War-time financial problems

VIGILANCE COMMITTEES 211

ratified by the workers who are to be affected by it.
" The Guild would build up in this way a pyramid of
officers, each chosen by the grade immediately below
that which he is to occupy/' Did not the Bolsheviks
try something like this system, with results that were
not conducive to efficient production ? And to meet
the danger that the officials as a whole might combine
" in a huge conspiracy against the rank and file/'
Messrs Bechhofer and 'Reckitt can only suggest
vigilance committees within the Guilds. In a word,
Guild Socialism seems to be a system that might
possibly be worked by a set of ideally perfect beings ;
but as folk are in this workaday world one can only
doubt whether it would be conducive either to
freedom, efficiency or a pleasant life for those who
lived under it.