial of strength4#cg ,it is no longer possible to assume that the philosophy of government can be stated in terms of the state and the individual2 it will have to take increasing account of the relation of the state to the powerful voluntary organisations of citizens within the state--organisations which1 because they are voluntary1 may exercise a more powerful influence upon their members than the state can possibly do4 ,on the economic side this tendency toward the breaking up and the distribution of centralised authority among functional and professional groups1 takes the form of ,guild ,socialism2 and1 while ,syndicalism has not yet succeeded in gaining a wide footing in ,europe1 its challenge to the state has added a good deal to the minimising influences already afoot4 ,it is worth while observing that these independent organisations are already so powerful that the ,british ,government found it advisable to administer its ,national ,insurance ,act through ,labour ,unions and ,friendly ,societies4 ,footnote #cg3 ,since these words were written1 they have received very clear confirmation in the recent activities of the 8,triple ,alliance40 ,but it is not the growth of powerful organisations within the ,commonwealth alone that is making for the disintegration of state-sovereignty4 ,we are living in a period when great international bodies are coming into being1 and while most of these are at present of a cultural and professional type1 it is evident that one at least is of a character which involves a very profound challenge to the sovereignty of the national state4 ,the ,socialist ,international has not been destroyed by the war2 it has only been interrupted2 and if the signs are not wholly misleading1 we may look for a steady and wide extension of the international proletarian movement4 ,in #aiad it proved too immature to resist the pressure of nationalism1 but it is likely that in the future it will increasingly arm itself against a like collapse4 ,as yet it is only in the case of the ,socialist ,international that there is a direct challenge to the national state2 but it would require considerable hardihood to deny the possibility that other international professional and functional associations may find themselves at variance with the constituted authorities of national states4 ,for instance1 the problem of hygiene is becoming more and more an international affair2 and it is no unthinkable thing that a medical international may find itself at odds with the state authorities just as the ,british ,medical ,association found itself in conflict with its own national ,government4 ,one has only to add in this connection that the project of a ,league of ,nations will require an abdication of the claim to absolute sovereignty on the part of the states constituting it4#ch ,footnote #ch3 ,this cession of sovereignty may be hidden by a formal camouflage2 but there can be no real ,league of ,nations without it4 ,so that both from within and without1 the march of events is disintegrating the dogma of state-sovereignty4 ,the traditional political acceptances are rapidly becoming obsolete4 ,in the main this would appear to be due to the new situation created by the swift development of the means of communication during the last century4 ,the territorial factor in the delimitation of states and in their own internal economy1 has ceased to have the importance it possessed in days when distance set sharp limits to the intercourse of men4 ,those days are now past2 and national frontiers and county boundaries are being gradually effaced by steam1 and the sea has been bridged by the electric current and the aeroplane4 ,,ii ,the problem created in this way is not in its essence a new one4 ,since the dissolution of the ,holy ,roman ,empire1 the conflict between the national state and the church--whether conceived as an independent association within the commonwealth or as an international society--has provided some of the most significant passages of political history4 ,the struggle for religious freedom in ,england 7which in the event proved the spring of other liberties7 was essentially a struggle to secure the right of voluntary religious associations to determine their own religious life and practices2 and while the legal decision in the ,scottish ,churches' case was a revival of the ,austinian doctrine of state-sovereignty1 and an assertion on the part of the state of its own right to sit in judgment upon the religious proceedings of a church1 the ensuing situation proved so impossible 7as has already been pointed out7 that the legal decision had to be annulled by a special piece of legislation4 ,since that decision most of the 8free0 churches in ,england have taken steps to safeguard themselves against similar intrusions on the part of the state4 ,in the present situation1 however1 such security cannot be absolute since the state still has something to say to the legal instruments under which the churches hold their temporalities4 ,but the entire episode shows how clear is the ,british sense that the omnicompetency of the state does not extend into the sphere of religious life and practice2 and the 8,life and ,liberty0 movement in the ,established ,church of ,england is an indication that the control of the state even over a state church is not beyond challenge4 ,the success with which the independent religious association has established its right to live in the face of the state is probably due to the circumstance that the region in which it claimed freedom was strictly defined2 and it may be argued that the state has been on the whole more successful in resisting the claims of the church as an international society because those claims were allowed to enter regions in which the church's competency could be reasonably denied4 ,the case of ,lamennais' illustrates the point4 ,lamennais began life as a fervent monarchist and ,catholic4 ,he held strongly to the doctrine of the 8two societies10 the temporal and the spiritual of which the ,king and the ,pope respectively were the heads4#ci ,these two societies were distinct and within their own sphere1 independent of each other4 ,but when the monarchy encroached upon the freedom of the spiritual society1 ,lamennais broke with it1 and when later the papacy insisted upon a withdrawal of his opinion that it had no rights outside the spiritual sphere1 he broke with the papacy also4 ,he acknowledged the existence of a borderland in which the interests of both were commingled--8that undiscovered country10 as ,lord ,acton has put it1 8where church and state are parted02 but the broad configurations of the frontier were plain enough4 ,for the most part the relations of church and state as institutional authorities have consisted of assaults and intrigues and forays in this 8no man's land02 and it has not been historically to the advantage of either4 ,and the whole history of this conflict in ,france and out of it points to the moral that without some clear definition of function1 the relation of the state to other associations within and without itself must be one of continual conflict--that is to say1 of course1 so long as the state and the other associations speak in terms of right and authority4 ,granted a measure of good-will1 the task of delimiting frontiers should not be insuperable2 but if a church or a labour union insists on its rights while the state insists upon its authority1 the natural result will be confusion4 ,footnote #ci3 8,toute declaration qui supposerait de mon part1 meme implicitement1 l'abandon de la doctrine traditionelle de deux societs distinctes1 independante chacune dans son ordre1 serait non pas un acte de vertu1 mais un acte coupable4 ,la conscience ne le permet pas--40 ,this was ,lamennais' reply to a papal demand for retractation in #ahcc4 ,see ,boutard1 ,lamennais ,,ii41 #chg4 ,,iii ,at the same time that these independent nucleations of authority are increasingly afoot within the body politic1 we observe in recent times a seemingly opposite tendency to impute competency to the state in regions where hitherto its writ was not supposed to run4 ,to a purist political philosophy1 the function of the state is broadly twofold--the preservation of domestic order and the safeguarding of national interests with reference to other nations4 ,but it has latterly more and more stretched out its tabernacle to cover other matters2 even going so far as to assume that a positive and comprehensive culture of national life came legitimately within its domain4 ,that this should be so in a dynastic state like the ,german is easily understood2 for the security and pretensions of the dynasty are dependent upon an intense development of human and material resources for military defence and offence4 ,but even where such particularist designs have not been so obtrusively present1 the state has tended more and more to absorb into itself the control and organisation of national life in all its important phases4 ,it has1 for instance1 taken upon its shoulders almost the entire burden of public education2 it has conspicuously concentrated its thought and wisdom upon measures designed to increase the material prosperity of the nation--though in point of fact this has worked out chiefly as the prosperity of a few favourably situated persons4 ,the care of the destitute1 old age pensions1 health and unemployment insurance have been included within its competency2 and its apparently insatiable absorbent proclivity is drawing into its capacious hands the control and operation of the means of communication1 the postal service1 the railways1 telegraph and telephones4 ,plainly this extension of its office has been accompanied by a large and indefinite increment of authority4 ,for this movement1 two circumstances appear to be accountable4 ,of these the first is the growth of an ill-defined and only partially understood sense of collective responsibility for the well-being of the social whole4 ,old ,age ,pensions1 for instance1 appear to constitute the proper alternative to the precarious charity or the degrading 8poor relief0 to which a less self-respecting social past committed the industrial veteran4 ,the means of communication similarly appear to a reasonably educated community to be a public service rather than a gold-mine for private individuals or concerns4 ,the second circumstance is the prestige which accrued to the state from the reaction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from the bankrupt individualism of the preceding generations4 ,in their recoil from the anarchy of laissez faire and industrial competition men sought sanctuary in the state2 and in the event the state gained a repute for competency which led to a facile transference to it of all those interests that appear to bear materially upon the life of the community as a whole4 ,but without prejudice to the question of public ownership1 it may be observed that while the impulse which led to this regard for the state was natural and admirable1 it had the effect of concentrating in the state a volume of power which was entirely ominous to the liberties of the individual4 ,indeed1 it may be said without much hesitation that the logic of state-absolutism was revealed by the ,germans only in time to save their neighbours from the like tragedy of incontinent subjection to the state4 ,and the sense of personal responsibility was in danger of atrophy under the pleasing and soporific influence of the popular idea that the state was a sort of fairy god-mother who could be trusted to step in and make good individual derelictions and delinquencies--which frame of mind accorded well with the related drift towards unquestioning submission to the state4 ,,iv ,in democratic communities the sovereignty of the state is a residuum left over from the period of dynastic government2 and though the divine right of kings is obsolete1 we have not yet out-grown the derivative dogma of the divine right of governments4 ,there still gathers around the state an odour of sanctity2 and in minds that have a turn for abstraction it is apt to take shape as a sacrosanct objective reality4 ,but soon or late the democratic peoples will have to look upon the state with a cold and business-like realism if they are to be delivered from the dangers that lurk in all quasi-religious and sentimental abasement to conventional idols4 ,it is just this vague political devoutness that makes it easy for the common people to be stampeded into invidious commercial and military enterprises by statesmen schooled in a tradition either frankly dynastic or still deriving its main presuppositions from the dynastic period4 ,there is no security for democracy except in a persistent posture of criticism towards its institutions2 and there is no immediate hope of a sane restoration of our somewhat shattered fortunes except as we strip the halo away from the state and discuss it dispassionately in terms of its functions4 ,its police responsibilities remain with it as a matter of course1 so long as human nature needs policing2 and it must provisionally remain the organ of the community in its intercourse across its frontiers4 ,with this latter we are not for the moment concerned2 what falls to be considered is the problem of the state's function in respect of1 first1 the present tendency to form extraneous and independent 7and on occasion conceivably hostile and intractable7 centres of authority1 and second1 the recent process of investing the state with a sort of proprietorship and pastorate at large4 ,summarily it may be said that the office of the state in respect of these two developments is that it should be on the one hand the clearing house of the increasing functional and professional associations among which its ancient sovereignty is being distributed1 and on the other1 the trustee of the public in the matter of producing and distributing the goods that are essential to life4 ,the state of the case and the course of events indicate a doctrine of public ownership with democratic functional control1 with the necessary machinery for the due co-ordination of the centres of control4 ,it seems a fairly safe risk to say that the movement toward the public ownership of a certain range of utilities will suffer no abatement with the passing of time4 ,that the means of communication should be public property should be as axiomatic as that a man's nervous system should belong to himself2 and no serious question can be raised as to the certainty of ultimate common proprietorship in this region4 ,with respect to the means of production the case is less clear2 but it is a fair assumption1 that if a reasonable security of the maintenance of life and health is to be achieved1 there must be an increasing public ownership of the sources of raw material and of the means of production so far as the essential commodities are concerned4 ,that there is a range of industrial production beyond this limit which is quite legitimate but which is nevertheless not a matter of universal concern is obvious2 and it seems very questionable whether it is the business of the state to do more than to secure that the conditions under which these industries are conducted are of a piece with those obtaining in the primary industries4 ,objects of differential and selective interest do not appear to enter into the province of the state2 it has to do only with those for which the demand is universal because they correspond to a general need4 ,it is a question 7as has been previously suggested7 whether in this region of production it should not be the general rule that every member of the community should share2 in which case there would be ample time and occasion for the production of the secondary and more selective goods for life4 ,there is nothing in this argument which should be construed into a suggestion that the things called in this connection secondary are unimportant4 ,on the contrary they are very important2 and with the cultural development of society their importance is likely to grow4 ,the production of books and objects of sthetic interest is likely to be stimulated very materially by any advance in the right sort of education4 ,but 7with the exception of a very narrow margin7 these are probably things which are not suitably and fruitfully produced except as they are free from central regulation4 ,within the limits so indicated1 therefore1 the trend of affairs is rightly in the direction of public ownership--in which case we shall require an organ in which this ownership shall be vested4 ,for this purpose the state is already to hand1 and is indeed1 already assuming the office4 ,its first domestic office will consequently be that of a public trustee4 ,but this raises the question whether the trustee is to be manager as well4 ,it is of course plain that the trust would be a pure fiction if some measure of control in the disposition of the property were not implied in it4 ,certainly the last word in such matters should belong to the state4 ,this1 however1 appears to bring us back to that very doctrine of sovereignty from which1 on our premises1 it is our business to escape2 and1 indeed1 if we have no different sort of state organisation in mind from that now current we should be starting out on a new cycle of authoritarianism1 were we to vest in the state so much authority4 ,but already the specifications of a new type of state-structure are being indicated by the course of events4 ,v ,it is of some significance at this point to observe that of the functional associations within the commonwealth to which reference has been made1 the most powerful are those which are concerned with the production of the primary commodities1 and the means of their distribution4 ,this is no doubt chiefly due to the fact that these associations represent the most numerous sections of the community4 ,coal miners1 engineers1 transport workers1 clothing makers--it is among these classes that the movement toward combination has been most effectual4 ,one notable exception--namely1 agricultural workers--is to be observed here1 the significance of which exception will come up for discussion presently4 ,it does not1 however1 affect the general run of the present argument4 ,the constitution and activity of the labour unions are sufficiently well known to require no exposition here--the main point to be emphasised being that here within the commonwealth are large1 growing and powerful groups formed around a particular interest2 and that this interest is deemed to be vital is evident from the steady growth of the groups4 ,but we may further infer that the existence of these groups is due chiefly to the fact that the particular interest which concerns them was not effectually regarded in the councils of the commonwealth at large4 ,the interests of the workers were presumably neglected to such a degree that the class concerned deemed it necessary to organise itself in order to safeguard and to enforce these interests4 ,indeed on the workers' showing the case was even worse4 ,they argued that not only were their peculiar interests neglected by the existing powers1 but that these powers were weighted in favour of those against whom more specifically the worker had to defend his interests4 ,the formation and growth of the ,non-partisan ,league in ,america is a recent instance of a class nucleation under the pressure of circumstances largely parallel to those here outlined4 ,the interests here discussed are of an economic kind1 but they are vital and essential4 ,it is to be observed1 however1 that these particular associations are not confined either to the worker or to interests purely economic4 ,reference has already been made to the ,bank ,clearing ,house4 ,this is an instance of the formation of a powerful group to promote the common interests of its members1 though in this case its formation was less due to the neglect of those interests by the state than to the fact that the interests concerned have become so extensive in range and so complex in character that the state was palpably incompetent to handle them profitably4 ,in certain cases where the state has assumed liabilities of this kind 7as in railway control7 experience has not in the long run endorsed the competency of the state for the job4 ,that1 however1 is less to the point than that we should observe the tendency to form voluntary associations for the protection and promotion of presumably necessary interests1 and in some cases assuming 7as in the case of the ,bank ,clearing ,house7 a kind of police authority within its own field4 ,besides these economic and financial associations1 there are also large and powerful professional associations which exist likewise to promote certain special interests4 ,the ,british ,medical ,association affords an instance of such association2 and here again we have an association which in the exercise of its office also assumes a function of discipline4 ,just as the ,bank ,clearing ,house can put a recalcitrant bank out of business1 so the ,british ,medical ,association can 8unfrock0 a doctor who has offended against the professional code4 ,it is true that the excommunicated culprit may in either case appeal to the civil courts for redress2 but the rarity of such appeals shows how nearly complete is the authority exercised by these professional associations within their own province4 ,with certain modifications the same general rule obtains in ,teachers' ,unions1 the ,bar1 the ,co-operative ,societies1 ,churches and other voluntary associations of persons1 that gather around the nucleus of a special interest4 ,the case is not so plain in regard to societies of a specially cultural character which do not so directly abut upon the general conduct of life1 though the place of the ,universities1 ,academies of ,art1 ,author's ,associations and the like1 in the total scheme of social life1 makes it impossible to exclude them from consideration in any discussion which looks to the integration of all the legitimate interests of life in an organic full-growing social whole4 ,such integration must1 from the nature of the case1 be a long and tedious process2 and the difficulties involved in its extension to such distant and shadowy regions as ,art and ,authorship may be left for solution until they become more imminent4 ,it is in any case doubtful whether the interests involved in these and similar cases are such as would be served by any formal connection with the machinery of government1 except as regards certain narrow legal points 7e4g4 copyright74 ,this is also true of the ,churches whose sole point of contact with the ,state is in the matter of their temporalities4 ,fortunately for the moment the task need not take account of these remoter complexities2 and it will be a matter for legitimate argument how far associations of a cultural kind are to enter into the organisation of government1 when those associations which are already abutting on the province of the state and shearing it of some of its powers have been successfully co-ordinated in a scheme of political management4 ,,vi ,at this point it is important to bear in mind two things4 ,first of all1 the real interests which go to make up the sum of our life are precisely those which lead us to form ourselves into associations independent of the state4 ,indeed1 the particular interest which binds a given individual to the state is generally fortuitous in its origin and largely imaginary in character4 ,a man chances to be born into a certain geographical area1 and in the great majority of cases that circumstance fixes his state affiliation for his entire life4 ,an emigrant may transfer his affiliation to another state2 but his case is exceptional4 ,moreover1 the nature of the interests which bind him to the state is of a dubiously sentimental and imaginary order4 ,this is not the place to discuss the significance of that temper of attachment to a particular political unity which is called patriotism2 but it would appear to have comparatively little to do with any essential purpose of life4 ,this must not be taken to mean that patriotism is to be decried as an evil or a futile thing4 ,on the contrary1 in so far as it represents a feeling of loyalty to a social group1 it is admirable and of great value4 ,its value is1 however1 compromised by the invidious and divisive colour which it habitually appears to wear2 and its historical uses--which chiefly consist in its exploitation by astute statesmen--constitute a record which is hardly flattering to human intelligence4 ,in the main it plays comparatively little part in the sum total of the ordinary man's life2 and indeed it is hardly ever heard of in normal times until it is played up by politicians who want a national backing for a selfish enterprise at the expense of some other community4 ,its chief significance seems to be that it provides a reserve of sentimental devotion which may be drawn upon without limit in the cause of national prestige or national defence4 ,outside war-time1 the state appears to touch the ordinary man's life directly only when it requires him to pay the expenses of its upkeep or when he provokes the attention of the police4 ,but on the other hand1 when a man joins a ,trade ,union or a religious society it is because the new association bears some sort of vital and immediate relation to his life4 ,the most authentic interests of life are those which move men to join together voluntarily for their defence and promotion2 and for the purpose of social development1 the associations that grow in this fashion are at least of no less importance to the common run of men than the state4 ,it is no longer tolerable1 therefore1 that in the general management of the affairs of a community these associations should be virtually ignored in deference to a doctrine which presupposes that the state and the individual are the sole terms of political theory and practice1 and that such associations exist within the commonwealth only on sufferance of the state4 ,second1 it has some bearing upon our present argument that these associations may conceivably come at any time into conflict with the interests of the social whole4 ,a trade union may1 for instance1 make claims which are incongruous with the well-being of the general public2 churches have been known to claim advantages which are inconsistent with the freedom and welfare of other religious societies4 ,with the multiplication of societies within the commonwealth1 and especially in view of the prospective great increase of strength in the case of trade unions1 it is entirely essential that such bodies should be required directly to participate in the responsibility of promoting the general social good4 ,they should--in their character of associations charging themselves with certain vital though particular interests--be introduced into the official management of public affairs4 ,so long as they live more or less isolated and unco-ordinated lives they remain in danger of becoming antisocial in effect2 and the only remedy is to provide for them a clearing-house in the conduct of which they are directly implicated2 and once more1 the state is already to hand and its machinery should be so ordered as to enable it to discharge this office4 ,theoretically our movement is away from the 8amoeba0 conception of the national state1 which regards it as an independent unicellular affair with the central state organisation as its nucleus1 to a conception of it as multicellular1 and finding a practical unity in the contribution of all its cells to the activity of a common brain4 ,this may be bad biology but that is no argument against its political soundness4 ,a difficult question arises when we come to consider what associations are entitled to this treatment2 and it is plain that no association which cannot prove a genuine social worth has a claim for recognition4 ,some associations are powerful enough to claim and to receive recognition without formal scrutiny of their credentials2 but their power is itself a presumptive proof that they correspond to a real social need2 and in the early stages of state-reconstruction1 it will be naturally such associations as can validate their claims by the volume of authority with which they make them that will enter into the arrangement4 ,for the rest1 we shall have to take the risk of being able to cross the bridges when we come to them4 ,,vii ,discontent with the existing method of assembling the machinery of government has been growing rapidly in recent years4 ,the progress of the proportional representation movement is the measure of this discontent2 and it is difficult to conceive any valid objection to the scheme on the part of those who desire to give to the personnel of the governing body a more genuinely representative character than it possesses at present4 ,at the same time1 the transferable vote does not and from the nature of the case cannot secure a completely representative government--at any rate while we continue to elect parliamentary representatives on a territorial basis4 ,we shall no doubt continue to elect representatives on a territorial basis1 for it would appear to be the only effectual method of representing the chief interests which all individuals in the commonwealth have in common1 namely their interests as consumers 7or enjoyers74 ,but the territorial unit is more or less arbitrary in definition1 and it does not coincide with the other interests that make up the business of life4 ,and these other interests have assumed a commanding importance in the conduct of the business of life in recent times4 ,reference was made in a previous paragraph to the fact that the one great industry which was not adequately organised was agriculture4 ,the reason for this circumstance is to be found in the greater difficulty which the farmers and the farm workers have had in getting together4 ,the other great industries are located in urban areas where facilities of communication and meeting are comparatively easy4 ,the result of facilitating communication among the farmers is already evident4 ,the ,non-partisan ,league was brought to birth by the ,ford car and the rural telephone4 ,it is true that the farm-workers still lack the opportunity of easy assembly2 but what has happened in the case of the farmers has the peculiar interest of being a graphic and simple object lesson in the processes which have transformed modern life4 ,our present political methods and acceptances date back to the period before the railroad2 and not only in politics1 but in ethics and religion1 we have yet to take on the task of revising our traditional concepts in the light of the vast transformation wrought by the swift advance in methods of communication4 ,the main result is that there are very few men who do not belong to professional and trade organisations which stretch out beyond their county boundaries1 and there is a growing number to whom these ultra-territorial associations are more vital and significant than the local association of citizens in which the accident of their habitat places them4 ,the new fact for the problem of government consists in the actual existence and multiplication of these professional and vocational constituencies2 and it is evident that that representative government is unworthy the name which does not represent these large embodiments of living opinion and interest4 ,if for the moment then1 we consider the economic aspects of the life of the community alone1 it is evident that two main sources of representation have to be provided for--the consumer and the producer2 and every man should have a vote in each capacity4 ,the defect of the ,soviet organisation in ,russia is that1 as it is at present constituted1 it appears to provide the consumer with no direct representation4 ,the ,russian ,soviet is a council of workers4 ,but it is evident that the provision supply1 carriage and distribution of commodities to a village is the concern of the whole village independently of the share which the villagers may have in the actual production of these commodities4 ,so that the consumer qua consumer must be represented4 ,the physician and the teacher#dj may not be producers in a strict and direct sense2 but they are directly interested in the problem of consumption and are interested in it in the same way as the village blacksmith and the shoemaker4 ,moreover1 there are problems of sanitation and road-keeping in which they are all also equally concerned4 ,the village and the city ward are therefore proper units of representation4 ,but they still remain only one type of unit4 ,the agricultural labourers who live in the village may be members of a labour union which charges itself with the oversight of the conditions of the agricultural labourer's work4 ,the physician will also be a member of an association which is concerned with the special interests of his profession4 ,here then we have another type of unit4 ,for our present purpose we are concerned with these units only as they are industrial and productive4 ,footnote #dj3 ,of course there may be physicians' and teachers' soviets2 but they will operate provincially rather than parochially1 while the village soviet would appear usually to consist of peasants4 ,in ,russia the problem of representing these 8professional0 or 8industrial0 constituencies has been solved with greater ease than is likely to be the case elsewhere4 ,in many cases the owners of industrial plants have been expropriated and a 8shop-council0 is in control4 ,this shop-council sees to it that none but members of the labour union concerned are employed in the shop2 it is free to hire what expert help it requires to carry on production2 and in general it rules the roost4 ,but it is an elected body1 and it forms the cell-unit out of which1 through a hierarchy of local and provincial bodies1 the ,all-,russian ,congress of ,soviets is at last constituted4 ,naturally this scheme is not yet in universal operation4 ,some employers are still tolerated to remain in possession1 and a single rule has not yet been established in the tenure of land4 ,but that is the general principle2 and while it must necessarily admit in practice of all sorts of exceptions1 there is no clear reason why it should not become effective throughout ,russia4 ,but this simplicity is not likely to obtain elsewhere4 ,the forcible immediate expropriation of the employer is not a probable contingency in ,england or ,america so far as one may judge from present signs4 ,but this need constitute no insuperable obstacle to the institution of shop-councils such as for instance have been set up in the woollen trades at ,bradford4 ,and just as in this instance1 the shop-council would be generally the unit out of which an ascending scale of superior bodies would be formed1 reaching at last to what the ,russians call the 8supreme council of public economy40 ,the outline of such an organisation is to be found already in ,mr4 ,malcolm ,sparkes' scheme 7referred to in another chapter7 of a 8national industrial parliament02 and all that need be added to the plan is that this industrial parliament should be recognised as the actual legislative body within its own sphere1 subject to the review and veto of a final body which would be charged with the oversight of all the interests of the commonwealth4#da ,footnote #da3 ,this 8,national ,industrial ,parliament0 has come very near taking practical form in the proposal of the recent ,national ,industrial ,conference for a 8,national ,industrial ,council0 in ,england4 ,still confining ourselves to the economic interests1 we should find it necessary to secure that the labour unions shall find effective representation in the legislative organisation2 and so long as private ownership of industrial plant is permitted1 the same thing is true of employers' associations as well4 ,but it is plain that while industry is subject to this antagonism of interests within itself1 it is not likely to minister to the public interest as effectually as we have a right to require of it4 ,ultimately we shall be compelled to establish the doctrine that industrial production is a community-interest and to institute the principle of national ,guilds as the ground plan of industrial organisation4 ,some approach to this plan has been made during the war in the interests of increased productivity2 and the situation consequent upon the war in the belligerent countries is likely to aggravate rather than abate the acuteness of the problem of productivity4 ,on this account it would be a grave misfortune if industry were permitted to relapse into its pre-war inefficiency4 ,thorstein ,veblen1 in a shrewd analysis of the working of the capitalistic system in ,america1 estimates that it 8lowers the actual output of the country's industry by something near fifty per cent4 of its ordinary capacity when fully employed40 8,but0 he adds1 8it is at the same time plain enough that this1 in the larger sense1 untoward discrepancy between productive capacity and current productive output can readily be corrected1 in some appreciable degree at least1 by any sufficient authority that shall undertake to control the country's industrial forces without regard to pecuniary profit and loss4 ,any authority competent to take over the control and regulate the conduct of the community's industry with a view to maximum output as counted by weight and tale1 rather than by net aggregate price income over price cost can readily effect an appreciable increase in the effectual productive capacity4444 ,the several belligerent nations of ,europe are showing that it can be done1 and they are also showing that they are all aware1 and have always been aware1 that the conduct of industry on business principles is incompetent to bring the largest practical output of goods and service2 incompetent to such a degree indeed as not to be tolerable in a season of desperate need when the nation requires the full use of its productive forces1 equipment and man power1 regardless of the pecuniary claims of individuals40#db ,the course of events seem to point to the institution of the 8sufficient authority0 which ,professor ,veblen indicates4 ,it is clear that this authority must be of a character to ignore the exigencies of the profit-system1 and to operate with an eye single to the welfare of the community2 in which case1 soon or late1 there must be eliminated from it those who would desire to turn it to a personal or sectional advantage4 ,or at least their possible advantage from industry shall be so rigorously abridged as to make it cease to be worth their while to rig the business in such a way as to retard or otherwise to interfere with output4 ,but1 inasmuch as this rigging has been done in the past chiefly at the expense of the workers1 they in their turn armed themselves for defence1 by joining into unions4 ,with the elimination of the private profit motive from industry1 the character of the trade union as a fighting body would largely if not wholly lapse2 and the need for its direct representation in industrial control would cease to be urgent or even important4 ,especially would this be true when a minimum standard of life had been fixed and universally applied4 ,the union would merge into the guild which would include not the operatives alone but the entire effective personnel of the industry4 ,out of these guilds1 themselves functioning through a hierarchy of bodies from the single shop upward1 would be formed the national industrial parliament which would be the effectual economic authority of the community4 ,footnote #db3 ,thorstein ,veblen4 ,the ,nature of ,peace1 pp4 #agc1 #agd4 ,,viii ,that this in its turn should be subject to a still higher court goes without saying4 ,for in this capacity our industrial parliament represents the community only as producing4 ,the general interests of the common man who has to eat1 drink1 clothe himself1 find a roof over his head1 marry1 bring up children1 are not subordinate to his interest as a producer2 nor are they covered by a parliament which supervises the productive interests alone4#dc ,the standard of life must be fixed by the common will of the community2 and it will be the business of the industrial parliament to see that the volume1 quality and conditions of production shall correspond to this standard2 and somewhere there must be a body which also sees to it that the industrial parliament is discharging its task efficiently4 ,it must even be in a position to veto the acts of the industrial parliament should that course become necessary2 and this position could be secured by vesting the purchase and control of raw material in the hands of this superior body4 ,at the same time it is evident that there are functions which this superior body is not efficient to discharge simply on the ground of its being representative of the general consumer4 ,the problems of education and public health1 for instance1 are highly specialised affairs which a purely representative assembly on the traditional lines has proved itself incompetent to handle--and it is notorious how both education and national hygiene have had their development governed and deflected from its proper course by the too great ascendency of trade and business interests in the legislature4 ,just as the industrial affairs of the community are committed to the charge of those who are directly engaged in them1 so the education of the country should be in the hands of a self-governing body of teachers1 and the public health to a self-governing medical association--in both cases the personnel being regarded as members of a public service serving under standardised conditions1 and their representative and executive body being like the guild parliament answerable to the supreme national assembly4 ,footnote #dc3 ,it has been suggested that associations of ,consumers1 e4g4 the ,co-operative ,societies1 should be represented in the ,national ,industrial ,parliament4 ,it would be palpably beyond the province of this writing to do more than thus roughly indicate the general direction in which the organisation of government should and is likely to go2 and there are conspicuous questions--such as national finance and the administration of law--which would enter deeply into a detailed discussion but have here to be passed by with no more than this cursory mention4 ,it is now desired only to emphasise the fact that the actual conditions of modern life have made the existing legislative machinery obsolete1 and that moreover they point to the nature of the changes which are required to make the machinery to fit the facts of the case4 ,summarily1 therefore1 it may be said that there are two types of social unit which must be recognised1 the one being of the geographical1 the other of the vocational order4 ,somewhere these two sources of representation must meet in a supreme common assembly2 and the picture which passes through the mind--say in ,england--is of a joint house of county and municipal representatives chosen by way of ward and village and district councils1 and of representatives of accredited national industrial and professional associations4 ,yet1 insomuch as this process of delegation would make the sense of connection between the individual citizen and the supreme assembly somewhat weak and faint1 it would appear to be necessary to provide for some measure of direct popular representation in the assembly4 ,so that we should have a house drawing its personnel from three sources--from the people directly1 and by delegation from the two types of social constituency1 local and functional4 ,in this body would be vested the supreme and final control of national affairs2 and to this body the ,guild-parliament and other departmental bodies would render account of their stewardship4 ,it is only in some such way as this that remedy is to be found for a state of things1 in which1 apart from paid experts in administrative departments1 the vital interests of industry1 education and national health are committed to a body to which the chances of a general election may return not one single person competent to speak to these matters at first hand4 ,,ix ,it is not necessary to extend this discussion into further detail since we are concerned only to indicate a direction rather than to describe a finished product4 ,it may1 moreover1 be justly questioned whether the business of government can range to any fruitful purpose beyond the common economic1 hygienic and educational concerns of the community1 and such derivative and concomitant operations as they require for their effectual conduct4 ,in any case it would appear that the remaining interests of life abut on the legitimate province of government only at minor and somewhat special points4 ,these particular interests are for the most part of the 8spiritual0 order--religious and cultural2 and from the nature of the case it were best to leave them to go their own way in peace so long as they may not equitably be charged with encroaching upon the general welfare4 ,such matters as the property of a religious society or an author's copyright represent the kind of point at which the spiritual interests come into some sort of relation with the state2 and these are essentially matters in the state-regulation of which the chief care should be to avoid anything that may interfere with independence and freedom of thought4 ,for when all is said and done1 it is in this particular region that we must look for the actual and characteristic fruits of a democratic order4 ,the real wealth of a community consists in the capacity it possesses and acquires for activity of a creative kind2 its true riches are 8the riches of the mind40 ,and in a sense we may say that the business of government is to set the house-keeping machinery moving so smoothly and efficiently that there will be real wayleave for the spiritual business of life4 ,just as the best physical condition of a man is that in which he is least aware of his body1 so the best government is that which makes the governed least conscious of its operation4 ,here as elsewhere1 magna ars celare artem4 ,but is there any guarantee that such a state-organisation as is here pleaded for will be any more friendly to freedom of thought than the existing type8 ,so far as the traditional state is concerned1 it regards freedom of thought largely as a concession which is not quite congruous with the postulates upon which it habitually acts4 ,freedom of thought has been wrested from the state by main force2 and then only with the understood proviso that the state is empowered on due occasion to withdraw the concession4 ,the habit of free thought has however become so ingrained in the idea of democratic progress that there is now only one due occasion on which the state can interfere with it with any prospect of success--that is1 in the event of war4 ,still from the standpoint of the state1 freedom of thought is a regrettable1 though1 as things are1 unavoidable defect in its machinery4 ,it interferes sadly with the uniformitarian programme of the typical governmental mind4 ,but this grudging toleration of freedom of thought is an inheritance from the dynastic period when it was necessary to have a population easily mobilisable for whatever adventure the dynast might plan1 or whatever necessity of defence might be laid on him4 ,the dynastic tradition required a regimentated people2 and we have outgrown the dynastic tradition without discarding all its characteristic modes of working4 ,this is in part to be accounted for by the fact that the continued existence of dynastic pretensions and the consequent danger of dynastic adventures of a predatory kind has necessitated the survival of dynastic ideas and practices as a measure of insurance even in communities that have discarded the dynastic principle4 ,there will be no secure freedom of thought anywhere so long as the world contains any powerful survival of the dynastic tradition4 ,latterly the dynastic tradition has 7for patent reasons7 been the enemy2 but it is not unlikely that the downfall of the dynastic tradition may do no more than clear the decks for another more recent predatory institution1 not less ominous for human well-being1 which may secure the reversion of all the stock-in-trade and goodwill of its predecessor in the matter of national prestige and honour and the like4 ,this is that commercial imperialism which has already insinuated itself into the folds of whatever mantle the dynastic tradition is still able to wear--so much so that it is popularly believed to be impossible to define the frontier at which dynastic pretensions end and commercial chauvinism begins4 ,in any case it is sure that as the dynastic institution falls into desuetude1 this commercial imperialism will make a strenuous effort to step into its shoes and arm itself with its weapons4 ,there may be some difference between the person who seeks to gobble up the face of the earth and his brother who seeks to gobble up the markets of the earth4 ,but for practical purposes they belong to the same class and will use the same methods4 ,the nations will be persuaded to maintain sufficient military establishments to protect national capital when it is sent upon profitable adventures beyond the frontier2 and the prospect of national prosperity and jealousy for national prestige will be worked for all that they are worth in support of these projects4 ,with the net result that the attention of the state will be chiefly directed in the future as in the past to the furtherance of particularist national interests1 and the consequent need of centralised power in the state for the easy regimentation of the people in case of emergency will remain as a permanent arrest on democratic development4 ,and all this is the more tragic in that the 8national0 interests alleged to be engaged are in point of fact the interests only of the capitalist class4 ,the rest of the nation stands to gain nothing material from these operations4 ,this latter danger can1 however1 be dealt with by the simple expedient of declaring that the capital goes out of the country at its own risk4 ,it is1 anyhow1 preposterous to assume that capital has any inherent right to seek national protection when it travels abroad on private ventures of its own4 ,that should be as clear as daylight2 and its recognition would remove one of the main sources of international trouble4 ,but it would also release the community from a good deal of the present wasteful and distracting preoccupation with the business incidental to the chances of international trouble1 and leave it free to concern itself with the more vital matters of its inner life4 ,and most of all1 with the passing of the dynastic danger1 this refusal to under-write the risks of profit-seeking capitalistic adventures abroad would remove the chief reason for that residual embargo on utter freedom of thought which must exist in a community which has to be held in readiness for swift regimentation4 ,men will never be wholly free until the possibility of war has disappeared from the earth4 ,with the diminution of the chances of international friction1 the urgency of domestic uniformity will in great part disappear2 and democratic life may be counted upon to express itself in a free and unlimited variation of thought and interest4 ,at the same time it is obvious that the present doctrine of property-rights within the community entails a serious limitation upon the freedom of the mind4 ,notice has already been taken of the effect of the property-privilege as it operates in the hands of the capitalist employer upon the freedom of the worker2 but the hindrance to freedom ranges far beyond this region4 ,in domestic legislation1 the rights of property have virtually been 8the law and the prophets02 and modern states have shown themselves more jealous for the defence of vested interests than the culture of the national life4 ,it may be indeed that they have not perceived that these two things were different1 not to say opposed4 ,but how far these vested interests enter into the counsels of the state is evident from the fact that it has tended to treat any doctrine which assails them as criminal2 and crimes against property are almost invariably treated with greater severity than crimes against the person4 ,while these class rights are still recognised as entitled to the corporate protection of the community1 there will be a region within which freedom of thought will be still frowned upon and so far as may be denied4 ,the sun is too high in the heavens to permit of persecution save in sporadic cases2 and it would seem that this is the last ditch in which privilege is still entrenched in its retreat before the advance of freedom4 ,lese-majest has ceased to be a dangerous crime2 the heretic in religion enjoys his heresies unmolested2 and the accident of noble birth has ceased to confer a privilege4 ,the 8divine rights0 of property will presently go the way of the divine right of kings2 and then democracy will have all its enemies under its feet1 unless there may be lurking beyond the frontier some unforeseen and unforeseeable enemy4 ,yet this enemy too the spirit of democracy may be trusted to subdue4 ,entire freedom of thought is contingent upon the ultimate disappearance of all forms of special and exclusive privilege1 whether it appertains to monarchy1 aristocracy or property2 and freedom of thought is still tolerated grudgingly because government is contaminated by a survival of habits of thought derived from the doctrine of special inherent and sacred rights4 ,the type of government pleaded for in these pages is one which assumes that no special interest shall have precedence over the good of the social whole1 and which requires that every separate interest shall be subordinated to and co-ordinated into a general scheme of social welfare4 ,the rights of property will be subject to such curtailment as the common good requires4 ,and since therefore the main causes of existing limitations on freedom of thought will have disappeared1 there seems to be no reason why this type of government should at any time take it upon itself to repress or to control thought4 ,to this statement one exception may require to be made parenthetically1 namely1 that the continuance of sources of international trouble that may eventuate in war will probably necessitate occasional interference with freedom of thought and action4 ,this matter we shall consider in more detail presently4 ,meantime1 it is not rash to believe that in a state of the type here indicated1 there will not only be any disposition to set bounds upon independent thought but a definite tendency to encourage it4 ,it may conceivably come to conceive of national 8prestige0 in terms of perfect and untrammelled intellectual freedom4 ,three conditions seem to be necessary to such an end4 ,the first has to do with national education the aim of which should be to make every individual capable of thinking for himself and imparting to him a social vision which will discipline and fructify his thought4 ,to this matter also we shall need to return at a later point4 ,the second condition is the provision of opportunities of free public discussion4 ,to this subject some reference has already been made2 and nothing more extended need now be added1 save only1 perhaps1 the thought that the encouragement of free public discussion is the proper safeguard against the vagaries and dangers of a suppressed and inarticulate dissent4 ,let the new thing be brought into the ,agora as it was in old ,athens2 and the daylight will declare whether it be gold or stubble4 ,the third condition is the full and unconditional recognition of the right of association1--the only proviso being that no association shall have private or occult or undeclared purposes4 ,a strong tendency to the formation of social groups of various kinds1 political1 cultural1 religious1 recreational1 should be hailed as a sign of life in the community4 ,and even if the association be formed for the promulgation of the view of a dissenting minority1 it should be as frankly encouraged as any other4 ,for no view ever gains a considerable following which does not embody some fact or truth of experience which is necessary to the wholeness of life4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,viii4 ,a ,,democratic ,,world4#dd 8,we believe in association--which is but the reduction to action of our faith in one sole ,god1 and one sole law1 and one sole aim--as the only means we possess of realising the truth2 as the method of progress2 the path leading towards perfection4 ,the highest possible degree of human progress will correspond to the discovery and application of the vastest formula of association4 ,we believe1 therefore1 in the ,holy ,alliance of the ,peoples as the vastest formula of association possible in our epoch2--in the liberty and equality of the peoples without which no true association can exist2 in nationality1 which is the conscience of the peoples1 and which1 by assigning to them their part in the work of association1 their function in humanity1 constitutes their mission upon earth1 that is to say1 their individuality1 without which neither liberty nor equality is possible2 in the sacred ,fatherland1 cradle of nationality1 altar and worship of the individuals of which each people is composed4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and1 as we believe in humanity as the sole interpreter of the law of ,god1 so do we believe in the people of every state as the sole master1 sole sovereign1 and sole interpreter of the law of humanity1 which governs every national mission4 ,we believe in the people1 one and indivisible1 recognising neither castes nor privileges1 neither proletariat nor aristocracy1 whether landed or financial2 but simply an aggregate of faculties and forces consecrated to the well-being of all1 to the administration of the common substance and possession1 the terrestrial globe40-- ,mazzini4 ,footnote #dd3 ,this chapter was written some time before the ,league of ,nations plan adopted at the ,peace ,conference was issued4 ,it is1 in spite of a few points which might require modification1 allowed to stand as it was written1 since the general course of the argument still appears to be sound1 especially as it raises points in relation to which the official scheme will most certainly require great changes4 8,come1 read the meaning of the deep6 ,the use of winds and waters learn6 ',tis not to make the mother weep ,for sons that never will return4 ',tis not to make the nations show ,contempt for all whom seas divide2 ',tis not to pamper war and woe ,nor feed traditionary pride2 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is to knit with loving life ,the interests of land to land1 ,to join in far-seen fellowship ,the tropic and the polar strand4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and more1 for ,knowledge crowns the gain ,of intercourse with other souls1 ,and wisdom travels not in vain ,the plunging spaces of the poles4 ,o may our voice have power to say ,how soon the wrecking discords cease1 ,when every wandering wave is gay ,with golden argosies of peace40 --,,george ,,meredith4 ,,democracy can only thrive in a democratic setting2 and while any powerful remnants of the dynastic tradition survive in the world1 it is unlikely that democracy will be able to reach the full term of its own development4 ,for the dynastic tradition is from the nature of the case of an incurably predatory character2 and democracy will be arrested in its self-realisation by so much of the dynastic habit of thought and way of life as it may be necessary to retain in order to gain immunity from attack4 ,it has been one of the commonplaces of the ,great ,war that the democratic countries have been compelled to defend themselves against ,prussianism by adopting the familiar ,prussian methods of repression and regimentation4 ,and what the war has actually provoked is always potentially present4 ,so long as there are dynastic nations with highly centralised and omnicompetent authority and consequently in a more or less advanced state of preparation for military enterprise1 it is not to be expected that their democratic neighbours will leave themselves at their mercy2 and the common democratic rights of freedom--whether of the person or of thought--have to be so far permanently subject to curtailment and even entire suspension in the event of war4 ,it is easy to say that once the danger is past1 the former liberties will be automatically restored2 but it does not so work out in actual fact4 ,for authority is ever loth to relinquish any advantage it has gained2 and there are always parties in every community who either on selfish or academic grounds are favourable to the curtailment of democratic rights4 ,the restoration of these rights has commonly to be effected against the opposition of parties interested in their curtailment4 ,it is a matter of common knowledge that powerful interests are already at work1 for instance1 to secure that the hard-won privileges of the ,trade ,unions shall not be restored to them2 and we may expect to find very considerable and dangerous opposition to the re-establishment of those civil liberties which were suspended 8for the duration of the war40 ,it is not likely1 however1 that this opposition can be long maintained4 ,but it is certain that it will be some time after the close of the war before the domestic liberties of the democratic countries will be restored to the point which they had reached at the beginning of the war2 and by so much democratic advance will have been retarded4 ,i ,so that the development of the democratic principle requires the cessation of war and of preparedness for war4 ,and this to begin with requires the disappearance of the dynastic tradition4 ,but will the disappearance of the dynastic tradition necessarily carry with it the abolition of that preoccupation with national 8prestige0 and the like out of which it has always drawn its strength8 ,the dynasty may vanish2 but nationalism may remain2 and the catchwords of national prestige and national honour may conceivably become a menace to peace and therefore to freedom as real as the dynastic tradition4 ,and at the present time there is1 as has been previously shown1 a very real possibility that the disappearance of the dynastic tradition may leave the door open to another type of predatory nationalism no less injurious to the cause of democracy4 ,this is that 8commercial imperialism0 to which reference has already been made4 ,the impression has been deeply made upon this generation that the accumulation of wealth constitutes the primary business of the community4 ,it should aim to become the richest1 wealthiest nation4 ,it is not generally perceived that the distribution of this wealth is of a character which robs it of any right to be regarded as a 8national0 interest4 ,it is the interest only of a comparatively small class within the nation4 ,yet so sedulously has this illusion of national prosperity been cultivated1 and so feeble is the faculty of discrimination in the multitude1 that it will yet be possible for commercial adventurers to invoke and receive national endorsement of their projects even to the extent of a guarantee of military support in case of need4 ,the surplus capital of a nation will seek avenues of activity beyond its frontiers and it will move heaven and earth to secure that the nation shall be committed to the business of protecting it when it goes abroad4 ,and it will do this by fostering the illusion that in some mysterious way its profitable foreign excursions bring prosperity to the home community4 ,a moment's reflection should be sufficient to show that operations of this kind will bring to no nation any compensation that is even remotely commensurate with the cost of guaranteeing them4 ,nor is it for their foreign adventures alone that these particular interests will work up national pride and prejudice4 ,they look upon the home market with the same avid eye as the foreign2 and it is an affair of common knowledge that they have not hesitated to inflame national feeling in order to secure invidious protective tariffs against other nations4 8,keep out the foreigner0 is always an effective battlecry2 it bears a certain immediate and obvious plausibility to the untutored and uncritical mind4 ,the argument for free trade labours under the disadvantage of not possessing this kind of effective simplicity4 ,except in cases where free trade has been tried and is supported by experience1 the argument for it has to lean upon postulates which are not so easily demonstrable to the crowd and which do not lend themselves to glib catchwords such as the protectionists delight in4 ,it is easy for instance1 to show that the prosperity of a particular industry depends upon its security against a foreign competition which apparently starts with the superior advantage of cheap labour2 and a case may be fairly made for the protection of a young and struggling industry from unequal competition4 ,the protectionist1 however1 extends his argument to cover all industry2 his concern is not for the growth of a struggling industry but for a monopoly of the home markets--what time he is also actively invading foreign markets4 ,the free trader has in reply to show that a protective tariff is a stranglehold upon all industry4 ,because1 for instance1 it renders the capitalist producer immune from foreign competition1 it reduces the necessity on his part to improve methods of production2 and in so much as his care is for his profits rather than the real development of industry for the good of the social whole1 he will tend to remain content with obsolete and antiquated methods of production so long as improvement is not essential to the maintenance of profits4 ,moreover1 it works in the direction of compelling the industries of the nation to utilise the raw materials available within its own borders even though these be inferior in quality to those obtainable elsewhere1 with the result that the national industries are seriously handicapped in competition in foreign markets1 even in some cases in the home markets4 ,the problem of clothing oneself in the ,united ,states of ,america is a sufficient illustration of the fantastic illusion that a protective tariff makes for the common good4 ,the tariff on woollen goods may be useful to the owners of the woollen industries in ,america2 but the advantage is gained at the expense of the whole people1 including the very operatives in woollen mills4 ,this is1 however1 not the place to state the whole case as between protection and free trade4 ,chiefly it is to our point here to emphasise the fact that the advocates of a protective tariff belong mainly to the capitalist class2 and that they will plead for a protective tariff on the ground of national prosperity1 and that national pride and prejudice will be invoked in support of the argument4 ,they will be careful to abstain from calling undue attention to the point that a protective tariff will discriminate in favour of the classes that are already sufficiently prosperous1 and their popular argument will have much to say about the high wages of the worker4 8,make the foreigner pay0 was the battlecry of the ,chamberlainite fiscal reformer in ,england2 and what the foreigner pays we all enjoy together4 ,it sounds fair enough2 until it is seen that by no chance whatsoever does the foreigner pay anything4 ,he may lose something in the diminution of his trade2 but he pays nothing4 ,the payment is made by the domestic consumer in the higher prices which immediately prevail in respect of 8protected0 commodities2 and this higher price brings an advantage to whom8 ,to the worker8 ,not at all1 if the capitalist can help it4 ,will the worker get higher wages8 ,only if he is strong enough to demand it4 ,the empty hypocrisy of this talk about national prosperity should be evident from the fact that the very people who are interested in high prices are those who are equally interested in lowering wages4 ,the increase of the wage rate during the war has not automatically or proportionately followed the rise in prices2 it has always to be wrested by main force from those whose interest lies in keeping prices high and wages low4 ,under a protectionist rgime1 wages are rarely high enough to compensate for the higher cost of living1 and the more dependent a country is upon importation from abroad1 the truer is this statement4 ,it is only in countries like the ,united ,states of ,america where the natural resources are large and more or less easily available that protection can effect any substantial appearance of social prosperity1 and even in these cases it is scarcely doubtful that the general prosperity would be greatly increased by the removal of a protective tariff4 ,the dividends upon invested capital would no doubt be lower2 but the general level of material well-being would be appreciably raised4 ,democracy must make up its mind upon this point4 ,it must turn a cold and critical eye upon all plausible talk about national prosperity and ask whether this prosperity is in fact the thing it professes to be4 ,national wealth is so inequitably distributed that the production of wealth as a national concern is a polity pour rire4 ,protection and commercial imperialism are devices which work in the interests of the already prosperous classes1 a very small minority of the community4 ,this is not to say that there are not advocates of protective tariffs who sincerely believe all they say so fluently about 8national0 prosperity2 of these good people it is not the disinterestedness that is to be called into question but the intelligence4 ,but it as sure as anything can very well be that if a statutory limit were set upon profits1 incomes and fortunes1 we should hear very little about protective tariffs and the need of protecting commercial interests 8in partibus infidelibus40 ,to say that this would immediately crush the incentive to the commercial and industrial enterprise of the nation would be an unworthy reflection upon the patriotism of those who are at present directing the enterprise4 ,in any case the point which is coming up for the decision of democratic communities is whether they are going to identify themselves with1 and commit themselves to1 the support of enterprises which primarily serve the interests of a class already well enough provided for and which can bring no advantage to the people at large commensurate with the risk involved in endorsing them4 ,with the crumbling of the dynastic tradition1 the one substantial cause still outstanding of international misunderstanding is commercial rivalry2 but this commercial rivalry is in no sense a rivalry between peoples2 it is purely a rivalry between the capitalist interests in the different countries4 ,are the democracies still prepared to suffer arrest of their own development by retaining a sort of potential war-footing in the interests of what are after all mainly class-adventures8#de ,footnote #de3 ,the proposal to establish an ,international ,labour ,standard will1 of course1 do something to rob the protectionist argument of the force it borrows from playing up the 8dumping0 of goods produced by underpaid foreign labour4 ,but it may be urged that even in the event of the elimination of this type of commercial rivalry1 the national feeling would still remain--intrinsically and without the adventitious aid of dynastic or commercial interests--a permanent ground of separation and possible dissension between peoples1 even democratic peoples4 ,we are told that there is such a thing as national 8honour0 which is a sacred trust and which the nation must be prepared to defend against all comers4 ,it may be seriously questioned whether this conception of national 8honour0 is not an archaism which has lapped over from the age when men still talked of gambling debts as 8debts of honour0 and gentlemen adjusted their differences by means of 8affairs of honour40 ,it should be evident that no nation has any kind of honour which is subject to real offence save at its own hands1 or which can be forfeited save by its own act2 and a nation in anything like a mature stage of ethical development should be 7in a memorable phrase7 8too proud to fight0 merely because its amour propre had been pricked by some ill-behaved urchin among the nations4 ,no self-respecting citizen resorts to fisticuffs in order to avenge an insult2 and the more self-respecting he is the more effectual is the interior constraint which forbids him to act in that way4 ,and it is equally inconceivable that a self-respecting nation should think it worth while to assert itself in a retaliatory way against what after all can amount to no more than rudeness or impertinence4 ,it is true that there is a good deal of residual superstition in this particular region which is apt to magnify out of all proportion the significance of such improprieties as disrespect to the flag2 but a little good humoured realism is all the antidote that is required4 ,such things as these have no real meaning except where symbolic and formal punctilio still takes precedence over the actualities of life4 ,for the rest1 the only possible sources of offence to national honour lies in the region where national honour travels abroad in the persons of official and unofficial individuals of that nation4 ,but at this time of day1 it is inconceivable that any issues should arise in this region which are not capable of easy and friendly adjustment4 ,in point of fact1 that is what usually happens4 ,apologies are made2 a formula is adopted2 and the affair blows over4 ,it will occur to the cynical that in recent times the point of honour has been chiefly insisted upon on such occasions as the pursuit seemed likely to eventuate in some material advantage2 in any case the point of honour survives only as an affair of statesmen and diplomats and provokes no more than a languid interest in the remainder of the nation1 which has more pressing concerns on hand4 ,national 8honour0 seems on the whole to be but a frill left over from the day in which the divine right of kings was still a live dogma4 ,in the fact of nationality itself there is nothing which necessarily tends to a breach of the peace4 ,we know that it represents no fact of organic inheritance which is bound to perpetuate divisions of an unfriendly or unneighbourly kind between peoples4 ,there is no modern 8nation0 which can claim homogeneity of racial origin1 of language1 of religion4 ,it describes a political unity within which a people by the simple process of living together has developed and is continuing to develop a particular way of life and quality of culture4 ,the peculiar colour of national life is due of course to some extent to its geographical location1 to the circumstances of its history1 and to its natural resources1 but national unity is achieved in the evolution of a common tradition and a common culture4 ,nor is it possible to fix any real bounds to the growth of a nation4 ,it is a historical commonplace how the small primitive groupings of man have steadily grown in extent until we have reached the stage of vast aggregations of polyglot peoples comprehended under a single national name--like the ,british ,empire and the ,united ,states4 ,the 8nation0 possesses no fixity1 and national feeling undergoes continual change and modification as the result of changing circumstances4 ,there are many like the present writer whose early schooling left them with the impression that there was a necessary and permanent antagonism of interest between the ,british and ,french2 but since then the ,entente ,cordiale and other momentous happenings have completely banished that hoary tradition from the ,british mind4 ,it is1 moreover1 not open to question that the increase and improvement of means of communication have done much to dispel the ignorance from which national prejudice and international suspicion drew their strength4 ,the biological judgment upon nationality is pertinent to this point3 8,all the most important agencies producing the divergent modification of the nations are human products and can be altered40#df ,these agencies are presumably the factors which constitute what ,mr4 ,benjamin ,kidd called social heredity2 and he has shown with great force how possible it is to 8impose the elements of a new social heredity0 on a whole people and to change its character accordingly4#dg ,the sum of the matter is that nationality is a fluid and changing entity2 and its intrinsic nature and its history appear to point to the conclusion that it is a necessary stage in the evolution of human society1 by which the caveman is to become at last a citizen of the world4 ,there is nothing to justify the expectation that present national characters and national frontiers will remain as permanent factors in the life of the world4 ,footnote #df3 ,chalmers ,mitchell1 ,evolution and the ,war1 p4 #ij4 ,footnote #dg3 ,benjamin ,kidd1 ,the ,science of ,power1 p4 #cje4 ,this does not mean that the world will not continue to be organised on the basis of nationality2 it means only that the present national divisions are not permanent4 ,the law of natural variation will operate in producing diversity in the complexion and culture of communities2 and the race will contain to the end an infinite variety of social types4 ,indeed as the dynastic imperial tradition decays1 the tendency to induce uniformity among the peoples brought under a common rule will disappear2 and the free play of variation will probably be more evident in the future than it has been1 at least in the near past4 ,the emphasis upon the rights of small nations and the disruption of ,russia and of the ,dual ,monarchy into their constituent nations both alike indicate that we shall have a considerable accentuation of distinctive national types in the years ahead of us4 ,but this is not in any sense a matter for misgiving2 for the larger the variety of typical national cultures1 the more varied and rich will the life of the race become4 ,as ,lord ,bryce said in the early days of the war1 the world was already too uniform and was becoming more uniform every day2 and a reaction from uniformity is a sign of renewed life4 ,at the same time it must not be forgotten that without some balancing principle there are dangers inherent in nationality4 ,it has been justly observed that nationality is an admirable thing when it is being struggled for1 but that once achieved it is apt to become a peril4 ,the passion for nationality may overshoot its mark4 ,national self-consciousness may breed national self-conceit2 and out of this temper especially under the conditions of modern commerce may grow the spirit of aggression4 ,it is useless to hide this fact from ourselves2 the recent history of ,italy gives ample demonstration of it4 ,the ,italy of ,garibaldi was hardly recognisable in the ,italy of the ,tripoli adventure4 ,it is therefore necessary that the nations that have come to new birth in the world-travail of these last five years1 should be preserved from the danger of becoming aggressive at the expense of their neighbours1 and in this necessity is contained in little the entire problem of international integration which is likely to occupy the minds of statesmen and political thinkers in the coming century4 ,at the same time the ultimate security of the peace which is necessary to the progress of the democratic principle must lie not in external safeguards and checks but in the increasing democratisation of national life4 ,the elimination of those residual predatory interests which still dog the steps of democracy and are still able to pervert it to their own ends may be helped by the creation of international machinery which will limit the area of their opportunities2 but it depends most of all upon the progressive disappearance of class and sectional privileges within the nations4 ,for privilege is always predatory2 and so long as there still remain privileged classes within the nations no international machinery of adjustment and restraint can do more than preserve a highly precarious equilibrium between conflicting interests4 ,,iii ,upon this whole subject there is little to be said which is not already perfectly clear to those who have given it any serious thought4 ,two courses are open1 and only two1 to modern democracies4 ,they may choose to retain the traditional dogmas of national sovereignty and 8honour10 and the current acceptances of the business system1 or they may resolve upon a break with the past4 ,the consequences of the first choice are perfectly evident from the state into which the world has been brought by its operation in the near past4 ,it implies the retention of a privileged class with interests to be defended at home and abroad2 it will work out in competitive commerce and as a natural corollary in competitive armaments4 ,and competitive armaments soon or late mean war4 ,it has already been pointed out how the doctrine of military 8preparedness0 must inevitably retard and arrest the realisation of democratic liberty within the nation1 but it must farther be recognised that any general retention of military establishments1 under the conditions of modern industry1 must eventuate in the total destruction of democracy and civilisation4 ,the other choice means a deliberate and progressive attempt to organise the intercourse of nations upon a basis of reciprocity and co-operation4 ,even though the consequences of such an attempt may be at present uncertain and problematical1 it may at least be asserted that they cannot be worse than those which have so tragically ensued from the former tradition4 ,indeed1 we have already come to a state of the world in which the former tradition has long ceased to correspond to actuality4 ,so long as the means of communication remained elementary and slow1 it was possible for nations to live more or less independent lives and it was in their interest to become self-sufficing and self-contained4 ,they were sufficiently far from one another to meet only in the event of border brawls or of predatory excursions on a large scale on the part of a strong neighbour against a weaker4 ,but with the modern development of the means of communication a policy of isolation has become utterly impossible4 ,the world has become a neighbourhood2 and national interests are inextricably intertwined4 ,when ,president ,wilson said in #aiaf that the ,european ,war was the last great war out of participation in which it would be possible for the ,united ,states to remain1 he was speaking with this particular circumstance in mind2 and not even his foresight was sufficient at that time to see that the day of isolation was already over4 ,in six months1 the ,united ,states was engulfed in the bloody maelstrom4 ,the policy of national isolation is obsolete2 and the persons who advocate military preparedness and protective tariffs are 8back numbers40 ,these atavistic policies are no longer possible except at the cost of the incalculable impoverishment of the nation which adopts them4 ,the nation that shuts others out also shuts itself in and will slowly perish from an inbreeding mind and an ingrowing energy4 ,for the barrier against mutual confidence and goodwill which is military preparedness1 and the barrier against reciprocal trade1 which is a protective tariff1 hinder much more than the exchanges of friendship and trade4 ,they hinder that exchange of spiritual1 intellectual and cultural goods which are on any radical analysis more essential to a people's growth and wealth than its trade4 ,even as things are1 those barriers are not sufficient to prevent a certain mutuality in trade and in culture4 ,neither the ,german tariff could keep ,sheffield steel out of ,germany1 nor does the ,united ,states tariff keep ,bradford cloth out of ,america1 and in the region of intellectual and cultural interests the commerce has attained in recent times a considerable briskness4 ,but in the present state of the world1 why should a nation still cling to the illusion that it is a source of strength to be self-contained8 ,it is simply silly to continue to live on homemade goods and homemade ideas when one's neighbours are ready to supply those which they are in a position to produce better than ourselves1 and to supply them freely on a basis of fair exchange2 and it is no compensation for the consumption of second-rate goods that it helps to increase the bank balance of a few of one's countrymen1 especially when these few countrymen who are thus profited can out of their profits procure the superior foreign article which they put out of the reach of the rest4 ,the organisation of the world upon a basis of international reciprocity becomes a necessity by reason of the proximity into which modern means of communication have thrown the peoples4 ,the process is indeed already afoot and in spite of hindrances will inevitably grow in power and range2 and we are only anticipating events when we set out to organise the nations on a foundation of mutuality4 ,the process is1 however1 not without its difficulties2 and the conditions which are necessary in order to create a league of nations bound together by a principle of reciprocity may be passed in brief review4 ,,iv ,first of all it is necessary that the last vestige of imperial dominion should disappear4 ,a nation which is held unwillingly within a particular political unity should be emancipated and be set up in independence4 ,real reciprocity is only possible on a foundation of common freedom1 and it is a pre-requisite of any scheme of world federation that any so-called 8subject0 nation which puts in a claim to independence should have its claim conceded at sight4 ,the whole conception of reciprocity is denied when a nation is dragged into the scheme at the tail of another4 ,at the same time it should be made clear that an independence thus recognised does not carry with it the prerogative of a sovereignty of the traditional kind4 ,independence is to mean autonomy in domestic affairs but not independent action in external affairs4 ,reciprocity implies joint action in matters of international interest2 and in so much as the working of a reciprocal scheme implies the power of authoritative action by some superior joint council1 it is clear that there must be a cession of such portion of national sovereignty as is implied in the joint transaction of international affairs4 ,nor is this to be a rule merely for the lesser or the newly emancipated nations4 ,clearly it must be a rule for all nations great or small which enter into the arrangement4 ,it is supposed that the nations will be found unready to make this surrender2 in which case it is in no need of demonstration that a ,league of ,nations is impossible save only for the purely negative business of adjusting difficulties and settling disputes4 ,that indeed were a great gain1 even though from the nature of the case it would in all probability be only temporary4 ,nations still boasting sovereignty would soon or late be tempted to take matters into their own hands in the event of adjustments and settlements which proved unsatisfactory4 ,but in point of fact there is no difficulty at all about this cession of sovereignty except in the minds of incurable jingoes or legal doctrinaires4 ,the thing has been done and is in practice on a large scale already4 ,that vast unity called the ,united ,states of ,america became and remains possible only because independent states have voluntarily ceded certain elements of their sovereignty to a federal authority2 and there is no objection other than that of chauvinistic prejudice or of academic theory which could effectually prevent the creation of a ,united ,states of ,europe on the same basis and a greatly extended ,united ,states of ,america as well4 ,but it requires to be emphasised at this point that we need less a league of nations than a league of peoples2 and if it be alleged that this is a distinction which implies no real difference1 the answer must be made that the difference is indeed deep and vital4 ,sir ,rabindranath ,tagore has lately criticised the idea of the nation on the ground that it is the organisation of a people in the interests of its material welfare and power2#dh and insomuch as the nation finds its focus in the sovereign state1 its effect is separative and divisive4 ,a league of nations in the ,western ,world would tend to be a league of states1 of governments2 and the psychological inheritance of such a league would tend to an undue preoccupation with schemes and policies rather than the broader matters of human intercourse4 ,it is inconceivable that a league of nations will be able to divest itself from the characteristic stock-in-trade of the specialist in 8foreign affairs10 since it would naturally be engineered by statesmen schooled in the traditional order4 ,no league has any chance of permanence which does not break wholly with the current conventions of international business2 and the only hope of such a break lies in the direct selection by the people of the various countries of their own representatives on the council of the league4 ,the league must be democratically controlled2 and that with as much direct democratic power as such expedients as proportional representation and recall can secure4 ,the foreign offices of ,europe are so incurably steeped in an evil tradition that the less they have to do with any future league the better4 ,the secrecy1 the intrigue1 the diplomatic finesse in which they have been expert are incongruous with the democratic principle2 and it is necessary in the interest of international understanding that they should be put out of commission with all decent haste4 ,the kind of domestic organisation for foreign business which a league of nations requires differs toto coelo from the existing institution2 and it will have to be built from the bottom up4 ,footnote #dh3 ,see ,atlantic ,monthly1 ,march1 #aiag1 p4 #bia4 ,a league of peoples requires plain dealing in the open2 but there is nothing gained even then if there be no public apprehension of the nature of the business in hand4 ,hitherto1 the common man has displayed but a flickering interest in the external affairs of his country2 and this vast and important region has been left the monopoly of a comparatively small coterie of people who have made the shunning of publicity a fine art4 ,this circumstance is bound up with the fact that speaking generally these persons have consistently belonged to the prosperous classes2 and the conventions of the diplomatic tradition have made it a preserve of people possessing considerable independent incomes4 ,it is needless to observe how inevitably the whole service must be vitiated by this anti-democratic discrimination4 ,the established system is secured by employing in it only those whose upbringing and education have instilled into them the spirit of class superiority and ascendency4 ,the ,foreign ,offices of ,europe have from the nature of the case been the breeding ground of jingoism and chauvinism4 ,the principle of democratic control in foreign affairs1 both by the public discussion of international business and by the thorough democratisation of ,foreign ,offices is a sine qua non not alone of democracy at home but of any such league of peoples as may be established4 ,it follows as a corollary that there should be a systematic education of the people in foreign affairs4 ,popular ignorance would nullify any advantage which accrued from the democratisation of the control and the conduct of international business4 ,for the control and conduct would under such conditions pass back into the hands of specialists and experts and interested parties4 ,this popular education does not fail to be considered in detail at this point4 ,but it may be questioned whether it can be effectively sustained unless in some form or another foreign relations can be made a permanent issue of domestic politics4 ,perhaps we may come to the point of instituting the popular election of the persons in whom the responsibility of foreign business shall be vested4 ,at the present time it is only rarely1 and then but in a subordinate way1 that questions of foreign policy enter into the issues of an election2 and until some means is devised of educating the public mind in the subject-matter of foreign relations1 this condition will continue4 ,v ,it is1 however1 likely that the force of circumstances may expedite this process of education4 ,the articles of the coming peace are guaranteed to contain a provision for general disarmament2 and so far as ,europe is concerned1 this will be a work of necessity and not of supererogation4 ,professor ,delbrck1 for instance1 has come to acknowledge that the 8derided notions0 of disarmament1 hitherto 8entertained only by persons of no account10 are likely to be raised to 8the position of the ruling principle of our time40#di ,his conversion is due to the fact that the war will leave the belligerents of ,europe in a financial position which will not only make the increase of armaments impossible1 but will require the very drastic reduction of their military establishments4 ,the only danger to the process of disarmament lies in the circumstance that two of the belligerent powers1 the ,united ,states and ,japan1 have been so little crippled by the war that they are in a position and may get into the mood to maintain large armaments4 ,it is useless to obscure from ourselves the further circumstance that these two powers that are in a position to afford large military establishments look upon one another with a considerable measure of suspicion despite their recent association upon the same side in the war1 and the formal professions of mutual good-will that have latterly been made4 ,it must be borne in mind that ,japan is still mainly dynastic in government and consequently imperialistic in spirit1 that its economic development seems to require an expansion of marketing opportunities1 and that its over-population will stimulate emigration4 ,in these matters there is plenty of inflammable stuff2 and we should be guilty of not facing the facts of the case1 did we not perceive that by reason of the attraction which ,western ,america has for the ,japanese emigrant1 and of the peculiar interest which ,america has taken in the welfare of ,china1 situations of very great peril may arise between ,japan and the ,united ,states4 ,it is upon such a state of the case that the argument for universal military service in ,america will be based2 and indeed must be based2 as it is inconceivable that any ,american in his senses should apprehend any danger from the other side of the ,atlantic4 ,the certain democratisation of ,europe and the virtual certainty of the impossibility on financial grounds of any considerable war-like enterprise on the part of the ,european nations make the contingency of a ,transatlantic war unthinkable at the present time1 or indeed at any future time4 ,this1 of course1 pre-supposes that the causes of friction likely to arise from the national underwriting of private foreign investments will be removed by a common understanding that the private ventures of capital abroad are made at its own risk4 ,footnote #di3 ,prssische ,jahrbucher 7,november1 #aiag74 ,the possible strain of the situation between the ,united ,states and ,japan is1 however1 already alleviated to some extent by the prospect of a democratic movement in the latter country4 ,japan can in any case hardly expect to keep its institutions intact if it enters into reciprocal relations with democratic communities4 ,now1 for the first time1 a commoner is premier of ,japan2 and the widespread social discontent is likely to stimulate the tendency to popularise the machinery of government4 ,it is probably too much to expect in the present state of ,japanese education1 that the veneration in which the dynasty is held will speedily disappear4 ,yet after the swift and dramatic disappearance of 8divine rights0 in ,germany1 it is not wise to assume that historical processes of this type are necessarily slow4 ,apart1 however1 from the possible causes of friction between the ,united ,states and ,japan1 there seems to be little insuperable difficulty in reaching an international understanding concerning disarmament4#ej ,upon such an understanding1 the whole future of the projected ,league of ,nations hangs4 ,the ,league will be no more than an empty shell if the constituent nations still continue to go about with loaded fire-arms4 ,yet even if the ,league itself were not to come into existence immediately the economic necessity of disarmament would of itself suffice to change international relationships very profoundly4 ,reduction in armaments will involve a revolution in foreign policy4 ,for the two things go together4 ,a particular kind of foreign policy requires a corresponding scale of armaments2 and the state of a nation's armaments very materially affects the objects and the tone of its foreign policy4 ,in a word the reduction of armaments would compel the nations in some sort to moralise their mutual relations4 ,the old basis of ambition-cum-fear backed by force will have to be displaced by a practice of plain dealing and mutual understanding4 ,since the nations cannot afford to fight one another for some time to come1 there is nothing for it but that they learn to behave themselves properly toward each other4 ,after a while it is permissible to hope that they would not want to fight each other4 ,footnote #ej3 ,this statement does not seem quite so true now as when it was written1 in view of the provisions of the ,peace ,treaty4 ,,vi ,but if disarmament is likely to compel a new type of international dealing1 it is plain that there must be some kind of international clearing house4 ,we have gone past the stage at which one nation can transact a bargain with another which will not affect the interests of a third party4 ,the shrinkage of the world has thrown the nations too closely together for any of them to suppose that they can determine their policies in isolation and carry them through piece-meal with this one and that1 without reference to the rest4 ,preferential trade agreements1 for instance1 are not merely an affair of the contrasting parties2 they affect all the nations4 ,and it is impossible any longer--in the absence of force majeure--to establish relations of that kind without the consent of the rest of the world4 ,the case for an international clearing house is indeed at this time of day irresistible4 ,moreover1 the immediate stress of the food-situation throughout the world is certain to require some such organ for the co-ordination and the distribution of the available food-supply4 ,it seems likely that the supply of food for the world will be for some years inadequate to the need without careful distribution2 and it will require the most careful organisation and rationing of what food there is if the people of some parts of the world are to escape very great and protracted hardship4 ,for this1 a clearing house is necessary4 ,fortunately we have the foundations of this organisation already laid--on the one hand in the machinery of international distribution created by ,mr4 ,hoover1 and on the other in ,mr4 ,david ,lubin's far-seeing institution of an international bureau for the survey of the world's grain resources4 ,from a central organisation of this kind the world will need to receive its food for some time to come4 ,nor is the problem of food the only urgent matter of this kind4 ,there will be presently a very great demand for the raw material of industrial production4 ,in the past1 raw material has been provided by means of private ventures of all kinds on a competitive basis4 ,any reversion to such a chaotic and uncoordinated method of providing raw material would be attended by consequences of a most disastrous kind4 ,there would be no guarantee of equitable distribution among the nations2 with the result that those unfavourably placed in the matter of capital or credit1 would be put in a position of permanent and increasing economic dependence and disability4 ,if the nations now released from ancient tyrannies are to be set upon their feet1 it is plain that they must receive supplies of raw material as nearly adequate for their need as possible4 ,otherwise we may create a number of pauper nations4 ,in addition to this fact1 there is also the danger that the private exploitation of the sources of raw material would tend to the subjugation of backward peoples whose lands chanced to be rich in such material4 ,it is an old and a shameful story how the need of civilisation for raw material has led to the laceration and impoverishment of the native population of 7say7 ,africa2 and it is necessary that the conscience of the world should refuse to tolerate the system of concessions and the like which made this criminality possible4 ,on both grounds--the need of industrial production among the civilised people1 and the rights of the undeveloped peoples--a system of the joint international quest and distribution of raw material is requisite4 ,this international rationing of raw material may seem a drastic and impracticable proposal2 but any consideration of its alternatives must drive us to the conclusion that we cannot escape some experiment however inadequate in this direction4 ,in the present state of the world1 the balance is so overwhelmingly in favour of the strong nations that any perpetuation of the private and competitive quest of raw materials will simply lead to a struggle of great commercial imperialisms in which the victims will be the weak nations4 ,just as the unprivileged classes within the nation have been the victims of the great industrial powers1 the weaker nations which start with a handicap in the struggle will be disabled in perpetuity and will be squeezed between their stronger neighbours4 ,it is difficult to see that the economic dependence and subjection of one nation to another differs appreciably in its consequences to the people at large from that political dependence and subjection to destroy which the ,european war was undertaken and fought at so terrific a cost4 ,,vii ,the necessity and the logic of the case leads us therefore1 to expect the creation of an international organisation which shall have certain positive functions in addition to the negative task of mitigating the causes of international friction and the adjustment of differences4 ,the hope of the permanence of the ,league lies in its positive activities rather than in its purely negative offices4 ,moreover1 the just rationing of food and raw material would of itself so considerably diminish the possibility of international misunderstanding1 that we may look to the extension of the positive and integrative functions of the ,league while the need of purely mediatorial activity would naturally decrease4 ,nor have we exhausted the matters in which the need of the nations requires action and organisation of a constructive and positive kind4 ,at the present time it is plain that some of the peoples newly liberated are not in a position to conduct their affairs without outside assistance4 ,palestine1 ,syria1 and ,mesopotamia1 for instance1 must be guided and protected for some time to come2 and while the peoples of these countries might choose to be placed under the wing of one or other of the existing 8great0 powers1 it is not open to argument that such a connection should be under an arrangement which secured the accountability of the protecting power to an international body4 ,if ,great ,britain becomes foster-mother to ,palestine1 or ,france to ,syria1 the agreement should be so formulated that this relationship is always subject to revision at the hands of the ,league of ,peoples4 ,the case with the native populations in the former ,german colonies is still more clear4 ,africa1 in especial1 has suffered unspeakable things from the imperialistic rivalries of the ,european nations2 and its whole future development is bound up with a guarantee that its territory and its peoples shall be immune from invasion and exploitation at the hands of nations with selfish purposes4 ,this again points to the institution of a system of international tutelage and supervision4 ,it goes without saying1 of course1 that any such international action should consist not only of protection and tutelage1 but of education into self-government4 ,the question as to the mode in which this international supervision should be exercised is secondary4 ,the proposal that it should be made effective by means of international commissions is met with the objection that international commissions have proved to be a failure in practice4 ,in some cases this is doubtless true2 but it is not the whole truth4 ,the ,danube ,commission and the ,postal ,union furnish examples of successful management by international commission4 ,but there is no need to mix up the question of international supervision with the method of rendering it effective4 ,there appears to be no inconsistency in maintaining that the method of international commission would be most fruitful in some instances1 while the method of devolving the work upon a single nation suitably placed for doing it would be more advantageous in other cases4 ,in those instances1 where a weak or backward people is capable of appreciating the alternatives1 there is no reason why the choice should not be left to the people themselves4 ,one of the further consequences of the contraction of the world is that health has become an international question4 ,the days when a plague could be confined to a city are over4#ea ,the recent spread of the so-called 8,spanish0 influenza is an instance which proves how indissolubly bound together the world has come to be4 ,and the system of national quarantines has to be superseded by an international organ for the localisation and the extirpation of diseases which like the bubonic and the pneumonic plagues are capable of easy and destructive diffusion2 and for the removal of those conditions of filth and insanitation in any part of the world to which these scourges owe their origin4 ,it is likely1 moreover1 that the great increase in pulmonary and venereal diseases as by-products of the war require international handling if their worst consequences are to be averted4 ,footnote #ea3 ,if1 indeed1 there ever were any such days4 ,in #affe1 the ,great ,plague was brought from ,london to ,eyam1 a little ,derbyshire town1 in a parcel of cloth consigned to the local tailor6 ,it will also belong to the proposed international body to oversee and improve the facilities for travel and transport4 ,obviously this is largely a question of keeping the seas an open highway for traffic4 ,the phrase 8the freedom of the seas0 has a special connotation in current discussions which is apt to obscure the real point at issue4 ,the claim made by the ,german ,government for the establishment of the 8freedom of the seas0 seemed and was intended to imply that ,british naval supremacy had constituted a hindrance to sea-borne trade in normal times4 ,no one with any historical knowledge would be able to consent to that judgment4 ,british naval supremacy has been in no sense a limitation upon the 8freedom of the seas0 in times of peace4 ,the seas have always been free in modern times2 and so far from its having been restricted by ,british naval supremacy1 a good case may be made out for the contrary view4 ,the safety of the high seas is possibly more connected with the efficiency of the ,british navy than a superficial judgment might allow4 ,the freedom of the seas only comes in question in war time2 and if we are minded to eliminate war from the world the whole problem loses its relevancy anyhow1 except in so far that some measure of police surveillance may continue to be necessary4 ,in the meantime it should be remembered that the insular position of ,great ,britain has created the necessity in past times for a strong navy in order to secure the freedom of the seas for its own commerce2 but it is not to be maintained for a moment that it has in recent times used its supremacy to limit the freedom of other commerce4 ,even if the policing of the high seas should be placed by the international authority in the hands of ,great ,britain1 its past record shows that it may be trusted2 and in any case its own interest in the free and unimpeded passage of commerce upon the seas is a guarantee that it would discharge its office effectually4 ,still1 it is probably not desirable that the control of the seas should be devolved upon a single power4 ,the universal interests of the nations in the franchise of the ocean highways make it necessary that their protection be an international obligation4 ,this part of the problem should1 however1 present no insuperable difficulty4 ,in practice the high seas are to all intents and purposes already neutralised4 ,our difficulties arise when we come to the question of narrow inter-ocean waterways4 ,the most conspicuous1 though perhaps not the most important1 case of this type1 is the water connecting the ,black and the gean ,seas2 and the obvious solution lies in the permanent neutralisation of the ,bosphorus1 the ,sea of ,marmora and the ,dardanelles4 ,there is no difficulty involved in the institution of an international commission to carry this project into effect4 ,this particular outlet affects so many nations that it is intolerable that it should remain the particular property of a single nation2 and the only possible alternative is this of neutralisation under international commission4 ,the straits of ,gibraltar present a different though a no more difficult problem4 ,with the development of modern ordnance1 the military and political importance of the ,rock of ,gibraltar has virtually disappeared2 and its value is chiefly that of a naval base and coaling station4 ,it is difficult to see what purpose under modern conditions the retention of a kind of ,british sovereignty in the ,straits serves4 ,in the days when the route to ,india had to be protected1 it was of course another story2 and there is really no reason why the ,straits of ,gibraltar--as well as all other narrow waterways--should not be neutralised in perpetuity under international guarantee4 ,the experience of the present war in the matter of submarine attacks on merchant ships in the ,mediterranean showed how ineffectual any guardianship of the ,straits is likely to be in the future2 and the same thing is true of all waterways which are not sufficiently narrow to be swiftly barred against entrance by submarine craft4 ,the most thorny part of this problem lies in the question of the two great inter-ocean canals1 ,suez and ,panama4 ,these two passages are now held by single powers though they are governed in such a way as to give virtual equality of use to the seacraft of all nations4 ,apart from the profits which accrue to the possessing nations from the charges upon traffic1 it is difficult to see what advantage the arrangement possesses4 ,it is in the interest of the possessing nations to encourage the general use of the canals1 so much so1 indeed1 that it has been found expedient by the ,united ,states to renounce the idea of preferential treatment to its own shipping in the ,panama ,canal4 ,probably not much would be immediately gained by the neutralisation of these canals1 though it is likely that the pressure of circumstances may lead to such an event at a later time4 ,nevertheless1 any international authority would find it necessary to secure that craft of all nations should have free and equal access to the canals at all times4 ,but the facilitation of international traffic is not an affair of the water only4 ,it is no less essential that the great trunk railroads should be effectually co-ordinated4 ,the ,british project of an 8all-red route0 round the world is an instance of the kind of co-ordination that is required4 ,the ,interstate ,railroad ,commission of the ,united ,states supplies the idea at another angle4 ,the convenient international transport of persons and commodities1 the regulation of time-schedules1 of fares and freights1 is surely part of the subject matter of a ,league of ,nations4 ,it has long been seen that the roads of a nation are its arteries and veins2 and the provision of cheap and easy transit for persons and things may well become one of the most potent factors in the cohesive energy of a ,league of ,nations4 ,enough has already been said upon the conditions of international trade which are requisite to the project of a ,league of ,peoples4 ,invidious protective tariffs1 8favoured nation0 clauses1 preferential arrangements of any kind must work injuriously to the process of integration4 ,that these devices are also injurious to the nations which utilise them is of less moment to us at this point than their effect in creating rivalry and antagonism4 ,to secure a genuine and universal reciprocity in trade should be one of the aims of the league1 as it will also be one of the primary conditions of its consolidation and growth4 ,,viii ,but may not this concentration of authority in the hands of an international body create a kind of super-state8 ,in any case this danger is very remote at the present time2 but it is no less necessary that at its inception conditions should be agreed upon which will safeguard it from such a tendency4 ,this might be done in one of two ways4 ,it might1 for instance1 be ordained that the machinery of the ,league should not be unitary1 but that the commissions requisite for various purposes should be independently appointed by the contracting nations and derive their mandate directly from them2 and in the event of overlapping1 the commissions concerned might adjust the matter by joint session4 ,the other alternative is that there should be a supreme international authority1 but that it should be subject to a 8,barrier ,act40#eb ,this would provide that the power and the enactments of the authority should be perpetually subject to the revision of the contracting parties2 and it would be impossible for the international body to take any material step outside the limits of its mandate and consequently to extend its sphere of authority without the general consent of the nations concerned4 ,perhaps both these conditions are necessary--the direct appointment of commissions and the ,barrier ,act2 and in any case a general agreement should be reached beforehand as to the limits and nature of the functions to be vested in the international body4 ,it is plain1 of course1 that in any event the ,league must stand upon consent4 ,it will be a voluntary association of free peoples2 and its maintenance will depend upon the impossibility of its ever accruing any authority sufficient to prevent the withdrawal of any nation which might be so minded4 ,it is questionable whether once the ,league had come into operation1 any nation could afford to withdraw2 but no power should be veiled in it to coerce a nation to remain in the ,league against its will4 ,the basis of free and voluntary association is the only guarantee of genuine and fruitful solidarity4 ,footnote #eb3 ,the ,barrier ,act was a ,presbyterian device against hasty innovation4 8,every proposal which contemplates a material change in the constitution of the ,church or in its laws respecting doctrine1 discipline1 government1 or worship1 after being considered and accepted by the ,synod1 must be sent down to ,presbyteries for their approval or disapproval1 before it can become the law of the ,church40 7,the ,book of ,order of the ,presbyterian ,church of ,england1 p4 #ej47 ,just so1 the ,federal ,amendment to the ,constitution of the ,united ,states relative to prohibition had to be referred to the several states for endorsement before final ratification4 ,this1 however1 raises the question of whether the ,league should be armed with powers to enforce its decisions4 ,that it should be endowed with a definite judicial authority goes without saying2 but is it to be supported by a police organisation8 ,in the present state of opinion it appears likely that some kind of international police force will be attached to the ,league2 but there are some reasons for doubting whether such a provision is necessary or likely to be useful4 ,in this connection the interesting point has been raised that the ,constitution of the ,united ,states established a court to adjudicate upon disputes between the ,states1 with no provision of force to compel a ,state to accept the ,court's decision1 but depending upon public opinion alone to validate the judgment4 ,had there been any attempt on the part of those who framed the ,constitution to invest the federal authority with power to coerce a recalcitrant state1 it is likely that the ,union would never have come into existence2 but the ,union was founded and survived despite the absence of coercive sanctions1 and the venture of faith has been vindicated by the growth and unity of the ,american people4#ec ,there is a real danger lest the institution of a police force at the disposal of the ,league might prove a disruptive factor2 and the question should be carefully canvassed before a decision is reached4 ,in any case it is safe to say that it should be the business of the ,league to work towards the ultimate elimination of coercive sanctions4 ,footnote #ec3 ,technically1 in the ,civil ,war1 force was used to prevent the secession of the ,south2 but what the ,north really fought for was the abolition of slavery4 ,but meantime is there any method by which the ,league could effectually deal with recalcitrant nations other than direct physical compulsion8 ,a good deal has been said about the use of economic boycott2 but it requires some casuistry to distinguish successfully between military coercion and economic boycott4 ,certainly in intention both devices come within the same category1 and in result they may work out in curiously identical fashion4 ,constraint by starvation bears in effect a strong family resemblance to constraint by destructive force majeure4 ,at the same time it is evident that a nation which chooses to put itself 8in contumaciam0 must in some way or another pay the penalty of its offence4 ,the ,bank ,clearing ,house deals with an offending and impenitent member by the simple process of exclusion4 ,in the ,league of ,nations1 a nation in the same position should be dealt with in the same fashion2 it should understand that its persistency in the offending attitude carries with it exclusion from the comity of nations4 ,it should1 that is1 be compelled to accept the responsibility of imposing the punishment upon itself4 ,it has put itself outside the pale2 and no injustice is involved in accepting its deed at its obvious face value and letting it remain where it has chosen to place itself until such time as it elects to think better of its action4 ,it is doubtful whether any constituent nation would think it worth while to indulge in a contumacy which automatically led to excommunication4 ,it would take us too far afield from our purpose to discuss the details of the organisation required by a ,league of ,nations4 ,questions of constitution and representation1 the problems involved in the adhesion to the ,league of vast composite aggregates like the ,british ,empire1 and of the place of some of the minute independent states that still remain in the world1--these and many more matters will have to be faced in the institution of the ,league4 ,here1 however1 it has been our business merely to point out that some such device as a ,league of ,peoples is entirely necessary to the further development of the democratic principle1 and to pass in brief review certain of the conditions which the ,league must satisfy1 and certain of the functions it must assume1 if it is to be consistent with and helpful to the realisation of the ideal of democracy4 ,a ,league to enforce peace may be no more than the ,holy ,alliance redivivus1 an unholy alliance in defence of the status quo4#ed ,what is needed is a ,league to guarantee freedom and to promote fellowship1 and given such a ,league peace will largely look after itself4 ,it is not sufficiently recognised that to make peace an object in itself is to condemn the world to virtual stagnation4 ,the only peace1 like the only happiness which is permanent1 is that which is a bye-product4 ,permanent peace will come from a voluntary association of peoples co-operating on a basis of reciprocity2 and such a consummation is not so far off as it would at fist sight appear4 ,the reciprocity which has been established between the ,allied peoples in the war will have to be continued long after the war4 ,their needs are so vast that they will only escape death and want by close co-operation4 ,moreover1 the agreement of the ,allies reported in the press as these pages are written to send food to their late enemies1 is an asset of the utmost importance to the creation of the ,league4 ,and once the ,league is properly afoot1 we may live in the hope of the day which ,william ,blake foretold3 8,in my exchanges1 every land shall walk1 ,and mine in every land2 ,mutual shall build ,jerusalem1 ,both heart in heart1 and hand in hand40 ,footnote #ed3 ,it is hardly possible to resist the remark at this point that the ,league as fashioned in ,paris bears a strong family likeness to the ,holy ,alliance1 and so far behaves uncommonly like it1--e4g41 towards ,russia and ,hungary4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,chapter ,,ix4 ,,education ,,into ,,democracy4 8,education teaches in what social welfare consists4 ,it is of first importance to you that your sons should be taught what are the ruling principles and beliefs which guide the lives of their fellowmen in their own times and in their own country2 what the moral1 social and political programme of their nation is2 what the spirit of the legislation by which their deeds will have to be judged2 what degree of progress ,humanity has already attained and that which it has yet to attain4 ,and it is important to you that they should feel themselves from their earliest years1 united in the spirit of equality and of love for a common aim1 with the millions of brothers that ,god has given them40--,,mazzini4 ,i 8,,it was10 says ,mr4 ,benjamin ,kidd1 8with a well-founded instinct that ,william ,,ii4 of ,germany1 on his accession turned to the elementary school teachers of his country when he aimed to impose the elements of a new social heredity on the whole ,german people40 ,it is impossible at this time of day not to go far in agreement with ,mr4 ,kidd when he tells us that it is not so much what is born in a man as what he is born into that shapes his life4 ,the most powerful formative influence in the shaping of character and outlook is 8social heredity10 8imposed on the young at an early age and under conditions of emotion40#ee ,this judgment is no longer a matter of speculation4 ,dr4 ,stanley ,hall's work upon the phenomena of adolescence has made it clear that the plastic and absorbent stuff of youth will inevitably take its abiding shape and colour from the cultural setting in which it finds itself4 ,the advocates of sectarian education in the famous ,english controversy about the ,balfour ,acts were1 from their own point of view1 speaking within the universe of the soundest possible psychology when they insisted that in religious education 8atmosphere0 was paramount4 ,it was a piece of very astute observation on the part of the ancient ,jews that led to the practice of bringing their twelve-year-old boys to ,jerusalem for the ,passover ceremonies4 ,all the early training was crystallised into a definite direction of life by the induction of the youth at his most sensitive moment into the highly charged emotional atmosphere of the ,holy ,city at the great festival of national remembrance and hope4 ,he went there a boy2 he returned home a ,jew4 ,footnote #ee3 ,benjamin ,kidd1 ,the ,science of ,power1 p4 #cje4 ,again and again in the course of this examination of the conditions of democratic evolution1 we have had reason to look to education for a solution of many fundamental matters4 ,it is indeed no longer possible to overlook the absolute primacy of the school in any progressive democratic polity2 and if the foundations of the coming democratic commonwealth are to be well and truly laid1 they must be laid around about the child4 ,our present purpose does not require that we should consider the actual machinery of the education proper to democratic development--that is a matter for the educator4 ,our business here and now is to consider the broad general characters of such an education4 ,it is a commonplace that needs no labouring that modern education suffers many things from the 8dead hand40 ,the tradition of the 8grammar school0 which aimed at opening the field of knowledge by a training in letters is still with us1 despite the fact that we have become familiarised in recent years with a rounder and fuller conception of education4 ,we have been told again and again that the business of education is to produce good citizens1 to promote the growth of moral character1 and so forth2 and slowly this emphasis has made some headway in the minds of educational officials4 ,but the whole implication of this conception of education is far from being realised1 even by those who are actively engaged in the work of education4 ,a disproportionate pre-occupation with 8letters0 and knowledge still remains to betray our bondage to traditional ideas2 and this in spite of the fact that popular education has in recent years received a very definite orientation through the demand for industrial efficiency4 ,but as yet there has not been--save in the region of what is called 8technical education0--any serious and sustained effort to co-ordinate the whole subject matter of education to this particular end4 8,technical0 education appears in the scheme not as an integral or organic part of the process as a whole1 but as a somewhat arbitrary and unrelated annex to the last stage of the process4 ,to this demand that education should minister to industrial efficiency we shall have reason to return presently4 ,here we are concerned only with the fact that though this demand has been fairly general and insistent1 it has not succeeded in shaking the hold of tradition upon the method of the educational process4 ,popular education still consists in the main of variations upon and extensions of the three ,r's2 and though the experts have discussed widely and in detail the ways and means of directing the educational processes to given ends1 the solutions have not yet arrived in any very substantial way in the schools4 ,roughly1 our popular education is still governed by the idea of equipping the young person with such a quantum of knowledge as he may be supposed to require in order to make a living and gain some sort of settled place in life4 ,it has become more and more possible in recent times for boys and girls who show unusual aptitudes to proceed to the higher branches of learning2 but in the main our thought of popular education has been coloured by a pernicious doctrine of 8minimums40 ,we have asked how little education can be given consistently with the need of the individual and the society in which he lives2 and the opposition which meets any endeavour to raise the 8school leaving age0 proves quite conclusively that we have not generally advanced beyond the stage of regarding that education as best which is soonest done with4 ,for this the economic strain of life is partly accountable2 it is desirable that the boys and girls should be wage-earning as speedily as possible2 but even more responsible for this state of things is a general ignorance concerning the meaning and purpose of education4 ,indeed1 few of those who are now parents have reason to recall with any profound interest or gratitude the days when they were receiving an alleged education4 ,something in the nature of a systematic campaign of education in the interests of education would seem to be necessary if the popular indifference is to be removed to any good purpose4 ,it has indeed to be remembered that popular education is still in its infancy2 and the prejudice it has to overcome is the result of the inevitable failures of its experimental stages4 ,when it is recalled that elementary education in ,england was until #ahgj in the hands of voluntary agencies1 and that only since that date has education become universally accessible1 it is perhaps remarkable that education should have made as much headway as it has made2 and much of our criticism of current educational methods tends to overlook what is under the circumstances the real magnitude of the achievement in education4 ,at the same time it is plain that our educational methods are in need of much sustained radical criticism if our purposes in education are to be saved from mis-carriage4 ,,ii ,but most of all do we require to clear our minds concerning the goal we are seeking through education4 ,it is true1 as ,professor ,dewey has pointed out1 that it is not possible to define an end for education2 for in a profound sense1 education has no end4 ,a true education will be that which fits an individual to go on learning to the end of his life4 ,the aim of education is more education4 ,at the same time this education will not be for its own sake1 or for the learning it helps the scholar to acquire4 ,here again ,dr4 ,dewey helps us by reminding us that one aim of education is social efficiency4 ,plainly and beyond peradventure no education will serve a democracy which does not produce socially efficient persons4 ,but this word efficiency has become discredited by its recent use4 ,we have heard something of efficiency engineers who have tried to reduce human faculty into mathematical formul for the purpose of speeding up and suitably supplementing the mechanical processes of industry4 ,it amounts to no more than a systematic endeavour to fit the human agent to the machine so as to get more out of the machine4 ,the result for the life of the human agent as a whole is hardly taken into account4 ,and even if this myth of efficiency engineering has met the fate it deserved1 its very appearance and name are symptomatic of the general direction of popular thought upon the main business of a community4 ,nor is this confined to the classes that are interested in getting the utmost out of the worker1 or to the unreflecting public4 ,the ,british ,national ,union of ,teachers at its ,annual ,conference in #aiaf declared that 8this great war1 with its terrible wastage of human life and material has brought into bold relief the economic potentialities of the child4 ,as never before1 the nation now realises that efficient men and women are the best permanent capital the state possesses40#ef ,so that the business of education is to develop the economic potentialities of the child in order to provide capital for the state4 ,it does not appear that the child has any rights in the matter at all4 ,he is to be trained in order to become 8the best permanent capital0 of the state4 ,it is to be hoped that two more years of war have brought a more fruitful vision to the ,national ,union of ,teachers4 ,footnote #ef3 ,quoted in the ,public 7,n4,y471 ,july #fth1 #aiah4 ,yet the word efficiency is worth keeping1 for it embodies the true conception of educational aim so long as it is rightly interpreted2 and industrial efficiency must be allowed to enter into our interpretation of it4 ,industrial efficiency gains its preponderant emphasis in recent discussion because we are still in the toils of the disastrous illusion that the national ideal is national wealth4 ,we think of the nation's well-being in terms of its financial prosperity2 and naturally we tend to subordinate all our social processes to this end4 ,but the result of this tendency will be to create not a society1 but a wealth-producing machine2 and those human possibilities in which the final wealth of life lies1 will have to fight a doubtful battle for their very existence1 and at best can gain no more than a precarious foothold in the interstices of the money-making organisation4 ,from this bias education must be delivered--at whatever cost2 and a doctrine of social efficiency enunciated which will be comprehensive enough to satisfy the requirements of the single mind and the social whole at the same time4 ,in point of fact1 these requirements are virtually identical1 for that which makes a full man makes also for a full fellowship4 ,the individual is to find himself in precisely those things which enable him to contribute his due to society4 ,we need1 therefore1 to enquire somewhat broadly into the nature of the things in which the individual shall render his due to the commonality4 ,we shall then be in a position to state in general terms what we should look to the educational process to provide4 ,professor ,dewey has laid down in this connection a principle of the utmost importance4 ,he affirms that 8we may produce in schools a projection in type of the society we should like to realise40#eg ,if we are to train the young for social life1 the proper method is to surround them in childhood1 so far as that may be1 with the conditions of the ideal social life toward which we look4 ,the school should be the societas perfecta in miniature4 ,this naturally requires a very considerable departure in tone from the conditions which still prevail4 ,the pontifical and authoritarian tradition of the medival school is still with us2 and an attention is devoted to problems of discipline and order which is disproportionate to the real business of preparing for life in a democratic commonwealth1 and is to a great extent from an angle and in a spirit alien to the purpose in hand4 ,a considerable breach in this system has already been made by the new emphasis upon the value of self-determination in education from the earliest stages2 but the relaxation of the traditional canons of discipline does not carry us far enough4 ,self-determination must be recognised not only as an individual right but as a group responsibility2 and the practice of popular self-government should begin in the schools4 ,it is symptomatic of the present tendency among educators of a liberal and radical type that in the prospectus of a school soon to be established1 it is laid down that the internal government 8shall be increasingly democratic1 scholars and teachers sharing both legislation and administration10 and that the external government shall be vested in a council1 representing the trustees1 the faculty and the scholars4 ,this is a sane and fruitful method of initiating boys and girls into the larger responsibilities of social life4 ,already the plan has been adopted in some existing schools with a considerable measure of success2 and if the school is to be the organ of a genuine training in social efficiency1 we need a wide extension of this method4 ,footnote #eg3 ,democracy and ,education1 p4 #cgj4 ,but beyond this discipline in self-government1 the school has to undertake the fitting of the child for other kinds of social contribution4 7a7 ,he must be trained to contribute his share to the supply of the physical needs of the community4 ,obviously1 in a school1 the direct and complete application of this principle is impossible4 ,it is laid down in the prospectus before referred to that 8all must share1 teacher and scholar alike1 in the labour that lies at the basis of human life and unites all men through their common need02 and it is ordained that 8the kitchen1 the crafts-room and the garden shall rank equally with the classroom40 ,it is proposed to give the scholars 8direct experience of agricultural processes and the preparation of the main articles of food1 spinning1 weaving1 dyeing1 sewing1 carpentry1 building1 pottery1 printing and any other crafts directly contributing to the life of the community40 ,naturally1 no child is required to become expert in all these occupations2 but his training in them will presently serve to reveal his special aptitudes and to determine his own personal choice4 ,it is not contemplated in this particular experiment that machinery will be introduced to any considerable extent2 and while it is stated that machinery will not be excluded1 it is obvious that it is regarded with some dubiety1 if not hostility4 ,but it is necessary to accept the position that the machine industry is here with us and is here to stay2 and a proper perception of its true function will save us from assuming a fallacious attitude in regard to it4 ,while the incentive to the development and improvement of large scale mechanical processes has been the pursuit of profit1 the real office of these processes is to diminish the purely mechanical and menial operations which are necessary to life1 and consequently to release a larger volume of human energy for tasks of a more independent and creative nature4 ,there are certain necessities of life concerning which our requirements are that they should be good in quality and abundant in quantity--and as no question but of utility arises in relation to them1 they may be assigned to the large-scale machine industry4 ,this1 however1 does not in the least absolve us from including in our school curriculum a provision for the habituation of children to mechanical processes of this kind4 ,but because these processes are necessarily monotonous and irksome1 every effort should be made to introduce into them what elements of interest may be attached to them2 and to reduce to the lowest possible point the current tendency to make the worker a mere accessory of the machine4 ,miss ,helen ,marot has recently described proposals for an educational experiment which aims at the association of discipline in industrial production with the educational process4 ,this particular experiment takes the form of producing wooden toys2 and while1 as ,miss ,marot sees1 the production of toys has anyhow an intrinsic interest1 the details which are given show how radically the atmosphere of the machine industry might be changed by giving it a place in the school curriculum4 ,miss ,marot's assumption that the machine industry can be so transformed by democratic control as to satisfy the creative instinct has already been adversely criticised in these pages2 but the present discussion is not affected by criticism of that particular point4 ,what it is to our purpose to observe is that mechanical processes may be relieved of some of their present irksomeness by supplying them with their appropriate background4 ,first of all1 it is necessary that the worker should be acquainted with the whole process of manufacture in order that he may participate in his own special task with a measure of intelligent interest2 and this will involve a degree of familiarity with the technical problems of management1 with accounting and costing1 with the internal conditions of the industry and the plant1 and with the larger economics of the enterprise4 ,but in addition to all this more immediate business of habituation to routine1 provision is made for the development of artistic judgment and execution and for the acquisition of knowledge relating to the craft itself--consisting in this case of 8authentic accounts and inspirational stories of industrial life1 especially of the lumber1 wood-working and the toy industry40 ,obviously not all trades command the interest which can be created around toy-making4 ,in the manufacture of articles of utility which are produced by processes of a highly standardised kind1 it would be less easy to introduce elements of romance and sentiment4 ,still much can and should be done in every trade2 and admission to any particular trade should be preceded by some discipline of this kind4 ,if ever industry is organised on the basis of national ,guilds1 surely one function of the ,guilds will be to establish national trade schools in which a generous training of this kind can be given and which shall be closely co-ordinated to the entire scheme of public education4 ,,iii ,but it cannot be too frequently emphasised that we are not to accept the present subordination of social life to the exigencies of the machine industry4 ,that the machine industry is here to stay need not be argued2 and we may dismiss as impracticable the suggestion of a return to the handicraft system4 ,the machine industry must be retained for the production of utilities where no question of beauty or ornament arises2 and it should be so ordered as to reduce the purely mechanical operations entailed in the manufacture of the staple commodities to a minimum4 ,consequently care should always be had to prevent an exaggerated emphasis upon the place of the machine industry in education4 ,it is not to be pretended that mechanical processes can ever in themselves minister substantially to the joy of life4 ,the best that can be said is that their present disadvantages can be materially reduced2 but not even the sense of partnership and democratic control1 the shortening of hours and the addition of intellectual interest1 taken all together1 can turn factory life into 8a thing of beauty and a joy for ever40 ,some emphasis has already been laid upon the difference between productive and creative activity4 ,creation is not merely production1 but reproduction1 that is to say1 the activity in which we express ourselves for the joy of the thing itself4 ,the present writer was brought up in a slate-quarrying town in ,north ,wales4 ,the workers spent their time in mining and dressing roofing-slates--an industry which involves no special skill save only in the department of slate-splitting4 ,this is handwork and no satisfactory mechanical substitute for it has yet been contrived2 and there is much emulation among the workers in this process4 ,apart from this there is nothing note-worthy about the industry except the very considerable extent of partnership which prevails 7or used to prevail7 in the work itself and of fellowship in the dressing shops4 ,but after the day's work was done there was a somewhat remarkable activity of another kind4 ,sometimes a worker would take a piece of raw slate home with him and spend his spare time in turning it into candlesticks or some other article by means of a lathe or by direct manual work4 ,the result from an artistic standpoint was doubtless very crude2 but it was interesting and instructive to observe the almost instinctive way in which men1 released from necessary toil1 turned to the production of things of beauty4 ,this free self-expression took other forms in other men4 ,welsh quarrymen have always been well-known for their literary tastes2 and the town contained a considerable number of quite capable writers of both prose and verse in the ,welsh language4 ,others there were--and these were a large number--whose dispositions were musical2 and since the purchase of musical instruments was as a rule beyond these men's pockets1 they devoted themselves to vocal music4 ,the congregational singing in the churches was famous throughout the country2 and while there were many individual vocalists and composers of considerable merit1 the development of choral singing reached an extremely high point4 ,it was an intensely religious community and was full of religious activities of many kinds4 ,it was perfectly plain that the real business and joy of life lay not in the production of roofing-slates but in the exercises of creative self-expression to which the men appeared to turn naturally and instinctively when the business of making a livelihood was over4 ,this is a parable for the educator4 ,while the business of producing the necessities of life should be so conceived and ordered as to make participation in it as much a pleasure as a duty1 it is not to be gainsaid that the joy and the ultimate wealth of life lies in the free and self-directed activity of self-expression whether by the individual himself or in some free concert with his neighbours4 ,education for life will necessarily take account of this circumstance--not only because it provides a means of personal satisfaction but also because it might1 and properly developed would1 become the chief and the most characteristic contribution of the individual to the life and growth of the community4 ,the school must therefore provide opportunity of independent personal self-expression--in every manner of medium--in order that the peculiar creative aptitude of each child may be discovered and encouraged4 ,whether it be wood-carving or verse-writing1 pattern-designing or violin-playing1 any education that pretends to fit a child for a vital social service must make room for it4 ,it is in this region that we are to look for the differentiation of future social function according to particular aptitudes4 ,to-day1 education reproduces the traditional social schism between the privileged and the disinherited classes4 ,on the one hand1 we have schools and universities which aim to provide a culture appropriate to those who have to assume the business of leadership and government in the community2 on the other we have a popular education which appears in the main to aim at providing a docile mass amenable to leadership and government4 ,there is virtually no attempt to sift out of the mass those who have aptitudes for special social tasks or genius for any form of artistic production4 ,its methods--mitigated only by the vagaries of the personal equation--are calculated to turn out human products having the uniformity of a sheet of postage stamps4 ,this method can have no result but that of producing and perpetuating a general spiritual poverty4 ,in a democratic community it should be intolerable that schools for children should exist other than the common school4 ,the common school being what it is1 it is not surprising that there should be a demand for schools that give a better chance to the human material of boys and girls4 ,this1 however1 tends to stereotype a class-distinction2 and for that reason to limit the field in which the talent for public leadership and artistic and political genius might be discovered4 ,in the common school there should be provision and encouragement for the exercise of free and original self-expression in every possible way so that each child may be enabled to discover its own peculiar vocation in the commonwealth4 ,not every child will reveal a faculty for creative self-expression of a high order2 but every child should have the chance of doing so4 ,and it is the only safe assumption on which to proceed that every child has in it the latent capacity for making a unique and original personal contribution to the total life and wealth and beauty of the community4 ,the common school should become the mine out of which we dig the raw material of our poets1 whether minor or major1 our singers1 our sculptors1 our fabricators of beautiful garments1 our painters of pictures1 our orators1 our thinkers and our house-decorators2 and there is an untold wealth of this raw material which is lost to society all the time under the conditions of our present preoccupation with the making of money4 ,it would be stupid to suppose that every child can become a great artist2 but some kind of artist in some kind of medium every child should have the opportunity of becoming1 on the assumption that here--in this region of creative self-expression--lies the richest contribution he can make to the common life4 ,,iv ,but the democratic principle further requires the intelligent co-operation of persons in the conduct of affairs2 and it is the part of the common school to furnish the necessary equipment of this partnership4 ,in this equipment there are two main elements4 ,the first is the provision of adequate capital of information for the stimulation and direction of thought2 the second is the encouragement of independent and original thought4 ,there is a certain body of knowledge which it is essential that the child should have if he is to think rightly and to order his conduct accordingly4 ,this body of knowledge may be roughly described as knowledge of the world in which we live2 and its two chief parts have reference to the world as it now is1 and to the story of how it came to be what it is4 ,the former involves observation and interpretation of the actual conditions of the life in which the child lives2 and the process should begin where the child stands4 ,in the modern teaching of geography1 the beginning is made in school-yard or the precinct and from this centre it broadens out to cover one's city1 one's county1 one's state or province1 one's country1 until at last it embraces the round earth4 ,this is as it should be4 ,in the past the teaching of geography has been a mere imparting of a mass of facts1 which have seemed to possess no direct relation to life2 by making the child's own location a focus round about which the available and necessary knowledge of the world can be gathered in a more or less coherent fashion1 the relation of facts1 which in themselves might seem remote and irrelevant to the business of life1 becomes more evident1 and the entire study gains a new vitality4 ,this discussion is now trenching dangerously upon the province of educational theory2 but it is needful to emphasise how indispensable it is that knowledge should not be1 as it has so often been1 allowed to appear unconnected with the actual business of living in this world4 ,even yet one may hear children asking in a bewildered way--8,what on earth is the use of my learning the height of ,popocatapetl80 ,or 8what good is it to know the length of the ,yang-,tse-,kiang80 ,information of this kind has no doubt a certain fascination for some types of mind2 but it may be left for those minds to seek it out for themselves4 ,the business of the school is to make possible the acquisition of the knowledge which bears upon the contribution which the pupil is expected to make to the community4 ,this is not to say that there is not knowledge which is desirable for its own sake1 or that the love of knowledge should not be encouraged for what it brings4 ,moreover1 soon or late all knowledge will possess a social value4 ,but the knowledge which is most valuable is that which the individual acquires for himself2 and the responsibility of the school in this matter is to release and quicken the capacity for independent and continuous acquisition of knowledge4 ,but this desideratum is not in the least compromised or neglected by ordering the acquisition of knowledge in the first instance with reference to the actual business of social life4 ,it is the business of the educator to determine what the subject-matter of the curriculum must be in order to give the pupil adequate knowledge of the world in which he has to live2 it is our business here simply to stress the point that this knowledge shall be of a relevant and vital kind4 ,it should have to do not only with the physical features of the world1 but with social and political institutions and the like2 and indeed throughout it should have more to say about the ways than about the places in which people live4 ,but chiefly this aspect of the educational process should aim to equip the pupil with the necessary knowledge to enable him to acquire more knowledge through his own direct experience of the world4 ,but this knowledge of the world as it is would be hopelessly inadequate were it not connected with some knowledge of how the world came to be what it is4 ,here again the subject-matter must be defined by the experience of the educator4 ,the business of this writing is to emphasise the requirement that this knowledge of the past shall be ordered conformably to the ultimate social fruitfulness of the pupil4 ,in his boyhood the present writer was required to study geology--at first sight a somewhat irrelevant subject for a lad in his early teens4 ,but he happened to live in a district where slate-quarrying was the only industry2 and when he learnt that his bread and butter came from the 8,llandeilo ,beds02 and that these same 8beds0 occupied a specific place in a more or less orderly process of world-making1 the study of geology assumed a new interest4 ,but its most important action was the awakening of a dim sense of being an 8heir of all the ages40 ,this feeling received a very powerful reinforcement from another side4 ,the writer well remembers his first reading of the story of the ,pilgrim ,fathers4 ,hitherto history had seemed to consist mainly of the puerile and discreditable exploits of a succession of royal persons of whom none were better than they should be2 and he had wondered what on earth all this had to do with a boy living among the ,welsh mountains in the nineteenth century4 ,but the ,pilgrims ,fathers were different2 here at last was something that seemed to have a meaning1 and it is easy to see what that meaning would be to a lad whose upbringing had been in a ,strong ,nonconformist tradition4 ,it took long years to fill with a connected content the interval between the sailing of the ,mayflower and the campaign for the disestablishment of the ,anglican ,church in ,wales2 but from henceforth the lad knew that he stood in the succession of a tradition that had made a difference to the world and that he owed a very great deal to it4 ,the story of how we have come by our inheritance of freedom1 of the age-long upward struggle of mankind1 this above all should furnish the inspiration and the guidance for our service of the present4 ,for this reason1 emphasis should be laid upon the history of peoples rather than of states1 upon the movement of social life rather than upon historical biography4 ,it seems hardly credible but it is strictly true that the present writer left school without ever having heard of the ,craft ,guilds of the ,middle ages2 or of the great tradition of ecclesiastical architecture which enters so organically into the story of social development in ,england4 ,he had heard in a somewhat casual manner of ,wat ,tyler and ,john ,ball1 and of other incidents which disturbed the normal flow of royal intrigue and adventure2 but of the story of the common people he knew virtually nothing at all4 ,yet after all that is the history that chiefly matters2 and much has yet to be done to give it its proper place in the school curriculum4 ,whatever the subject-matter1 its arrangement and presentation should be so ordered as to inspire and enable the child to make a willing and worthy contribution to the life of his community4 ,but the social emphasis in education1 if it is to be true to itself and indeed to the general history of mankind1 must define society in wider terms than that of the immediate community4 ,mr4 ,wells has told us that mankind has been forever 8pursuing the frontiers of its possible community40 ,whether by revolution within the commonwealth1 by imperial expansion or by fusion with other commonwealths1 there has been an abiding impulse--erratic and often perverse in its operations--to broaden the basis of human fellowship4 ,and in the present position of the world1 there is nothing so urgent as to quicken a social sympathy wide enough to embrace the world4 ,it is peculiarly the function of geography and history to serve this purpose4 ,geography should assume that frontiers are the lines at which peoples meet rather than part2 and history should lay stress upon the forces that have made for human unity rather than for national power4 ,if the writer may be permitted to indulge in a last personal reminiscence1 the tendency in the teaching of history in the past may be illustrated by the fact that the outstanding impression left upon him by the school history was that the ,french were the hereditary enemies of the ,british2 and it is something to the point to observe that the text books of ,american history have in the past failed to lay proper emphasis upon the circumstance that during the ,revolutionary ,war the best mind of ,england was on the side of the colonists4 ,the gratuitous and unhistorical prejudice which the traditional attitude in school history has bred is not a little accountable for the divisive tempers that have led to wars4 ,to-day the shrinkage of the world has made this attitude more than ever disastrous2 and in view of our hope of a ,league of ,nations it is essential that geography and history in particular should be treated as the opportunity for a general expansion of social sympathy4 ,v ,it is hardly necessary to point out that the conception of history which is pleaded for here includes the history of thought1 of art1 and of religion2 and that so far as is possible1 this history should be learnt by direct recourse to its sources in the classic literature and art of the past4 ,but generous and comprehensive as the provision for acquiring knowledge should be1 the educational process has not finished its business until it has habituated the youth to the task of using this knowledge as the basis and material of independent thought4 ,democracy faces no greater danger than the inability of the people to exercise a critical judgment upon the voices that clamour for their suffrages2 and the experiences of war-time have shown that freedom is not inconsistent with a very dangerous unreflective docility on the part of the public4 ,this danger is the greater when the staple of a people's reading is the daily press1 which envelops men in the tumult and the clangour of passing events without providing them with the longer perspective necessary to a valid judgment4 ,the power of the demagogue and the tyranny of the press are to be mitigated only by an educational process which does two things--first of all1 provides a background of general knowledge and interest1 and second1 turns out individuals able and accustomed to think for themselves4 ,and just because the life of democracy requires free discussion1 the school curriculum should contain stated provision for the discussion of current matters1 which would turn out to be a powerful stimulant of independent thought1 especially in its critical aspects4 ,the more constructive and sustained elements in independent thought may be encouraged by a careful development of the time-honoured method of the essay4 ,but whatever the precise methods may be1 the aim must be the systematic encouragement of the habit of independent thought2 and in this connection1 with proper safeguards against putting a premium on 8cussedness10 it is important that dissenting and minority opinions1 which whether right or wrong contain some guarantee of independence1 should be welcomed and valued as the promise of ultimate social usefulness4 ,,vi ,important as the materials and methods of education are1 we cannot afford to forget that there are two other elements of our problem1 closely related to one another1 which are in the end of greater importance4 ,the first of these is the teacher4 ,it is not a gratuitous slander upon the general body of teachers to say that the whole method of recruiting teachers and the conditions of the teaching profession tend to degrade teaching into a trade4 ,a great deal needs to be done to exalt the teacher's office in the public mind2 and the teaching profession should be so honoured as to give it the first call upon the human material in the community4 ,as things are1 it is far too much regarded as a means of livelihood1 comparatively easily qualified for1 and tolerably well remunerated2 and the training required for admission into the profession is quite inadequate4 ,if only teaching were rightly esteemed and its practitioners held in such honour as even judges1 who do a much inferior work1 are held1 it would be possible to exercise a far more careful selection of persons suited by their temperamental and moral characters for the work4 ,for we have to look for something infinitely greater than the successful communication of knowledge1 or the training of mental faculties4 ,robert ,owen followed an essentially sound instinct when1 having established a school for infants in ,new ,lanark he put at the head of it a man who could neither read or write1 but who was familiar with birds and flowers and had 8a way with him40 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson1 writing of ,wordsworth1 says1 8,i do not know that you learn a lesson4 ,you need not agree with any of his beliefs2 and yet a spell is cast4 ,such are the best teachers4 ,a dogma learned is only a new error1 the old one was perhaps as good4 ,but a spirit communicated is a perpetual possession4 ,these best teachers climb beyond teaching to the plane of art2 it is themselves and what is best in themselves that they communicate40 ,it was said during the education controversy in ,england that some teachers taught more religion in an hour's arithmetic lesson than others did in a year of 8religious instruction10 and the saying is true4 ,it is the spirit communicated that makes the difference between a real and a spurious education4 ,especially is this the case when we consider the business of education from the point of view of social efficiency4 ,for the prerequisite of social efficiency is social vision1 social passion2 and this is supremely a matter of contagion4 ,for this reason1 the true type of teacher will be devoid of the pontifical1 ex-cathedra temper and will rather seek out a relation of comradeship with his pupils4 ,the form of a democratic education will be essentially co-operative2 and its spirit will be that of fellowship4 ,this brings us to the second outstanding point of our discussion1 namely1 the question of 8atmosphere40 ,upon this subject there is little more to be said than what is contained in ,professor ,dewey's dictum that the school should so far as possible be a miniature of the society we desire to create4 ,the creation of 8atmosphere0 is of course specifically the task of the faculty2 and the eagerness and the enthusiasm of their participation in the more informal amenities of school life is an important factor in the process4 ,but most of all is a genuine social passion in themselves the surest guarantee that they will help in the making of socially creative and effective persons4 ,much is being said at the present time concerning the introduction of military training into schools4 ,it is worth notice in passing that ,mr4 ,fisher1 the ,british ,minister of ,education1 recently informed a deputation of miners that the government had canvassed the question and had decided that the innovation had neither educational nor military value and would not be adopted4 ,it is no doubt true that military training would have a beneficial effect upon the physique of the boys2 but1 quite apart from its dubious value for education and any subsequent purpose1 it must be observed that the genius of the military business is intrinsically hostile to the development of the democratic ideals4 ,for the military organisation is a regimentation of men for power2 it entails the mechanisation of the human material and imposes a discipline of uniformity upon those who are subject to it4 ,democratic education has to do with life1 and its genius moves in the direction of the largest possible spontaneity and variation in the individuals with whom it has to do4 ,moreover1 military discipline introduces the authoritarian temper into the atmosphere2 and this is a temper altogether at variance with the spirit of frank comradeship in which a democratic education should be pursued4 ,what advantages may accrue to the future in the shape of improved physical health and strength in the community is more than counter-balanced by the injection of an undemocratic virus into the minds of those who are called to sustain the democracy of the future4 ,nor is it impossible to compensate ourselves for the loss of physical training consequent upon the rejection of military training4 ,for there are other ways of providing for physical efficiency2 and those other ways are more consistent with the aim of a democratic education4 ,in the sports field1 for instance1 you have at once an instrument of physical training as well as a definite education in a team work1 which does not depend upon uniform and synchronous movements commanded from without1 but upon the intelligence and dexterity of the players themselves4 ,moreover1 the sports field affords an illustration of the proper use of the competitive spirit4 ,the military discipline has its eye upon potential enemies to be destroyed2 the sports discipline has its eye upon rival teams of friends and thus always a cheer for the beaten team in the end4 ,it has been observed that the difference in temper between the behaviour of the ,german and the ,english soldier was to be traced to the fact that the football field had played a large part in the training of the latter2 and it is not unlikely that even the superior military efficiency of the ,english soldier in the latter stages of the war has to be attributed to the same circumstance4 ,in any case1 sportsmanship is nearer akin to the spirit of democracy than the military discipline4 ,a plea has been made for military training on the ground that the rhythm of its movements has a certain psychological value4 ,that the place of rhythm in education has been neglected is indeed true2 and there is little doubt that a more sustained attention to it would add much to physical grace and the joy and beauty of life4 ,the question1 however1 remains whether the military rhythm which rests upon a principle of regularity is likely to have the psychological effects proper to such education as these pages contemplate4 ,the rhythm of the folk-dance like the rhythm of the ballad is a far more accurate version of the rhythm which is natural to men and women2 and the rhythm of ,walt ,whitman1 which is of the same order1 reflects the genuine rhythm of democracy4 ,the ,eurhythmics of ,dalcroze1 because they encourage a spontaneous self-expression through the free rhythmical movement of the body promise more for the future grace and beauty of democratic life than a military discipline can from its very nature do4 ,,vii ,the sum of the matter then is this1 that the test of a true democratic education lies in the quality and power of the social vision it evokes in the growing child1 in the measure of power and capacity it gives to the child to share in the realisation of the vision1 and in this sharing to give to the child the inspiring and joyous promise of personal self-fulfilment4 ,here we have tried only to sketch in very rough and fragmentary outline what would appear to be the temper and the general configuration of such an educational process2 and much has been omitted which naturally belongs to a full discussion of the subject4 ,of the place of dramatic and symbolic activities in education1 generous notice should be taken in any extended treatment1 for it is obvious1 first of all that the dramatic and the symbolic make a peculiar appeal to the child1 and second1 that the social enthusiasm which it is our desire to quicken can be quickened more effectively in no other way4 ,there is one point1 however1 upon which it might serve an immediate purpose to dwell4 ,the graduation ceremony in an ,american school provides a fitting close to a school career2 it rounds it off with dignity and solemnity4 ,but something more than this should be done--whether on leaving school or college or trade school--in order to impress upon the individual that he is passing into another world demanding other and more responsible service4 ,some solemn ceremonial of initiation into the rights and responsibilities of citizenship1 accompanied by every circumstance of gravity and reverence1 should furnish the fitting close to the period of training4 ,at present we slip out into the business of life in a ragged insignificant way4 ,our entry upon responsible citizenship should be signalised by a great public observance which should serve the purpose not only of launching the youth upon his course in life1 but also of reminding the rest of the community of its vows and its obligations to the common life4#eh ,footnote #eh3 ,this discussion closes without any attempt to deal with the problem of education beyond the school age4 ,the office of the ,university in democratic development is obviously large and important2 but here again the writer confesses his inability to handle the subject adequately with any degree of confidence4 ,valuable suggestions concerning the social ministry of the ,university may be found in ,the ,coming ,polity1 by ,patrick ,geddes and ,victor ,branford1 especially in the chapter on 8,the ,university ,militant40 -------------- ,,headley ,,bros41 ,,ashford1 ,,kent #ah ,,devonshire ,,st41 ,e4,c4#b4 ---------------------------------------- -------------------------------- ,transcriber's ,notes3 ,missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected4 ,typographical errors were silently corrected4 ,inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book4 ,text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores 7italics74