labour is active only to play the rôle of Capitalism over again, a new social movement inspired by higher and broader purposes must be started to control it.

The historical example of this combination of capital and labour to exploit the public, is the Bedstead Makers' Combination started in 1891. In this the employers agreed with the Union to pay specially good rates of wages and to employ only Union men. On its part the Union agreed to maintain the strength of the combination by refusing to supply labour to any firms outside the combination and in competition with it. Thus, production was kept down and prices kept up. Other instances are on record of Trade Unions agreeing in return for high wages to maintain the monopoly of a combination by withdrawing labour from firms threatening that monopoly, and they are all indefensible.

The latest proposal for securing co-operation is that known as the Whitley Council. This was a war product started primarily to smooth over workshop friction during the war, but also meant to be continued as a normal feature in workshop management in times of peace. These councils, composed in equal numbers of employers and workmen with an independent Chairman agreed upon by both sides, were to deal with only a limited class of concerns-the settlement of the general principles governing conditions of employment, including ways of fixing wages, the establishment of regular methods of negotiation, the steadying of employment, technical education and training, legislation affecting the in

the movement, was dissolved in 1872-73. The class ideal fell into utter discredit, and the practical movement degenerated more and more into the most downright utilitarianism and opportunism.” (p. 222).

dustry concerned, invention and use of machinery and such things. Should they have been successful, they were bound to increase the scope of their authority because they were the tentative beginning of a new method of workshop control, the boundaries of which were wider than those fixed in the document. They have not been successful. The workman's side demanded what the other considered to be too much, the other conceded what the employees considered to be too little. Employers were suspicious and unwilling, and council after council has broken up, others have ceased to function, none has been fully worked, though not a few have smoothed over more or less minor difficulties. At the moment there seems no prospect of an important future for these councils.

Supposing, however, they had been successful and had developed on their lines of natural authority, what would they have meant? Again I content myself with quoting the appendix to the report of the Committee on Trusts.* "As the control of industry by joint councils of employers and workpeople on the lines of the Whitley Committee recommendations becomes a reality-i.e. is extended to matters of price, output, limitation of competition and the regulation of trade generally-the problem of monopoly will assume yet more formidable proportions. It may be suggested that if, and when, that happens the problem will provide its own solution . . . and there will be a balance of power as among the groups which will prevent any one getting more than its fair share in the national dividend. We appear to be moving towards such a condition, but balance of power among the industrial groups is not likely to prove more satisfac* "Report," p. 27.

tory than has been balance of power among national groups. The duty of adjudicating upon the contending claims of the groups must fall, therefore, upon the State." And no political authority could ever do such work.

Thus the fact that Capitalism as a system of production contains inherently within itself a fatal conflict with labour, that it can only end that conflict consistently with itself by making labour a partner in the exploiting results of its combinations, that this is practically impossible, but that if it were possible it would only put the public more completely at the mercy of combination, that if labour has no other policy than to act aggressively against capital, the community will suffer by inadequate production and high price (to say nothing of the dangers to the complete national economy)—these are facts indisputable and dominant to everyone who has studied the condition of modern industry. And no scheme of amelioration or accommodation offers a particle of hope. Labour and capital cannot be reconciled within the capitalist system.

CAPITALISM AND BRAIN LABOUR

Thus far I have considered only the problem of hand labour under Capitalism, but the failure of that system is as apparent if we consider the problem of brain labour and intelligence. At first sight the professional worker occupies a specially privileged and fortunate position which seems to secure him against the unsettlement which agitates the hand-worker. Economic advantage is not the only soothing influence on classes. Many people would starve in a black coat rather than live in tolerable comfort in corduroys, would exist in mean penury in a genteel

suburb rather than in hearty enjoyment in an industrial quarter. The distinction of "not being of the working and wage-earning class" is valued beyond gold. To this the brain-workers have also had the further distinction added by Capitalism of being differently treated. Their earnings are dignified by the title of salary, they have more regularity in their employment, they have holidays for which they are paid, they, to a great extent, work apart in " rooms,' in counting-houses and so on, not with a crowd in factories. Besides these things brain work and management are frequently holders of capital as well as its servants and are interested not only in the salaries it pays but the profit it earns. So that the two classes of labour have become really distinct; both are aware of the distinction and it enters into the relations they have with each other. For instance, clerk public opinion can usually be relied upon to be anti-labour on any issue. Its allegiance is to respectability and reactionary conservatism, not to toil, however typically a victim of Capitalism it may be economically. Its affinities are social and not economic. Yet, whilst I write this, I am conscious that it is becoming untrue.

Despite the social prejudices which link brainworkers with the present system, that system has used them ill and has employed them inadequately for productive purposes. The bad equipment of our industry on the scientific side has become a byword of reproach. Business ability has been plentiful, but scientific ability neglected. The inventor has been regarded as legitimate prey. He has been filched of his products. Combinations have deliberately set about to keep him from interfering with their trade, and he has found himself absolutely at the mercy of finance. Of this I have given a striking instance in

the case of the company manufacturing boot and shoe machinery. By holding certain essential patents it has been able by agreements forced upon users to make it practically impossible to introduce improved machines unless it holds the patents and makes them. Engineers have brought to me designs of machines which were as good and, according to claim at any rate, better than those sent out by this company; they were willing to make and put them on the market, but they could not do so because boot and shoe manufacturers were unable to use them. This company controls at least 80 per cent. of the production of machines used in the making of boots and shoes, and has been in existence for about twenty years. It is an offshoot of a company working in America on precisely similar lines, which is said to control 98 per cent. of the output of that country. Here again organized capital protects itself against improvements from which it may have to suffer some inconvenience, and by the legislation which it has influenced it has produced patent laws which lay the patentee open to capitalist pressure.

I served upon the Parliamentary Committee which considered the Patents Bill of 1907, and it was a liberal education. The lobbying which went on on behalf of the capitalist interests was unceasing. Every unassailable security for the patentee that was proposed was rejected or weakened; even the company which manufactured the boot and shoe machinery and let it out under the agreements described, got off with a clause which it itself might well have drafted and which has had no appreciable effect upon its position or policy. The brains of the inventor have to be kept rigidly subordinate to capitalist interests.

Old machines are kept in use, hand labour of an