War-time financial problems

202 NATIONAL GUILDS

Guilds, embracing all the workers, both by brain and
by hand, in the various kinds of production. Its
advocates are, as far as I have been able to study
their pronouncements, decidedly hostile to State
Socialism and needlessly rude to some of its most
prominent preachers, such as Mr and Mrs Webb,
who at least merit the respect due to those who have
given lives of work to supporting a cause which they
believe to be sound and in the best interests of
'mankind. But in spite of their chronic and some-
times ill-mannered facetiousness at the expense of
State Socialism and its advocates, the Guild
'Socialists, as we shall see, have to rely on State
control for very important wheels in their machinery
and leave gaps in it which, as far as disinterested
observers can see, can only be filled by still further
help from the discredited State. It is no disparage-
ment of the efforts of these writers and thinkers to
say that their sketch of the system that they hope to
see built up is somewhat hazy. That is inevitable.
They are groping towards a new social and economic
order which, in their hope and belief, would be an
improvement. To expect them to work it out in
every detail would be to ask them to commit an
absurdity. The thing would have to grow as it
developed, and we can only ask them to show us a
main outline. / This has been done in many publica-
tions, among which I have studied, with as much
care as these distracting times allow, " Self-Govern-
ment in Industry/' by G. D. H. Cole, " National
Guilds/' by A. R. Orage (so described on the back
of the book, but the title-page says that it is by