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AFTER-WAR PROBLEMS

After- War Problems

The Earl of Cromer, Viscount Haldane,

the Bishop of Exeter, Professor

Alfred Marshall, and Others

Edited by William Harbutt Dawson

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

as<*

First published in 1917

CONTENTS

PAGE

Introduction. By the Editor . . . . .7

I. EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

CHAPTER

I. Imperial Federation. By the Earl of Cromer . 17

II. The State and the Citizen. By Bishop Welldon . 39

III. The Cultivation of Patriotism. By the Earl of Meath 59

IV. The Alien Question. By Sir H. H. Johnston . . 65

II. NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

V. National Education. By Viscount Haldane . -79

VI. Organization of the National Resources. By Sir

Joseph Compton-Rickett, M.P. . . .111

VII. The State and Industry. By Dr. W. Garnett . 123

VIII. The State and Labour. By Professor S. J. Chapman 137

IX. The Relations between Capital and Labour.

1. The Standpoint of Labour. By G. H.
Roberts, M.P. . . . . .149

X. The Relations between Capital and Labour.

2. The Standpoint of Capital. By Sir Benjamin

C. Browne . . . . . .170

CONTENTS

:hapter PAGE

XI. The Land Question. By W. Joy nson- Hicks, M.P. . 185

XII. The Position of Women in Economic Life. By Mrs.

Fawcett ...... 191

III. SOCIAL REFORM

XIII. The Rehabilitation of Rural Life. By the Bishop

of Exeter {Lord William Gascoyne- Cecil) . .219

XIV. Housing after the War. By Henry R. Aldridge . 233
XV. National Health. By James Kerr, M.A., M.D.,D.P.H. 251

XVI. The Care of Child Life. By Margaret McMillan . 278

XVII. Unsolved Problems of the English Poor Law.

Sir William Chance, Bart., M.A. . . .291

IV. NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

XVIII. National Taxation after the War. By Professor

Alfred Marshall . . . . .313

1. The Appropriate Distribution of its Burden . 313

2. Taxes on Imports : The New International Situation 329
XIX. National Thrift. By Arthur Sherwell, M.P. . 346

Introduction

By THE EDITOR

The. longer the war lasts the more difficult it becomes to

— n;ort one's mind into the new England — the word is

of convenience — to

iviNG to the abnormal conditions now prevailing ' tasks have been

rpstprd^ v nor to-
■ the printing and bookbinding trades, the publi- e Hfe J'the indi_

ction of this book has been unavoidably delayed. a. nation. We are

Lis fact is stated in justice to several of the "e the fullJesf aund

does not feel that
Contributors who have incorporated in their ways broken with

capters statistical or other data which need to ch of her history,

. ,. . . . id, so that when

p adjusted to continually altering circumstances. iate we g^aif be

by an altogether
altered situation ?

In every department of our domestic affairs new con-
ditions and relationships have been established during the
last two and a half years, and these have created and will
create new problems, some of a profoundly important and
delicate character, affecting the entire fabric and the
innermost texture of our social life. The conditions and
problems of the war in their military aspects are hardly
likely to undergo further fundamental change. Can it be
said, however, that the nation yet fully realizes what the war
will mean for its future life at home — the duties which will
have to be faced there, and which we shall shirk at our
peril, and the demands which these duties will make upon
patriotism, public spirit, and the best energies that can be
evoked by an enlightened and self-sacrificing citizenship ?

We are told almost every day stories — which may
materialize or may not — of the wonderful expansion that
awaits our commerce ; markets from which we have been

S CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XI. The Land Question. By W. Joynson-Hicks, M.P. . 185

XII. The Position of Women in Economic Life. By Mrs.

Fawcett . . . . . .191

III. SOCIAL REFORM

XIII. The Rehabilitation of Rural Life. By the Bishop

of Exeter {Lord William Gascoyne- Cecil) . .219

XIV. Housing after the War. By Henry R. Aldridge . 233
XV. National H""T',,TT v T

XVI. The Care

XVII. Unsolved
Sir Wil

IV. NATIO

XVIII. National
Alfred .

1. The Appropriate Distribution of its Burden . 313

2. Taxes on Imports : The New International Situation 329
XIX. National Thrift. By Arthur Sherwell, M.P. . 346

Introduction

By THE EDITOR

The. longer the war lasts the more difficult it becomes to
project one's mind into the new England — the word is
used in a representative sense as one of convenience — to
which our armies will return when their tasks have been
completed. To-day can never be as yesterday, nor to-
morrow as to-day. If that is true for the life of the indi-
vidual, it is still more true for the life of a nation. We are
living at a time when days and weeks have the fulness and
significance of years and decades. Who does not feel that
since August 19 14 England has in many ways broken with
her past and entered an entirely new epoch of her history,
marked by transformations of every kind, so that when
the day of peace arrives, be it soon or late, we shall be
confronted at home, as well as abroad, by an altogether
altered situation ?

We are told almost every day stories — which may

materialize or may not — of the wonderful expansion that

awaits our commerce ; markets from which we have been

8 INTRODUCTION

driven are to be reoccupied, never again to be relinquished,
and many of our industries and trades are to have the
time of their lives. These things should not be belittled,
since the unexampled strain of war indebtedness will call
for the utmost development of the nation's industrial, agri-
cultural, and commercial resources ; yet, none the less, they
do not touch even the outermost fringe of the question
which really matters for the England of the future : How
is the war going to leave the nation itself, its life and
ideals, its motive forces and aims ? There is danger that
in our concern for the smaller things we may overlook the
greatest, and that in giving overdue prominence to the
material effects of military success the nation may be led
to lose sight of the higher and more lasting values.

So, again, we are told of what Germany is to be com-
pelled to do, of the capitulations and penalties which are
to be required of her as the price of peace. Here like-
wise prophecy, in so far as it is well informed, is perfectly
legitimate and may be helpful. Yet there are thousands of
Englishmen, and they not the least patriotic, who are quite
as eager to know what England herself is prepared to do in
order to help in and sustain the coming reign of peace and
goodwill which all men long for and too many of us think
will come automatically, and of the example which she is
going to offer to the world of order and harmony in her
own household. Already the nation's contribution to the
awful holocaust of life and treasure demanded by the war
has been appalling, and still the full toll has not been
paid. What is to be the gain in return — the gain, not to
Europe and to civilization at large, which to most people
are mere abstractions, but to ourselves ? If the gain is
to be equal to the sacrifice, it must surely be in the things
wherein we as a people have hitherto been most lacking.

The war has sobered us. Have its lessons been taken
truly to heart ? Will the transformation wrought by the
war prove permanent ? Let us think back. How was it
with England before the clarion note of war called her
people to forsake the ways of ease and complacency ?
How many were the earnest voices — voices neither of
pessimists nor croakers — which had warned us of a grow-
ing slackness in the national character, of increasing
flaccidity of will, of a love of luxury spreading downward
from stratum to stratum of society, and a steadily weaken-
ing grip upon the true elements of individual and national

INTRODUCTION g

worth ! How many there were who longed that this care-
less, spoiled England would just for one quiet, patient,
unhurried hour commune with her own soul —

Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark :
I would question thee —

and ask in honest concern if all were really well there I
Perhaps to some of these there came at times unbidden the
thought, which they almost feared to harbour, that per-
chance no greater blessing could be bestowed upon this
great nation — so rich in its gifts yet so slow to value them,
capable of the highest things yet so prone to be satisfied
with the mean and the trivial, spoiled by wealth and appar-
ently enervated by success — than the discipline of a great
ordeal, some mighty stirring that should perturb it to the
depths of its being, and mercifully compel it to face the
master facts of life in a spirit of true soberness.

Observers of developments in other parts of the world,
with their eyes fixed specially upon a country which now
is our mortal enemy, yet was not always so, and believing
that in some respects that country held the key to our own
fate, preached in season and out of season their sermons
on the prosy texts of Order, Authority, Discipline,
Organization, Patriotism, the greater merging of the one
in the all, and, not least, Universal Service in a form suited
to our national conditions and traditions. Our sermons
may have been dull, and perhaps might have been made
less so, yet at least they were not duller than the hearing
of those who refused to heed. Even these appeals on the
lower plane of self-interest seemed to pass unregarded.

Now the trial has come, and though it came unex-
pectedly, and when in many ways we were unprepared for
it, we know, happily, that the doubters doubted too much
and the prophets of evil prophesied not in all things truly.
Compelled, in one of those supreme crises that come so
rarely in the history of nations, to choose between honour
and dishonour, between duty and ease, the nation has
proved, no less by its choice than by the manner of sup-
porting it, that it is sound at the core, however much there
may be on the surface of its life that is capable of
betterment. A people deemed by its enemies to be
decadent and almost a cumberer of the earth, and by many
of its best friends, like the plain-speaking American Mr.

io INTRODUCTION

Price Collier,1 to be dangerously ill in its vital parts,
suddenly threw off lethargy and flippancy like an outworn
garment. Where there seemed to be only indifference,
shallowness, cynicism, and laxity there sprang up passionate
enthusiasm and a boundless power of sacrifice. The nation
that can thus respond to the call of a great emergency has
lost none of its old will and right to live.

And yet who does not feel that the severest trial for
the nation at large remains still to be faced ? It is the
test of the moral and physical reaction which will inevit-
ably come when the strain of the war, with its ardours and
elations, is over, and the nation is compelled by the force
of circumstances to return to the plain, uninspiring duties
of every -day life. How much courage, resolution, and self-
discipline it will then need, if it is to be fortified against
depression, lassitude, and a disposition to adopt the deadly
doctrine of laisser faire, laisser passer, of " letting things
alone ": " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall
be, and that which is done is that which shall be done."
The spirit in which the nation meets and masters this
reaction, the degree to which it carries into the future
the strength and steadfastness which mark the present,
will for good or ill determine the course of English social
life for generations to come.

There is one discipline, and one only, that will carry the
nation over the dead points and send it forward with a new
momentum. When in 1871 France came out of her agony,
torn and bleeding, broken both in body and spirit,
Gambetta gave to his countrymen a watchword which acted
like a magic anodyne when he called them to work : " Le
travail, encore le travail, et tou jours le travail! " That,
too, will be England's hope and stay, and the way of her
renewal, and naught else will avail — work with brain and
heart and hand in a thousand ways, all energies bent to the
one purpose of healing the ravages of war, giving to the
national life a new and greater order, bringing up
the arrears of neglected social duty, and making out of
the old England an England worthier of the men who
have fought and fallen for her honour and her homes.

It is here that we touch the deepest domestic problem
of the war. The ordeal which the nation has been called
to face has evoked an outburst of moral energy without

1 " England and the English," a book full of wholesome criticism, first
published in 1909, and now more than ever worth thoughtful pondering.

INTRODUCTION II

parallel in the history of the British race. Shall the moral
forces now in action be demobilized in county and city,
in town and hamlet, when the struggle is over ? Must
they not rather be preserved in being, as a standing army
for the service of the national life, to do battle everywhere
against the enemies within our own gates ? Nobly have
the nation's manhood and womanhood responded to the call
of duty. Soon there will come to those who have done
great deeds on the high plane the chance of proving a
like heroism and devotion in the trivial round and com-
mon task of social and civic service. Is it a misuse of
words to say that when the war abroad is over the war
at home will only begin ? We may conquer Germany,
emancipate Belgium, and free Europe and mankind from
the menace of malign ambitions, yet if the war does not
win for the homeland likewise the things so supremely
necessary to its welfare and peace we shall have fought
and suffered and sacrificed in vain.

The call comes from the graves of the dead that we
falter not in this high purpose. Who can think without
emotion of those gallant youths, the flower of the nation's
life, whose eager faces were turned to the future with hope
and ardour, who yet at the call of duty forsook all else
that was precious to them on earth, and whose bodies now
lie beneath unnumbered mounds on the fields of Flanders,
the hillsides of Gallipoli, and the deserts of the more
distant East ? They died, we say, for England, those brave
lads, fresh from school and college and home. Rather,
they died for two Englands — the England which we know,
with all its social evils, that shame our culture, baffle our
morality, and make our national greatness seem a cruel
mockery ; yet perhaps more truly, if not more consciously,
for another England altogether, an England that lives as
a " vision splendid " in the imagination of all true-hearted
youth — an England of cleaner life, sweeter manners, purer
laws, and happier homes, the England of their hopes, ideals,
and longings. They have not lived to re-create that
England, but the thought of their loss to us would be
appalling were it possible that their aspirations should be
quenched like smoking flax, and their dreams perish and
pass with them unrealized into the silence of the unknown.
Rather should our duty to the dead serve as the measure
of our responsibility to the living. Thus and thus only
will England pay her due debt to those who have fallen

T2 INTRODUCTION

for her sake, and prove that she was worthy of the
sacrifice.

It is good to wish and hope for such a national renewal
so long as we do not forget that if it is to be realized it
will be by systematic hard work — by intelligent national
effort co-ordinated in a manner and on a scale never con-
ceived as possible or necessary before. To this end the
nation needs direction quite as much as impetus and
stimulus. We are not on the whole a hard-thinking people,
but rather a people of action, impatient of theory and
method, empirical in a high degree, and prone to approach
our problems on the easy solvitur ambulando principle.
Yet the nation has always shown willingness to listen to
the counsels of men and women who enjoy its con-
fidence. In the hope of contributing towards the great
task of after-war reconstruction this volume has been written
by publicists for all of whom this claim may justly be made.

A book of this kind could not with advantage have
been written by one hand. Pre-eminently the problems
with which it deals called for treatment by specialists, and
it will be seen that every one of the contributions to this
symposium relates to a subject with which the writer is
in some special way closely identified. The book has
been written in the full stress of war-time, and the readers
to whom it is addressed will not fail to appreciate at its
proper value the patriotic spirit which has prompted it ;
for in the case of most, and probably all, of the writers the
following essays represent just one more act of public
service to be added to the rest — the one additional task
for which, happily for the public life of this country, the
busiest men and women always have or are able to
make time.

It seems desirable to say at once that the Editor accepts
full responsibility for the plan of the book, with the
choice of subjects, and that all shortcomings on that score
must be laid solely to his account. On the other hand,
each writer has exercised the fullest latitude in the treat-
ment of his subject, and is responsible only for the opinions
covered by his signature. The work had necessarily to
be confined within somewhat narrow limits, so that it has
been possible to review only a selection of the larger,
more urgent, more obvious of our national problems. Yet
diverse though the subjects dealt with are, it will be found
that a certain sequence and unity runs through the book.

INTRODUCTION 13

For the sake of convenience the subjects have been
divided into broad groups, yet the intimate interrelation
of the several groups will be at once recognized.
Problems of national efficiency and social reform, for
example, are inseparable and almost identical. For not
only is all social reform in essence a question of national
efficiency, but the great social changes and ameliorations
which are vital to any real renewal of England will un-
questionably make great demands upon the nation's material
resources, already deeply mortgaged by the war, and these
demands in turn will be successfully met just in the measure
that the productive forces of the country, from first to
last, are developed with greater energy, concentration, and
intelligence than ever in the past.

If, therefore, special stress appears to have been laid
upon the economic aspects of the question of national
efficiency, it is from a recognition of the integral relation-
ship between national wealth and national welfare. Bis-
marck gave Protection to the industrial and agricultural
classes of his country in order that he might be justified
in levying upon them in turn tribute in the service of
costly insurance legislation and other social reforms. I
admit frankly that in giving prominence in this book to
pleas for the greater efficiency and better ordering of our
national economy, as a task in which the State will need to
co-operate with private effort more closely and actively than
ever before, I have had in mind the prospect of reciprocal
social recompense in other directions, though it is right
to add that this is a purely personal view. In a truly
civilized society wealth creation can never be an end in
itself. "Wealth, for nations or individuals, is only moral
when it is acquired by moral means for moral ends, and
the greatest of moral ends is the evolution of humaner
social conditions and relationships. That way, too, and
that way only, lies the hope of social peace.

With these explanatory words the book may be left to
speak for itself and, if possible, to achieve its purpose.
Every thoughtful man and woman knows of the problems
which it discusses and of those other problems of society
— some created, others merely accentuated by the war —
which have been passed over in consequence of limitations
of space. The urgent thing is that we should endeavour
betimes to see our way through these problems, so hastening
the day when this England, this Scotland, Wales, Ireland

14 INTRODUCTION

— for one may stand for all where all are one — shall at
last become a real home to all her sons and daughters,
calling up as never before to their affections and their
reverence the truest friend they know and the best they
love in the wide world.

The nation's moral awakening! has come: now comes
the need for the moral life. Yet let us not look for
miracles. Whatever the new England becomes will be
the result of long and painful effort, of sacrifice and
renunciation of all kinds, made by men and Women of
good -will ; and we shall succeed in proportion as we
keep before our eyes ideals that are not so high that
they " lose themselves in the sky," aiming at the best
practicable for the present, and from that slowly work-
ing on to the best conceivable. The individual citizen
will help in the common task by going back, as far as
in him lies, to the forgotten habits of simplicity, sober-
ness, diligence, and self-control. Old truths will need to
be revived — the truths that obedience is not dishonouring,
that liberty can live only in the atmosphere of law, that
Jack is as good as his master only when he proves it and
not because he says it, that some men are fitted to rule
and others more fitted to serve, yet that ruling and serving
are but two parts of the same act, whose name is duty.
The nation collectively will help by bringing into the order-
ing of its life and policies clearer aims, greater intelli-
gence, and a higher moral purpose, by trusting more to
principles and less to instincts — not supplanting the instincts,
but directing them by reason — and by thinking always of
the second and the third step before the first is taken.

Only by the cultivation and co-ordination of all her
intellectual and moral forces and vitalities will England
come through her final ordeal triumphantly, able to face
the future with unshaken will and undaunted spirit — not,
in the words of the Oxford poet, as " the weary Titan
bearing on shoulders immense, Atlantean, the load, well-
nigh not to be borne, of the too vast orb of her fate,"
but rather, in the image of that older poet of the sister
University, as "an eagle mewing her mighty youth and
kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam1."

EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

CHAPTER I

Imperial Federation1

By THE EARL OF CROMER

The predominating feature of modern political thought
in the domain of international affairs is unquestionably the
idea of Nationalism. Every statesman — at all events, every
democratic statesman — is convinced that in the more ample
recognition of the Nationalist principle is to be found, not
merely a means for harmonizing political action with the
dictates of justice and sound public morality, but also the

1 The lamented death of Lord Cromer on January 29, 19 17, a short time after
he had corrected the proofs of this chapter, allows the Editor to acknowledge
here the readiness with which this distinguished Englishman, who by his great
work in Egypt has placed not only that country but the Empire and the world
in lasting debt, gave to the proposal to prepare the present volume of essays his
warm sympathy. Invited to co-operate in the undertaking, and, if willing, to
select one of three subjects suggested to him, he at once wrote, "There can
be no doubt whatever as to the necessity of such a book. I shall be very
glad indeed to do what I can to help, and I think probably the best subject
for me to deal with would be Federation." How conscious he was of the
difficulty as well as the urgency of this question is shown by some further
words in the same letter : — " Federation is in the air. Every one is preaching
it. But the difficulties of finding some practical way of giving effect to it are
enormous. ... I do not anticipate that I can do much more than state the
pros and cons, without attempting to suggest any cut-and-dried solution." In a
later letter he wrote : " All the political thinkers tell us that we ought to
federate, but unfortunately they all end where the practical politician would
like them to begin. They do not tell us how the policy is to be carried into
execution. . . . The main thing for the moment is to discuss the whole question
thoroughly, and in a spirit very sympathetic to the Colonial demands. The
Colonies have a very strong case, but, I repeat, the whole of the difficulties are
not questions of principle but are purely practical." It will be seen from the
following essay that when he came to face his task Lord Cromer found himself
able to go beyond the mere statement of the case for Federation, and, without
attempting a " cut-and-dried " solution — which no one knew better than he to
be, at the present stage, impossible — to make practical suggestions of high
value. — The Editor.

.2 17

1 8 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

key to many of the most perplexing problems of the day.
It is not unfrequently held that this principle is the anti-
thesis of that of the old theory of the Balance of Power,
which is now almost universally condemned. The argu-
ment, though in some respects valid, may, however, be
pushed too far. It is true that in past times the principle
of the Balance of Power has been applied in a manner
which was not merely neglectful of, but even diametrically
antagonistic to, the assertion of national rights, but no
moralist or enlightened politician would now be disposed
to defend such applications of that principle as were
involved, for instance, in the successive partitions of Poland.
Nor would they counsel adhesion to views such as those
held at a later period by statesmen of the type of
Metternich and Castlereagh.

Nevertheless, it would be altogether a mistake to suppose
that the necessity for a Balance of Power of some sort
has altogether disappeared. Far from this being the case,
there probably never was a time when the maintenance
of a just balance between the strength of the Great Powers
of the world was more necessary than now, for one amongst
them avowedly aims, not merely at European hegemony
but even at universal world -dominion. But the Balance
must be established with aims wholly different from those
which have heretofore prevailed. It must be directed inter
alia, not to the discouragement but to the encouragement
of national unification. Indignation at Prussian methods
and condemnation of latter-day Prussian policy should not
be allowed to obscure the fact that, even so late as 1870,
the absolutist Government of Prussia was endeavouring to
assert the right of homogeneous peoples to amalgamate,
whilst the relatively democratic Government of France was
prepared to resist that right by a recourse to arms. French
opposition to the unification of Southern and Northern
Germany was the real cause of the Franco -Prussian War.
Any attempt to place obstacles in the way of the applica-
tion of the Nationalist principle because it incidentally leads
to an aggrandizement of territory by an homogeneous com-
munity should, therefore, be definitely set aside. On the
other hand, the new Balance should have as one o£ its main
objects the realization of the political ideal of Wordsworth,
who, as Professor Dicey has recently reminded us, was an
early and extremely rational Nationalist. It should be
directed to guaranteeing the independence of each genuinely

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 19

Nationalist unit, and more especially that of the least
powerful amongst them.

Obviously, one of the first preliminary conditions essen-
tial before applying the Nationalist principle is to obtain
some idea of what is meant by a nation. Much has been
said and written on this subject. It is probably impos-
sible to define so complex a conception as nationality in
the terse language of an epigram, but for all practical
purposes the definition given by Mr. Arnold Toynbee, in
his work entitled " The New Europe," may be accepted
as a Igood workable basis for discussion. Mr. Toynbee says
that in order to call a nation into existence there must
be "a will to co-operate." The existence or absence of
that will depends on several factors, which vary according
to the special circumstances of each case. It may be
created by identity of race, religion, language, and senti-
ment. It may, on the other hand, be absent even in cases
where all these elements, tending to cohesion, exist in a
full degree. It may be due to common economic interests
which are sufficiently strong to overcome all the centrifugal
forces of racial animosity, divergence of national senti-
ment, and differences of language or religion. Thus, the
South American republics, many of whom were at the time
merely republican in name, flew asunder directly after they
had thrown off Spanish or Portuguese domination, in spite
of the existence of many elements which would have
appeared to tend to close union. Their economic and
presumed political interests diverged, with the result that
they fought bitterly with each other and that each eventually
established its own separate independence.

Immediately after the British provinces of North America
had declared their independence it seemed highly prob-
able that something similar would occur. Mr. Olivier,
in his Life of Alexander Hamilton, says that the first step
which the thirteen States of America took after they had
shaken off the British yoke was " to indulge themselves in
the costly luxury of an internecine tariff war. . . .Pennsyl-
vania attacked Delaware. Connecticut was oppressed by
Rhode Island and New York. ... It was a dangerous
game, ruinous in itself, and, behind the Custom-house
officers men were beginning to furbish up the locks of
their muskets. . . . And at one time war between Vermont,
New Hampshire, and New York seemed all but inevit-
able." Rather more than half a century ago the racial

20 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

and other ties which united the several States of North
America did not prevent the occurrence of a civil war,
which originated in what was really an economic question,
although it had important humanitarian and political aspects
— the continuance or abolition of slavery. On the other
hand, in spite of racial animosity, diversity of language,
and to some extent of religion, an identity of economic
interests has tended, and may perhaps still continue to tend,
to hold together the discordant national units which collec-
tively make up the Empire of the Habsburgs. The case
of the British is the exact antithesis of that of the Austrian
Empire. Identity of race, language, etc., has proved an
effective binding force, in spite of a divergence, or. supposed
divergence, of economic interests.

How is Nationalism, which is based on the right to
autonomy, to be reconciled with Imperialism, which is often
dictated by economic interests or geographical considera-
tions, and which need not necessarily, but may often, be
irreconcilable with the assertion of autonomous rights ?
Democratic political thinkers answer, almost with one voice,
" By the adoption of the system of Federalism." They are
unquestionably right in principle.

Federalism is the natural and legitimate offspring of
Nationalism. The idea of federating the British Empire
has for many years been in the air. The days are long
past when it was necessary for such a man as Wakefield,
of whom Sir Charles Metcalfe said that " God had made
him greater than the Colonial Office," to ply reluctant
and short-sighted statesmen with arguments to convince
them that the Colonies were not a burden to the Mother
Country, and that they were wrong in thinking that the
only wise policy to pursue was to shuffle off the load as soon
as circumstances would permit of the adoption of such a
course. Any public man who now ventured to give utter-
ance to such sentiments would forthwith condemn himself
to political extinction. The very term " colony," which
as Sir George Cornewall Lewis pointed out in 1841, was
even then often misapplied, has now become a complete
misnomer. In the most important cases it has been already
changed into "Dominion." What were formerly British
Colonies have, in fact, now grown into being allied British
nations. In this case the " will to co-operate " exists in
the highest degree, both on the part of the parent stock
and its offspring. The self-governing Dominions are

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 21

closely united to each other and to the United Kingdom by
the bond of identical political institutions and by community
of sentiment and opinion as regards the general principles on
which government should be conducted. In many of them
complete racial affinity, the use of a common language,
similarity of religious faith, and identity of manners and
customs serve to tighten the bond, and where, as in the
case of the French in Canada and the Dutch in South
Africa, these latter elements of cohesion are in some degree
wanting, experience has shown that by the adoption of a
wise and liberal policy such differences as exist in no way
tend to enfeeble the desire for unity. Instead of the
feeling of oppression at being burthen ed by the Colonies
which formerly existed, there has grown up in the United
Kingdom a very legitimate sense of pride in the colonial
connection, a conviction that, far from proving a source
of weakness, each unit in the Empire serves to enhance
the strength of the whole fabric, and a strong sentimental
feeling which, in dealing with a people whom so acute
an observer as Lord Beaconsfield characterized as the most
emotional community in Europe, should by no means
be neglected, that it would be shameful for England to
play the part of a political Clytemnestra and to act as an
" unmotherly mother " (fif}Tr\p a/irjrw^p) , l who rejects the
claims based on parentage and spurns her own offspring.
The link with the Colonies, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain very
truly said, " must not be galling." The colonials fully
recognize that it does not gall, and that it rests with them,
and with them alone, to sever it completely should they
wish to do so. They are fully aware that no sane British
statesman would for one moment propose that coercion
should be exercised in order to oblige them to main-
tain a connection which had become irksome or distaste-
ful to them., But they are far from desiring severance.
They hold that both self-interest and sentiment point to
the conclusion that, if any change is to take place, it
should be in the direction, not of separation but of closer
union, which must never, however, in any degree impair
local autonomy. Recent events have enormously tended
to strengthen the force of these considerations. Never
did the short-sighted and defective statesmanship of Berlin
err more conspicuously than when it thought that national
peril -would exercise a dissolving effect on the component
' Sophocles, El. i. 154.

22 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

parts of the British Empire. The very opposite has taken
place. The event which it was thought would sunder
the colonial connection has tended to solder it together to
the extent of imparting to it a strength and rigidity which
has astonished the world. To the amazement of all abso-
lutists and coercionists the link was found to be so tough
because it was so slender. Never have democratic prin-
ciples achieved a greater triumph. Professor Macphail,
who is a Canadian, says with great truth, in one of his
" Essays in Politics," " The greatest feat of England in
Empire -building since 1759 is that, during the past twenty
years, she has won back her Colonies by the cords of
affection alone."

Looking to all these favourable symptoms and conditions,
it may well be asked, Why has the policy of Federalism,
up to the present time, only been applied locally ? Why
has it been confined to the accomplishment of the highly
important, but nevertheless subsidiary, tasks of federating
the Dominions in Australia, British North America, except
Newfoundland, and — with the exception of Rhodesia, which,
it may be hoped, will ultimately join — South Africa ? The
answer, broadly speaking, is that the Atlantic, Pacific, and
Indian Oceans interpose an obstacle which, if not insuper-
able, is certainly very formidable. The proximity of each
unit to the other component parts of the Federal group did
not, indeed, cause but it immensely facilitated the process
of federation in the United States and in the more recent
British cases. Distance, on the one hand, greatly enhances
the difficulty of carrying the work of federation to its
logical conclusion. Even New Zealand, although separated
from Australia by a distance slight by comparison with that
which lies between the United Kingdom and any of the
self-governing Dominions, does not form part of the
Australasian Commonwealth. The subject must, however,
necessarily be reconsidered at the close of the present war,
and it will be as well to ponder beforehand over what can
be done to secure, if not the establishment at one bound
of a system which fully realizes the Federal ideal, at all
events the creation of one which will unite the whole Empire
together by ties even stronger than those which already
exist.

The strength of the bonds which unite the Mother
Country and the Colonies was never put to a more severe
test than when, during the mid -Victorian period, the latter

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 23

claimed and were allowed the right to tax British imports.
The issue at stake was one that might conceivably have
led to disruption. It did nothing of the kind. Experi-
ence has proved that full fiscal autonomy can be exercised
by the Colonies without impairing the unity and solidarity
of the Empire. Since then one of the burning questions
of the day has been whether it is possible or desirable to
revert to the old practice of according Preferential treat-
ment to colonial produce imported into the United Kingdom,
or whether the Dominions and Colonies should, as at
present, continue to be treated, for the purposes of the
present argument, in every respect on the same basis as
foreign countries.

I should like to preface the remarks I am about to make
on this subject by explaining the personal point of view
from which I approach it. ft is that of a convinced Free
Trader. Although, of course, I am not prepared to say
that I agree entirely with all that Free Traders have in
the past said about Free Trade, I am nevertheless far from
holding that, to use an expression which is now very com-
monly employed, Free Trade is a mere " fetish." On
the contrary, I hold very strongly that the essential prin-
ciples of Free Trade are justified by economic laws which
cannot be violated without eventually taking condign
vengeance upon those who violate them. The general
arguments for and against Protection will, in my opinion,
remain just the same after the war as they were before its
outbreak. Protection must always operate to the advan-
tage of the few and to the detriment of the many. None
the less, I am quite prepared to admit, not only that
circumstances have been greatly changed by the war, but
also that the whole question of fiscal policy cannot be
decided wholly by looking to the economic aspects of the
issues at stake. Political considerations have also to be
taken into account. I am wholly out of sympathy with
the view apparently entertained by Mr. Norman Angell and
others of his school that all but economic arguments should
be ignored. As regards the special case of Germany, I
am, of course, of opinion that, until peace is concluded, a
vigorous trade war is not merely justifiable, but is imposed
by the necessities of the case. I may go farther than this
and say that even after the war, if the political institu-
tions of Germany remain unchanged, if they still consti-
tute a menace to the peace of the world, and if the German

24 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

Government still continues to adopt commercial methods
for the attainment of political objects and military advan-
tages, the trade war may justifiably be continued and that
economic considerations may, while such a state of things
lasts, remain in abeyance. On the other hand, it should
not be forgotten that it is conceivable — I dare not be so
sanguine as to say that it is probable — that after the war
German political institutions will undergo a radical change,
that a more democratic system of government will be estab-
lished in that country, that the militarist spirit will, to a
certain extent, be quenched, that Germany will be in a
condition again to take her place amongst the comity of
civilized nations, and that German statesmen will be pre-
pared to base their political action upon the moral standards
which her present rulers spurn and reject, but which are
generally accepted by the rest of the civilized world. If
any such transformation should take place, and if we should
in the future have to deal with a changed Germany, any
attempt to boycott that country would involve our losing
a good customer and at the same time debarring ourselves
from using such of the products of Germany as may
profitably and advantageously be imported into this
country.

It is obviously impossible for any one at present to
attempt to sketch out any cut-and-dried scheme in respect
to the fiscal policy which we must adopt in the future.
All that can be done is to indicate a few general principles
which may profitably be borne in mind. Before we can
go farther we must all, whether Free Traders or Tariff
Reformers, know how we shall stand at the close of the
war. All that is at present clear is that we shall have to
bear an enormously increased charge for interest on the
accumulated debt, for Sinking Fund, for pensions, and other
consequences which will result from the war. Further, if
the adoption of such a course can possibly be avoided,
we ought not to arrest, even for a term of years, the pro-
gress of social, and notably of educational, reform. It is
abundantly clear that in order to meet all these charges
a very large increase of revenue will be required, and the
increase will certainly be considerable even supposing that,
as a result of the war, a large permanent reduction is
possible in the direction of naval and military expendi-
ture— a point as to which nothing can be foretold until the
terms of peace are settled and we know whether other nations

IMPERIAL FEDERATION '25

are prepared to adopt a reasonable policy of disarmament.
As regards the methods of raising increased revenue,
I am very clearly of opinion that, in the first instance,
it should be raised, as is at present the case, by the imposi-
tion of direct taxes which will fall mainly on the well-to-
do classes. But not merely is it a matter of justice that
all classes, whether well-to-do or the reverse, should bear
some share in the new burdens, but, further, it is to be
observed that, although we have perhaps not yet reached
the maximum amount which it is possible to levy upon
the rich, we are approaching the limit beyond which nothing
more in that direction can be done without entailing
disastrous consequences, which would fall, not merely on
the rich but also on the poor. I hold to it, therefore, as
proved that indirect taxes will have to be imposed, and I
have for long considered that the Government is blame-
worthy for not having imposed more taxes of this nature
some while ago. It is certain that some of these taxes
will act protectively. This cannot be avoided, for even
if it were thought desirable to impose equivalent excise
duties, their imposition in every case would be practically
impossible.

Amongst the numerous plans which have recently been
put forward for dealing with the fiscal future there is one
which certainly possesses great attraction. It is that the
United Kingdom, its Colonies and Dependencies, and the
Allied nations should join together and that all should
agree to impose import duties for revenue purposes only.
It is to be presumed that under this system other neutral
nations would be allowed, should they think it desirable to
do so, to join the Concert. If the plan could be carried
out, it would be a very distinct step towards that Free
Trade within the Empire which for a long time past has
been the ideal both of Free Traders and Protectionists in
this country. Indeed, it would go farther than this, for the
same conditions, which would be mutually conceded by
the United Kingdom and the Colonies to each other, would
be granted to a large and important group of foreign
countries. But is this programme at all capable of execu-
tion? I greatly doubt it. I question whether the British
Colonies or the friendly nations, whom it is proposed to
bring into the group and who are now all Protectionists,
would agree to abandon their Protectionist policy and to
allow free competition within their own territories in so

'26 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

far as it was not impeded by the relatively low duties
imposed for revenue purposes.

Failing the adoption of this somewhat grandiose project,
which appears to me, for the time being at all events, to be
incapable of realization, the question will remain as to what
is to be done by the United Kingdom in respect to the
Preferential treatment of the Colonies. The question
obviously presents itself for consideration under conditions
different from those which have heretofore prevailed. One,
though not the only, objection which Free Traders have
in the past urged against according Preferential treatment
to the Colonies has been that the adoption of this course
necessarily involved the imposition of a general tariff. I
hold that the establishment of such a tariff is now inevit-
able. If this view is correct, one of the most formidable
of the Free Trade objections will be removed. More-
over, for my own part, I am quite prepared to admit that,
looking to recent events and to the staunch loyalty with
which both the Dominions and India have stood by the
British Empire in the hour of trial, the political should
be allowed to predominate over the economic arguments,
and that if anv fairly workable scheme can be devised
Preference should be accorded at British ports to colonial
and Indian produce. But it is essential that the scheme
should be workable, and this, I venture to think, can only
be done if the Preference accorded is not excessive. Past
history affords a very useful lesson as to what not only
may but certainly will occur if Preference on an excessive
scale is allowed. To quote one or two instances in illus-
tration of what I mean, I may mention that in the old days
of colonial Preference a duty of 55s. per load was im-
posed on timber coming from foreign countries, 'whereas
on timber from the Colonies a duty of only 5s. a load
was paid. The result was that timber was imported from
the Scandinavian countries to Canada and then re -shipped
to the United Kingdom as Canadian timber, the difference
of 50s, a load making the transaction very profitable to
the exporter. Similarly, coffee was sent, not merely from
Brazil but even out of bond from England, to the Cape
of Good Hope and re-exported to the United Kingdom, the
duty on colonial coffee being only 6d., whereas that on the
foreign article was is. 3d. a pound. I greatly doubt
whether any elaborate system of certificates of origin and
suchlike devices, though giving an infinity of trouble, would

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 27

be able to check evasions of this description. Therefore
I maintain that, for all practical purposes, if a Preference
is to be accorded to the Colonies, it will be imperative
that the difference between the duty on colonial produce
and on that of a similar nature which comes from foreign
countries should not be so great as to give rise to a revival
of the abuses and evasions of the past.

Divergence of opinion on matters connected with fiscal
policy is not, however, the main obstacle which stands in
the way of complete federation. The question of the extent
to which the self-governing Dominions should contribute
to the defence of the Empire has to be considered. This
is a matter of great importance ; but if it stood by itself,
the solution of the problem involved need not necessarily
entail any fundamental changes of a constitutional character.
The question of the amount which each unit of the Empire
should contribute to Imperial defence, leaving it, of course,
wholly to the local legislatures to decide how the money
should be raised, does not inevitably involve the discussion of
any very vital questions of principle . It could perfectly well
be settled by negotiation, without the necessity arising for
making any fundamental change in the existing framework
under which the several parts of the Empire are governed.

The future treatment of all matters which fall within
the domain of foreign policy raises issues of a more im-
portant and also of a far more complex character. More-
over, inasmuch as foreign policy is intimately connected
with the relative naval and military strength of various
States, and the maintenance of the army and navy depends
in a very great degree on the financial resources of each
State, it may well be that if any fundamental change is
made in the manner in which that policy is conducted,
the transformation would carry with it the desirability, or
even the necessity, of effecting a corresponding change in
the control of the military and naval forces of the Crown,
as also, although to a less extent, in the financial methods
adopted for the maintenance of those forces. Is, there-
fore, any such change desirable or necessary ? If so, what
should be its nature ? These are questions which will
certainly have to be considered with the utmost care at
the close of the war.

There has recently been a good deal of discussion, some-
times of rather wild discussion, on the subject of what is
now termed " secret diplomacy." So responsible a states-

28 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

man as Lord Haldane, although in using the phrase it is
to be gathered from the context of his remarks that he
did not attach the same significance to it as that with which
it is not unfrequently vested in the public estimation, is
reported to have said that, in his opinion, one result of
the war will be that " secret diplomacy will disappear."
There appears, indeed, to be an opinion very generally
entertained by an influential section of the British public
that a profound dislike of democracy and of all demo-
cratic ideas and methods of government is innate in the
minds of all members of the diplomatic service, that they are
constantly engaged in weaving mysterious and generally
nefarious plots to the detriment of peace and of the general
interests of civilization, that they are aware that their pro-
ceedings will not stand the light of day, and that the main
object of their lives is to cast a veil of profound secrecy
over both their intentions and their methods. I am now
speaking only of Br'tish diplomatists. I am not concerned
with the proceedings of those of other nations. More
especiallv do I gladly yield those of German and Austrian
diplomatists to the tender mercies of their most sevene
British critics. So far, however, as British diplomacy is
concerned, I can, speaking perfectly untrammelled by official
obligations and with a quarter of a century's experience of
the methods adopted by the Foreign Office, declare very
positively that these notions constitute a complete delusion.
They are based on false and haphazard conjectures and
on the wholly erroneous supposition that the traditions of
eighteenth -century diplomacy, albeit they survive to this
dav at Berlin and Vienna, are still current in Downing
Street.

As a matter of fact, those traditions have long since
been banished from British official life. British diplomacy
may at times have been inept, but for many a long year
it has been scrupulously honest, perfectly able to stand,
without shrinking, the light of the utmost publicity, and
wholly in conformity with the aspirations and moral
standards adopted by an advanced democracy. It was not
the fault of the British diplomatists that the outbreak of
the present war came like a thunderclap to the amazed
people of this country. Some of them probably showed
greater foresight than others. Some believed, and others
disbelieved, in the possibility of preserving the peace of
the world. But whatever may have been their opinions,

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 29

it was not part of their duty to proclaim them to the rest
of the world. If the public were not forewarned, the
responsibility lies, not with British diplomacy, but with
British statesmanship. It seems impossible to escape from
the dilemma that the Ministers of the day collectively either
failed to realize the gravity of the impending danger, or,
if they realized it, lacked the moral courage to impart their
apprehensions to the democracy and to take beforehand the
measures most essential to meet the coming crisis.

All this is true enough. Nevertheless, in so far as the
subject now under discussion is concerned, there is much
force in the accusation that British diplomacy has been
unduly secret. The self-governing Dominions of the Crown
have been asked and expected to take part in the greatest
war recorded in history without either their responsible
rulers or their inhabitants being in any way consulted as
to the wisdom of engaging in hostilities, and without being
previously furnished with any adequate information in
respect to all the circumstances which preceded the declara-
tion of war and which rendered it inevitable. They re-
sponded nobly and willingly to the call. But will they
be prepared to adopt a similar course in the future ? Will
they continue to acquiesce patiently in a system under
which their national destinies, the lives of their inhabitants,
and the resources of their Treasuries are placed absolutely
at the disposal of an authority over whom they can exer-
cise no control, and of whose proceedings they are kept in
whole or partial ignorance ? So far as can at present
be judged, the answer to these questions must be in
the negative, more especially in so far as Canada is
concerned.

Some quotations from the most recent utterances of
eminent colonial statesmen will suffice to show the views
which they generally entertain on this subject. Sir Robert
Borden has emphatically stated that in the future Canada
will " no longer be content to be an adjunct even of the
British Empire." Even before the war — that is to say,
in September 19 13 — he spoke of "the inborn feeling in
the Canadian breast that a British subject living in this
Dominion must ultimately have as potent a voice in the
government and guidance of this world-wide Empire as
the British subject living in the United Kingdom." Sir
George Perley who, Messrs. Percy and Archibald Hurd
say, " is known in this matter to be expressing the deep

30 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

convictions of the Prime Minister of Canada,"1 after stating
in a recent speech that he represented a county in the
Province of Quebec, added : " I wish to say that it would
be impossible for me to get up on a platform in that
county, which I have represented for ten years, and to
argue that Canada should do as she is now doing for all
time, whenever war may come, without knowing before-
hand and being consulted regarding the questions at issue
which may make such a war necessary." Messrs. Hurd
also say : " The British House of Commons was recently
startled by the quotation in debate of the declaration of
a Canadian who was described as ' one of the greatest
men in Canada.' Discussing the services Canada rendered
in the war he said, ' It is the last time Canada is going
to do this ' ; and he added that England ' could not count
in future on the splendid contribution of Canada to our
armed forces if we did not take Canada more into our
councils and confidence.' " 2 Sir Charles Sifton, speak-
ing at Montreal early in 19 15, said: "Canada must now
stand as a nation. It will no longer do for Canada to play
the part of a minor. It will no longer do for Canadians
to say that they are not fully and absolutely able to trans-
act their own business. We shall not be allowed to do
this any longer by the nations of the world. We shall
not be allowed to put ourselves in the position of a minor.
The nations will say, If you can levy armies to make
war, you can attend to your own business, and we will not
be referred to the head of the Empire ; we want you to
answer our questions directly. There are many questions
which we shall have to settle after this war is over, and
that is one of them." The Hon. W. P. Schreiner, High
Commissioner for South Africa and ex -Premier of Cape
Colony, recently said : "I associate myself very much with
the idea that the near future after the war must see a
little more attention given to practical improvement in the
methods and system under which the Empire is now run.
I am not prepared at the moment to say what particular
way should be followed, but some way should be followed,
not in order to tie the bonds more tightly — for they should
remain elastic — but so that there should be no knots to
cause friction." Expressions of opinion of this sort, all
pointing to the same general conclusion, might be
multiplied.

1 " The New Empire Partnership " by Percy Hurd and Archibald Hurd, p. 253.

2 Ibid., p. xi.

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 31

The case of the self-governing Dominions, considered
as a matter of theory and exclusively on its own merits,
is absolutely unanswerable. No believer in democratic
institutions can for one moment contend that several
powerful and populous democracies can be expected
patiently to endure the continuance of the present system.
The strength of the case has been in some degree
enhanced by reason of the absence of satisfactory results
obtained under the present regime. It would not only be
premature, but in the highest degree unjust, to condemn
the recent diplomacy of the British Foreign Office without,
in the first instance, obtaining that full information about
what has actually occurred which is not at present avail-
able. Moreover, it has to be remembered that Downing
Street has not, like Berlin — with the Viennese Foreign Office
practically in its pocket — been altogether master in its own
house. It has been necessary to bring no less than four
different and distant Foreign Offices and War Offices into
line in order to ensure common action on the part of the
Allies. It may confidently be surmised that the difficulty
of securing complete unity of action has often been very
considerable. At the same time, it cannot be denied that
the diplomacy of the Foreign Office, especially in the Near
East, has not been productive of satisfactory results, and
it is very natural that grave suspicions should have been
excited that it has not been conducted with any marked
degree of skill or judgment.

Not only, however, is the case of the Dominions un-
answerable, but it may confidently be asserted that there
is no sort of desire to contest its validity. The force of
the colonial arguments is generally admitted. The " will
to co-operate " exists in the highest degree. Only one
question remains outstanding. It is how best to ensure
the desired co-operation. It must be admitted that the
solution of that question bristles with practical difficulties.

The conservative and perhaps, it may to some extent
be said, the official view of the matter may briefly be
stated as follows : The existing system, it is urged, is
admittedly full of anomalies. It is indefensible in theory.
But in practice it works well. It has produced admirable
results, which might very probably not have been secured
by the adoption of a more rigid and logical system.
Beware, lest in touching so delicate a piece of political
machinery, you do not bring the whole fragile fabric about

32 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

your ears. No solution, or at all events no immediate
and complete solution, is possible. Leave well alone. It
is better to bear those ills we have than fly to others that
we know not of.

It would be a very great error to neglect views of this
description merely because they are conservative and run
counter to the direction of the popular feeling of the day.
They are, in a greater or less degree, held by many who
have made a special and lifelong study of colonial ques-
tions and who can speak with very high authority upon
them. Thus Sir Charles Lucas, speaking recently at the
Royal Colonial Institute, said : "I want to warn you all
that any Federation or Union of English people must
grow. Any cut-and-dried scheme would be fatal, con-
trary to English history, contrary to English instincts, a
German plan which they call Kultur." Nevertheless, jit
will only be with the utmost reluctance that the public,
whether in the United Kingdom or in the Colonies, will be
led to believe in the bankruptcy of British statesmanship.
There must surely, it will be urged, be some means for
solving the problem, thorny though it be. It may con-
ceivably be necessary to fall back on the maintenance of
the status quo if, after every endeavour has been made to
introduce some satisfactory and generally acceptable
changes, the result is failure. But until this happens, the
hope of realizing the noble ideal and the far-reaching
political conception which now expands before the eyes of
the Anglo-Saxon race should on no account be abandoned.

The only practical proposal in connection with this
subject which was made at the Colonial Conference in 191 1,
was that brought forward by Sir Joseph Ward. It is
unnecessary to describe it in detail. Indeed, the precise
nature of the suggested scheme was left by its author in
some degree of obscurity. But it is essential to refer to
the highly important speech made by the Prime Minister
(Mr. Asquith) when the matter came under discussion.
He stated emphatically that the authority of the Imperial
Government in dealing with all matters connected with
foreign affairs " cannot be shared."

The view thus taken by Mr. Asquith is unquestionably
sound in this sense, that, in the interests of the whole
Empire, there must be unity of control over the conduct
of foreign affairs, and that this unity can only be secured
by confiding the direction of foreign policy to the hands

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 33

of the predominant partner in the Imperial concern. It
would, indeed, be possible to create a separate Imperial
Cabinet and an Imperial Parliament to deal with such
matters. I will allude further to this proposal presently.
Here I need only remark that, even if such a plan were
adopted, the practical result, although it would be attained
by a different and more circuitous route, would not very
materially differ from that which is secured by the exist-
ing system. The authority and responsibility of the
Imperial Government would, indeed, nominally be " shared "
by the Governments of the Dominions ; but under any
scheme which would present the least chance of being
generally accepted the voices of the British representa-
tives, both in the Imperial Cabinet and the Imperial
Parliament, would be so enormously preponderating as
practically to leave them masters of the situation.

I may mention incidentally that, in writing on this sub-
ject, Messrs. Hurd appear to attach special importance to
the fact that on July 15, 191 5, Sir Robert Borden was
invited to attend a meeting of the British Cabinet. The
incident also seems to have been regarded by a section of
the British and colonial Press as an epoch-making event.
It would be an exaggeration to regard it in any such light.
It was a satisfactory symptom that the British Government
wished, on some point of special importance, to obtain an
expression of opinion from the Canadian Prime Minister.
But it was not more than this. It gave no indication of
any intention to usher in a radical change in the existing
system for conducting business. It has for long been
the practice, when any special issue was under considera-
tion, occasionally to invite some individual, whose opinion
it was thought necessary to obtain, to attend a Cabinet
meeting. Under the Ministries both of Mr. Gladstone and
the late Lord Salisbury I was on several occasions re-
quested to attend when Egyptian questions formed the
subject of discussion.

Before proceeding any farther it may perhaps be as
well to dispel an illusion which may possibly exist in the
minds of some. A pledge has been already given that,
before the terms of peace are settled at the conclusion
of the present war, full consultation shall take place with
the responsible Ministers of the Dominions. It may perhaps
be thought by some people that all that is now required
is that a somewhat similar pledge should be given in

34 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

respect to future action — that is to say, that no decisive
step should be taken in the domain of foreign policy with-
out previous consultation with the Governments of the
Dominions. Any such idea would be a complete delusion.
More than this is required. Apart from the consideration
that in many cases such prompt action is required as to
render consultation even by telegraph highly objectionable,
if not altogether impossible, it is to be observed that any
one who has had practical experience in dealing with foreign
affairs must be cognizant of the fact that it would be
futile to expect even the most capable man or body of
men to give any valuable opinion on a special issue unless
they had previously acquired full knowledge of all the
events which had led up to the issue being raised. In
the large majority of important cases the whole field of
foreign relations, as also their recent history, has to be
surveyed before a definite or valuable opinion can be pro-
nounced on any special point, and in order advantageously
to make any such survey a full acquaintance with all recent
circumstances and incidents of real importance is essen-
tial. More than this, it is often not by any means easy to
decide, in the lirst instance, what is and what is not a
really important issue. It not unfrequently happens that
some incident occurs, or that some decision has to be
taken, which appear at first sight to be unimportant, but
which acquire, by the light of after -events, a character of
very great importance. It is essential, therefore, that
if the Governments of the Dominions are to be taken
seriously into council they should be in a position to watch
the operations in the whole field of foreign policy during
normal times, and this they cannot do unless they are
kept well informed.

Broadly speaking, there are two methods by which con-
sultation with the Dominions can be secured. One is to
associate them to a greater extent than at present with the
executive action of the British Government. The other
is to go farther afield, to change the whole Constitution
of the British Empire, and, by some kind of legislative
amalgamation, to enable the people of each separate
Imperial unit to make their voices heard by adopting the
normal and habitual proceedings common under all demo-
cratic forms of government. Obviously, the former of
these two alternatives possesses the advantage that it
involves, relatively speaking, a far less degree of radical

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 35

change, and that it is much less difficult to carry into
execution than the latter.

In order to associate the Dominions with the executive
action of the British Government it would be possible to
establish a special department at the Foreign Office, whose
functions would be to keep the representatives of the
Dominions fully informed of everything of importance that
passes in connection with foreign affairs, leaving it to them,
at their discretion, to inform the Dominions' Ministers
either by mail or telegraph, as occasion might demand.
There are, of course, certain objections to the adoption
of this course. There would be a risk that the information
communicated to the representatives would speedily find
its way to the columns of some colonial newspaper, and,
little as I believe in the existence of any Foreign Office
secrets which cannot at the proper time be divulged with-
out doing the least harm, it cannot be denied that cases
might well occur in which premature disclosures might
cause much inconvenience and even be seriously hurtful
to the public interest. This risk would, however, have to
be faced. It is not, in my opinion, to be weighed in the
balance against the advantages which would accrue under
the proposed plan. It would, of course, have to be fully
understood that no papers communicated by the Foreign
Office to the Dominions Governments should be presented
to their respective Parliaments without British consent
having been previously obtained.

If this measure were not deemed sufficient, a furtlie.Tr
development in the same direction might be found by estab-
lishing an Imperial Council, to sit in London, composed of
delegates appointed by the Dominions and of such British
Ministers as it might be thought desirable to associate
with them. This body would have to be solely consulta-
tive and advisory. There would, in Mr. Asquith's phrase,
be no question of " sharing authority." The British
Government, and the British Government alone, would in
each case have to decide. But, if an Imperial Council
were established, the British Ministers, before they came
to any decision, would be enlightened as to the views
held by the Dominions Governments. This would assuredly
be a very great advantage. The proposal is open to two
objections — one British and the other colonial. The British
objection consists in the fear that, by the establishment
of an Imperial Council, the powers and independence of

36 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

the existing Cabinet would be impaired. It is urged that,
by the creation of the already existing Committee of
Imperial Defence, a sort of Cabinet within the Cabinet
has been formed, and that this has caused much incon-
venience. It is for those who have had practical experi-
ence in the working of the system to say to what an extent
the alleged inconveniences have been of a serious nature.
I cannot help thinking that, if they have arisen, their
occurrence might be obviated by an improved organization
which ought to be able to insure hearty co-operation
between two separate but closely connected bodies. The
colonial objection is of a wholly different character. Would
the responsible Ministers of the Dominions and their electors
be prepared to delegate their powers and to leave a certain
amount of discretion in the hands of their London repre-
sentatives ? I cannot say . The matter is one for
Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, and South Africans
to decide for themselves. If, however, I am correctly
informed, it is extremely doubtful whether their consent
to any such delegation as that which is suggested could
be obtained. All that can be said at present, however,
is that if after the war a Conference is summoned to
consider this and cognate matters, one of the first duties
of the British Ministers would appear to be to elicit an
expression of opinion on this point.

The second alternative to which I have alluded above
involves a far more drastic reform. It is that an Imperial
Cabinet and an Imperial Parliament should be created,
which would deal with all the affairs connected with the
Empire as a whole, that in this Cabinet the Foreign Office,
the Admiralty, the War Office, the India Office, and the
Crown Colony side of the Colonial Office should be repre-
sented, that a Ministry should be created to deal with Imperial
finance, and that the present British Parliament should in
reality become a Home Rule Parliament, which would only
deal with the local affairs of the United Kingdom. Many
high authorities, such as Mr. Curtis and Mr. Basil Worsfold,
who have paid special attention to this subject, favour
this idea. It cannot be doubted that the plan is theoretically
sound, and that it carries out the principle of Federation
to its logical conclusion. But is it capable of execution?
No answer can be given to this question until the whole
scheme is formulated and presented in such detail as to
enable all concerned to form a matured opinion as to its

IMPERIAL FEDERATION 37

merits and demerits. It is clear, however, that the
obstacles to be encountered in devising a workable plan
of this sort are very formidable. Of these, perhaps the
most serious is to discover some principle upon which
representation in the Imperial Parliament should be based.
Are the numbers to be sent to the Parliament by each
unit of the Empire to be decided with reference to com-
parative wealth, or population, or relative naval and military
strength ? Whatever basis is adopted it is certain that the
result, as I have already mentioned, must be to give an
enormously preponderating voice to the representatives of
the United Kingdom. Would the overseas 'democracies
be prepared to acquiesce in such a situation ? I cannot
say. It would be for them to decide. Then, again, is
the decision of a majority to be final ? Is each unit of
the Empire to be bound by the votes of the collective
body, or, in case of dissent, is it to be allowed subsequent
freedom of action ? Are decisions in such vital matters
as peace and war to be unanimous ? The idea is incon-
ceivable. Such a system would reproduce all the political
anarchy caused by the exercise of the Liberum veto in
the old Polish Diet. These, and a number of other ques-
tions of a scarcely less complex character, would have
to be most carefully considered before any opinion can be
formed on the expediency or practicability of the project.
It would, I venture to think, be a mistake to be unduly
daunted by the obvious difficulties which will have to be
encountered in devising a plan. Personally, although I am
strongly convinced that some changes should, if they are
at all possible, be made, I am inclined to think that,
looking to the extreme complexity of the subject and to
the great importance of avoiding a false step, it would
be wise for all concerned to proceed very cautiously and
tentatively, to be satisfied for the time being with dealing
with the comparatively easy subject of somewhat closer
association in executive matters, and then to see how the
revised system works before proceeding to reforms of a
more drastic and far-reaching description. But I speak
under correction. It may be that others who approach
the subject with greater knowledge and who can speak
with greater authority upon it than myself may be able
to devise some unobjectionable plan of a more satisfac-
tory and comprehensive description, which would be capable
of immediate adoption. The matter should certainly be

38 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

fully discussed and the relative merits of the rival plans
carefully examined. Until this is done, it will be well
to suspend final judgment as regards the merits of any
particular scheme. In any case, it would seem desirable,
even if no more important changes be made, to arrange
that the Imperial Conference should, for the future, meet
every two years, instead of, as at present, at intervals of
four years. Thus, the statesmen both of the United King-
dom and of the Dominions would more frequently be
brought in close contact with each other. They would
be able mutually to exchange views. The result could
not be otherwise than beneficial.

The case of India is also of the greatest importance.
It differs very materially from that of the self-governing
Dominions. I cannot attempt to deal with it fully at
present. That some reforms will have to be made after
the war in the methods under which India is at present
governed is both possible and probable. The general
direction which those forms may profitably take was indi-
cated in a dispatch of the Government of India, written in
December 191 1, which contains the following passage: —

" The only possible solution of the difficulty would appear
to be gradually to give the Provinces a larger measure of
self-government, until at last India would consist of a
number of administrations, autonomous in all provincial
affairs, with the Government of India above them all, and
possessing power to interfere in case of misgovernment,
but ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of
Imperial concern."

I am very clearly of opinion that India is not yet ripe
for complete self-government in the sense in which that
term is used in the Dominions. The same may be said
of Egypt and the Soudan. It would at present be
altogether premature to discuss the desirability of bringing
either of these two countries within the full scope of a
general scheme for the Federation of the Empire.

CHAPTER II

The State and the Citizen

By BISHOP WELLDON

Man is, as Aristotle says, a political or a social animal
(ttoXitikov £wov). It is to him a natural impossibility
that he should live alone. As a human being, he stands
immediately in relation to other human beings who are
like himself. No sooner do he and they meet than a
community of interest or service arises, and a primitive
association is formed ; " the companions of the meal -tub "
or " of the hearthstone," I if they were the first persons who
entered into a simple partnership, laid the foundations of
all human society. They were the original parents of the
city or the State.

The Greek thinkers, such as Aristotle and his master
Plato, who traced the beginning of society to the common
advantage which two or more human beings enjoy, when
each of them contributes to the other something which he
can best supply and which the other or others cannot supply
so well, if indeed at all, were the first political economists.
They saw clearly that men living and acting in combina-
tion can accomplish far more than is possible, if every
man lives or tries to live in independence of other men.
They saw, too, that men who unite to make life possible
or easy continue in union to make it happy and prosperous.
The association exists to ensure not life only but a good
life {yiyvofxivr) /xtv ovv rov Z,r\v 'ivsKtv oixra oe tov tv £»ji').2

It is evident, then, that human society, as it amplifies,
proves to be greater not only than any individual who is a
member of it, but than all its members taken together.
The individual, indeed, in becoming a member of society,
loses something of his own freedom. There is a sense

' Aristotle, " Politics," I, 2, 5. * Ibid., 1, 2, 8,

40 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

in which a savage is freer than a civilized man. But law
is not the antithesis to liberty ; it is the guarantee, and
the only guarantee, of full liberty. For civilization affords
men the opportunity not only of enjoying greater benefits,
but of attaining larger and higher objects, than are possible
in a (state of barbarism. The individual gains or may gain
more by claiming less. His self-restraint is the condition
of his self-satisfaction. As Goethe says: —

" In der Beschrankung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben.1

Thus the relation of the aggregate society to the indi-
viduals who compose it becomes at once a disputable
question. Does the State exist for the individual, or does
the individual exist for the State? Is it the service which
the society can render to its members, or the service
which the members can render to their society, that
is the dominant factor in municipal and national life?
Upon the answers, given explicitly or implicitly to
these questions, has depended the history of civilized
mankind.

If it were necessary or desirable to enunciate a broad
generalization, it might be said that in the pre-Christian
world the law was the supremacy of the State, but that in
the Christian world it has been the supremacy of the indi-
vidual. Yet the Christian world has not been exempt
from reactionary or retrogressive movements, and among
these movements the most conspicuous has been in modern
Europe the history of the German Empire.

It would appear that in ancient Greece and in ancient
Rome, the two countries from which European civiliza-
tion has mainly sprung, the State (ttoXiq or civitas) was
the object of general homage. The contrast between
civilization and barbarism was strongly felt. Everybody
who was not a Greek was, by the Greeks, adjudged to
be a barbarian. Everybody who was not a citizen of
Rome was, by the Romans, held to be devoid of civic
rights. The city or the State was the author of the insti-
tutions and instruments by Which life, as the Greeks and the
Romans alike regarded it, was made worth living. It was
owing to the State that the individual citizen could live and
move in safety, could possess and enjoy' such wealth as

1 " Was wir bringen," Auftritt 19.

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 41

he had acquired, could make the best of himself physically
and aesthetically, could refine his intellect and use his leisure
and his culture as stepping-stones to a higher life. He
was therefore a debtor to the State ; and whatever claim
the State might make upon him, whether in the way of
military service or of pecuniary tribute, it was his absolute
duty to satisfy ; for at the best he could never hope to
discharge the full obligation which rested upon his whole
life. When Lord Palmerston, in his famous speech upon
the case of Don Paciflco, quoted the formula " Civis
Romanus sum " as a model or earnest of British citizen-
ship, it was the overshadowing, protective power of the
State, strengthening, as it were, and dignifying all its
citizens, that gave a proud significance to his words. But
there were two circumstances which, in Greek or Roman
eyes, invested the State with an unique authority.

One was the institution of slavery. It is difficult, in
the modern world, to estimate what was in the ancient
world the magnitude of slavery. But two striking figures
may be cited. Athenasus states, as the result of an
investigation made by Demetrius Phalereus, that at the
beginning of the third century B.C. the true Athenians
in Attica were 21,000, the Metics (fitToiicoi) 10,000,
and the slaves 400,000.' Marquardt has estimated the
population of Rome in the first century of the Christian era
as 1,610,000, including women, children, and foreigners, and
of this total number the slave population as 900,000. 2
Christianity changed at once, not the institution of slavery
but the position of the slave. It made him, as St. Paul
says in his Epistle to Philemon, " no longer a servant,
but above a servant, a brother beloved." It did not
abolish, yet it mitigated, slavery, because master and slave
became one in Christ Jesus. Thus it is that of the early
Christians, who were buried in the catacombs, no one is
described as a slave. The transformation of the Roman
" familia " into the Christian " family " is a sign, as it
is a measure, of the social revolution wrought by Christ-
ianity. It is sadly true that slavery, although it was con-
demned by the finest and noblest Christian spirits, as
universally by Pope Gregory the Great, lingered for many
centuries in some parts of Christendom. Not until the
year 1861 A.D. did Alexander, the Tsar of Russia, emanci-

1 " Deipnosophist," bk. vi. ch. 103.

2 " A Companion to Latin Studies," vi. 4, p. 354.

'42 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

pate the five million serfs in his mighty empire. Not
until 1865 was the death -knell of slavery sounded in the
United States of America by the assassination of President
Lincoln. It was of him that the American poet Bryant
wrote : —

Thy task is done : the bond are free.

We bear thee to an honored grave,
Whose proudest monument shall be

The broken fetters of the slave.

His poem " On the Death of Lincoln " is immediately
followed by his other poem, " On the Death of Slavery."
So long as slavery endured, and, still more, so long as
the slaves were a majority of the people in a country or a
city, the sentiment of individual right was practically
negligible, in comparison with the power of the State over
all its citizens. Democracy has been a plant of slow
growth in the modern world. In the ancient world there
was no such thing as democracy. The most democratic
city of antiquity, even Athens itself, was in fact a narrow
oligarchy. It was only through the Christian conception
of the soul, and its relation to God, that democracy dawned
upon the world.

To the condition of slavery in ancient times must be
added the long national habit of warfare. An ordered
and settled peace has been only too seldom known in
civilized and Christian Europe. Among the nations of
antiquity it was never known. No political constitution in
the ancient world was internally or externally stable.
Slavery was itself an abiding peril to national and civil
peace, as the Servile Wars in the history of Rome amply
proved. The dread of revolution or insurrection {araaiq
as it was called in Greece) brooded as a haunting fear upon
all statesmen and administrators. The gates of the Temple
of Janus before the reign of the Emperor Augustus were
seldom closed. But amidst wars and rumours of wars
the State inevitably asserts itself. It calls the citizens
to arms ; it disciplines them in tactics ; it enforces duty,
obedience, subordination ; it is, or it feels itself to be,
the custodian of interests so momentous that it cannot
recognize or tolerate any assertion of individualism against
them. It is probable that the nearest parallel to the modern
Empire of Germany, at least on its military side, would
be found in the Empire of Rome. For an empire founded

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 43

upon force is naturally hostile to freedom. It was neces-
sary that some such pacific influence as that of the Christian
Church should move the heart and conscience of the world,
before men and nations of men could believe, even as a
theory, that peace, and not war, is the natural and normal
rule of human life.

There is a third element which has largely entered into
modern European civilization — the Judaic. But Judaism
was a theocracy ; and under a theocracy the Government
or the Constitution, as embodying' the direct will of God
necessarily exercises a controlling influence upon the actions,
whether great or small, of the individual citizen's life.
It follows that, in so far as Europe in the early Christian
centuries derived guidance from the Bible, and iparticu-
larly from the Old Testament, it tended to emphasize the
prerogative of the State as against the rights and liberties
of the citizen.

The Church, during all the early ages of her history,
was the great equalizing power in the Christian world.
She stood over against the State as a rival — nay, in her
own eyes, as a superior. She claimed to prescribe the
duties and responsibilities of the State. In her eyes
sovereign and subject, peer and peasant, master and servant
were all equal, as they were equal before God. Salva-
tion was the same for all, and it must be won by all on
the same terms. The humblest of the people, if he
entered the ministry of the Church, became ipso facto
invested with a spiritual power which gave him authority
over the highest and the noblest. It is impossible to over-
estimate the service so rendered by the Church to humanity.
She, and she alone, inspired the principle of brotherhood
and charity in an age of cruel selfishness. She alone
lifted her voice against the oppression of the mighty ;
she alone extended her shield over the weak, the suffering,
and the desolate. She created and consecrated the home,
and she lent her sanction to the sense of individual value
in every inmate of the home.

It is true that the old tendencies of human nature soon
reasserted themselves within the Church. She does not
and cannot repress them ; but, if they reappear in defiance
of her teaching, it is she who suffers discredit for them.
Thus persecution is a natural instinct of human wickedness
or weakness. It is not limited to the sphere of religion ; it
permeates all life. But, when it becomes religious persecu-

44 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

tion, it is felt to be especially censurable, as it conflicts
with the spirit or character of religion and of Christianity.

It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in't.1

So, too, tyranny, or monarchy, as it had been estab-
lished in the ancient world, may have been inconsistent
with the principles of Christianity. But it survived the
conversion of the Western, as of the Eastern, world from
paganism to the faith of Jesus Christ. The Papacy, as
it extended and augmented its power, arrogated to itself
all, and more than all, the authority of the State. It is
not, indeed, difficult to discern in the Roman Catholic
conception of the Church some of the elements which form,
or tend to form, the modern Prussian conception of the
State. There is the same subordination of all interests —
in the one case to ecclesiastical, in the other to political,
authority. There is the same repression or denial of intel-
lectual and spiritual liberty. There is, or there has been,
the same willingness to use force, as checking and thwart-
ing the dispositions which militate against the efficiency of
the whole. Modern Kaiserism is a secularized Papalism.
Nor, indeed, does the practical reverence for the Kaiser
differ intrinsically from the far more ancient and more
logical reverence for the Pope.

The system of the Church of Rome, and so of Western
Christendom generally, tended to become more and more
monarchical. Democracy, as it is understood in the modern
world, dates from the Reformation. Although democracy
is generally regarded as political, yet in its origin, like
many political movements or systems, it was spiritual. It
depended upon the relation of the individual soul to God.
Before the Reformation it was only through the long avenue
of sacerdotal powers, of theological doctrines and eccle-
siastical ceremonies, that the soul of man could draw near
to its Maker. Luther swept away the obstacles which
barred the immediate access of the soul to Christ and
God. Liberty of conscience, the open Bible, the very
change in the aspect or structure of the churches, were
signs of the spiritual independence which the Reformation
asserted for humanity. It is thus that the Reformation
is the abiding test of the principles by which men and

1 Shakespeare, " The Winter's Tale," ii. 3, 146-7.

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 45

nations of men guide their lives. If they care most
for discipline, order, and perhaps for grace and peace,
they have remained or become Roman Catholic. If they
care most for truth, freedom, and charity, they have chosen
the steep and stony path of Protestantism.

The new spirit is visible all along the line of the
Elizabethan era. It is characteristic of Raleigh, Gilbert,
Drake, and Frobisher, as it is of Shakespeare and Spenser.
It is the spirit of men who have set out, in the faith of
their own strong nature and purpose, for the conquest of
new worlds, whether territorial or spiritual. In most
of them, or in nearly all, the religious spirit survived the
revolt against the Church of Rome. They were Christians
still, but they were Christians in virtue of argument, not
of authority. It is hardly too much to say that the triumph
of democratic and individualistic sentiment was propor-
tionate to the clearness and positiveness of the Protestant
creed. The Presbyterianism of John Knox, if it did not
create, yet consolidated the character which has made the
Scotch people the most self-reliant element in the British
Empire. The Puritan Pilgrims of the Mayflower were
not unnaturally, although they were unconsciously, the
founders of the greatest Republic upon earth . A philosopher
may well feel surprise at discovering that anybody living
in the twentieth century should be prepared, for any
imaginary gain of catholicity or unity, to barter the spiritual
liberty which his forefathers won by so long an effort and
at so high a price.

But, as often happens, the underlying principle of
Protestantism, or Puritanism, was slow in making itself
universally felt. The Declaration of Independence, which
is the Charter of the United States of America, was
drafted, it is well known, by Jefferson. It begins by assert-
ing, as a self-evident principle, that all men are by nature
equal, and all are by nature free. There is a story that,
when Jefferson was asked how he reconciled that asser-
tion with the existence of slavery, he confessed himself
unable to give a satisfactory answer. The difference of
colour has, in all ages and in all countries, corresponded
with a difference of social or political status. Whether
the word " men " in the Declaration of Independence did,
or should, include women, was a question left, and perhaps
intended to be left, in uncertainty. But there can be no
doubt that, in the United States of America as well as

46 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP.

in the European world, events are tending towards the
equalization of manhood and womanhood in politics.

Subject, however, to these considerable limitations,
democracy, and equality as its natural issue, have, in the
last three or four centuries, become more and more
strikingly the axioms of modern life. For circumstances
have insensibly tended to lessen or narrow the differences
between one class and another in the same community.
The gulf between the peer and the peasant is incommen-
surable with the gulf between the master and the slave.
Education is no longer the property of the few ; it has
descended to the many ; and the humblest labourer, when
he reads his Sunday newspaper, can inform himself as easily
as a statesman or professor about the course of events
all over the world. Wherever political suffrage is universal,
or nearly universal, the theory of " one man one vote "
invests each citizen with the same influence as any other
citizen upon the political history of his nation. One
strange consequence has been an apparent perversion of
the moral judgment. Because the majority of votes in
the House of Commons or in an election decides the issue,
it has been assumed that, whatever the will of the majority
may be, it must be right. But the fact that votes, if
they are numerous enough, confer power, does not ensure
or imply that they constitute right. Too often has the
minority or the individual been the representative of free-
dom or progress ; too often has the majority sinned
against the light. Yet the working-man, however ignorant
he may really be, has, in virtue of his education or his
political enfranchisement, been led to think that he is as
good and as wise as any one else. Even in modern war-
fare it is number which tells. The day when the issue
of war could be decided by heroic individual valour has
passed away. One man is like another ; and the nation
which can send the largest number of its citizens into
the field, if it can adequately arm them and train them,
is the nation to which the promise of victory belongs in
warfare to-day. All these are elements in the changing
conception of life ; they all foster a general impatience of
subordination or control, a claim to participate in all that
makes life happy or comfortable.

The result has been manifest in various ways. It has
shown itself in the ever -increasing demand of the people
upon the State or the Government. Sometimes in the

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 47

early days of modern democracy they were content with
claiming equality before the law. In recent days they
have, under the title of socialism or communism, claimed
the assimilation of all classes upon one level of faculty
and opportunity. Sometimes, again, the less highly
placed or highly paid classes have demanded free educa-
tion, and free, or nearly free, insurance against accidents.
In times of exceptional stress they have demanded for
their children free meals and even free medicines. The
State has become more and more socialistic. More and
more it has humoured and favoured the proletariat. While
it has, justly or unjustly, increased the burden of taxa-
tion upon the rich, it has pretty well relieved the poor of
all direct, and of much indirect, taxation. The people have
been taught that they may gratify their own tastes, as
in marriage, without restraint, and that, if difficulty or
suffering falls upon them, the State must relieve it. The
State has become their foster-mother. It has been thQ
unfailing resource upon which they have fallen back as
a remedy for their own faults and follies. There has
been, in fact, a demoralization of the people ; and among
the persons responsible for it none have been more con-
spicuous offenders against economical and social laws than
the politicians, who have vied one with another in teaching
the people, each for the ends of his party, to use their
votes, not in the interest of justice or equity but for the
assertion and advancement of their own privileges, against
the other parties. It can be no wonder that, even under
the stress of war, citizens, who have long been schooled
in subservience to party, were, at first, slow to learn the
lesson, and to exhibit the spirit, of patriotism. The
Church, indeed, has taught, or professed to teach, duty —
duty to God and to man. But that sublime principle of
English life — the watchword which inspired Nelson at
Trafalgar and Wellington at Waterloo — has been wellnigh
deadened by the noisy cries of conflicting self-interests.

Yet the question, What can I get from the Stajte ? is
essentially poor and mean in comparison with the question,
What can I give to the State ? For it ignores the citizen's
primary obligation to the State which has been, in a large
measure, the source of his personal and social happiness.
It concentrates his desires and interests upon himself, instead
of extending them upon a wide range of offices and respon-
sibilities which reach beyond and above himself. There

48 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

can be little doubt that in British schools, and especially
in the elementary schools, patriotism has not been incul-
cated, as it might have been, and should have been, upon
youthful hearts. How strong the effect of patriotic teach-
ing in youth may be, is exemplified by countries like France
and Japan. Even in Germany the spirit of patriotism,
clouded as it is and often distorted by national pride and
selfishness, still burns with an impressive lustre. The
ancient Universities and Public Schools of England have
nobly responded to the call of arms. It is with a splendid
self-devotion that their sons have flung away their lives
in the war. If elsewhere some hesitation was shown at
first, it evidently arose from ignorance or misunderstanding
of the relation in which the citizen stands to the State.

Modern German, or Prussian, militarism is not indeed
rightly appreciated, except as a reaction against the indi-
vidualistic tendency of life in Great Britain. The Germans
had formed the opinion that Great Britain, as an Imperial
Power, was decadent, if not actually dying. It was not
in itself a wholly unreasonable opinion. Empires, one after
another, have, in the ages of history, been born and
flourished, have reached the acme of their might ; and then
have gradually waned, decayed, and perished. Such has
been the fate of all modern empires — the Spanish, the
Portuguese, the French, the Dutch — except the British
Empire. Whether the British Empire alone among the
empires of the world will survive or not, is a question
lying in the womb of futurity. But the Germans argued,
or assumed, that the apparently universal law of empires
would fulfil itself, soon or late, in the British Empire.

They held that Great Britain had lost the faculty of
government. It could not, as they thought, control its
Colonies ; it could not control India ; it could not even
control Ireland. The spiritual forces, sympathy, affection,
loyalty, by which peoples are held together, were unrecog-
nized, and probably unimagined, by the Germans. No
revelation of the war can have been more surprising to
them than the spirit which has been displayed by South
Africa. It was their confident expectation that the Colonies
and Dependencies of the British Empire would rise against
the Mother Country, so soon as she was engaged in perilous
warfare. They have succeeded only, against their own
will, in riveting the Empire by bonds which can never
be broken. It is certain that, when the war is over, Great

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 49

Britain and the British Empire will be stronger, not only
by force of arms and by the union of hearts, but in the
respect of civilized mankind, than they have ever been
before.

Yet the Germans thought they could discern the signs
of British impotency, as much in the relation of the State
to its citizens as in the relation of the Dominions beyond
the seas to the Mother Country. They mistook tolerance
for degeneracy. They watched, with sinister eyes, what
they thought to be the revolt of various parties or interests
against authority. It seemed to them that, if Great Britain
could not rule the Labour Party, the Suffragist Party, the
Anti -Vaccinationists, and the other conscientious objectors,
she must have lost all political and martial efficiency. It
is only right to admit that the German estimate of Great
Britain might not have proved so hopelessly wrong, had
it not ignored the moral and spiritual motives which are,
after all, the sovereign principles of human nature. For
Great Britain in the days before the war was undoubtedly
less effective and impressive in action than she would have
been, if her political system had not rendered her Ministers
of State unwilling, or unable, to take cogent action against
those persons or classes which would sacrifice, if they could,
the national supremacy to their several and separate
interests. Kultur, as the Germans call it, is efficiency ;
and if efficiency, attained by any means and at any cost,
is the true object of a State, the Germans are, and have
proved themselves to be, more efficient than any other
people. For they judged, not without some reason, that
individualism was, or ought to be, the ruin of Great Britain,
and they determined that it should not be the ruin of
Germany .

It is not difficult to trace the process by which the
German worship of efficiency assumed its present character.

The State was the idol set up before adoring minds in
the universities and schools of Germany. The Germans,
young and old alike, were taught and forced to bow down
before the golden image of the State. But the State
rested upon force ; the embodiment of force was the Army ;
and the State and the Army have in Germany been two
names for one body. The State on its military side was
the Army ; the Army on its civil side was the State. All
disloyalty to the Army was high treason. The Kaiser was
the head both of the State and of the Army ; and German

50 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

writers, like German statesmen, have generally held that
the Government of Germany must be monarchical, as
monarchy was the governmental system which would best
guarantee efficiency, and, above all, efficiency in war.

It is curious to notice how human nature, if it is checked
and bound on one side, breaks out on other sides. The
freedom denied to highly educated Germans in the domain
of politics was accorded to them in the domain of
philosophy and theology. Extravagance of speculative
thought on all subjects outside politics was answered by
its close circumscription in the political sphere. As a
modern English writer has said, it was legitimate to deny
the Divinity of Jesus Christ, but to deny the divinity of
the Kaiser was lese majeste. Let me quote from German
writers some few passages as showing the modern German
view of the State, the Army, and the Kaiser.

Nietzsche is the originator of the doctrine of the
Superman. It may, or may not, be true that he owed his
doctrine to the Darwinian theory of the struggle for exist-
ence and the survival of the fittest. But from the doctrine
of the Superman there was only a step to the doctrine of
the Superstate ; and that Superstate, as all Germans assumed,
must, and could, be Germany alone. In public, as in
private life, Nietzsche identified not only happiness, but
virtue, with power. The following is a passage taken from
his "Antichrist": —

What is good ? All that increases the feeling of power, will to power, power
itself in man.

What is happiness ? The feeling that power increases, that resistance is
overcome.

Not contentedness but more power ; not peace at any price but warfare :
not virtue but capacity (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtue free from any
moralic acid).1

It was left to Treitschke to assert the supremacy of
the State — i.e. of the German State, the assumed Super-
state— over the whole life, moral as well as political and
practical, of individual citizens. His teaching is so well
known that it is not necessary to quote more instances
of it than the following : —

The moment the State (he says) calls : " Myself and my existence are now at
stake ! " social self-seeking must fall back and every party hate be silent. The
individual must forget his own ego and feel himself a member of the whole : he
must recognize what a nothing his life is in comparison with the general welfare.*

1 § 2. 2 "Selections from Treitschke's Lectures on Politics," p. 23.

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 51

And again : —

Since the State is power, it can obviously draw all human action within its
scope, so long as that action arises from the will which regulates the outer lives
of men, and belongs to their visible common existence, Historical experience,
examined fairly and without prejudice, teaches us that the State can overshadow
practically the whole of a people's life. It will dominate it to the precise extent
in which it is in a position to do so.1

Such a book as Dr. White's " America and Germany "
is replete with passages which show how the worship of
the State has entered as an axiom into the political thought
of German professors and literary men.2 " In the German
view," says the late Professor Miinsterberg, " the State is
not for the individuals, but the individuals for the State."
" To the Germans," says Francke, " the State is a spiritual,
collective personality, leading a life of its own, beyond the
lives of individuals, and its aim is, not the protection and
the happiness of individuals, but the making of a nobler type
of man, and the achievement of high excellence in all the
departments of life."

Not to multiply quotations, the truth, as Germans have
lately conceived it to be, is well summed up by the author
of Germany's War Mania " : —

To modern German writers the State is a much more tremendous entity than
it is to Englishmen or Americans. It is a supreme power; with a sort of mystic
sanctity, a power conceived of, as it were, self-created ; a force altogether
distinct from, and superior to, the persons who compose it.3

The notorious military incident at Zabern was illumi-
nating as a lightning -flash, and its significance has been
enhanced by the events which followed it. Historians like
Treitschke or Delbriick insist as strongly upon the supreme
virtue of the Army as military writers like Clausewitz and
Bernhardi. According to Miinsterberg, the men who have
achieved the marvellous progress of German civilization
have acted in the conviction that " the military spirit is
a splendid training for cultural efficiency." But as the
worship of the State leads to the worship of the Army,
so the worship of the Army leads to the worship of the
Kaiser. " The idea of the Emperor is that he is the symbol
of the State as a whole, independent of the will of the
individuals, and, therefore, independent of any elections."
He is " the incarnation of active and disciplined Germany."

1 " Politics," translated by Blanche Dugdale and Torben de Bille, vol. i. p. 62.
2 pp. 174 sqq. 3 p. 10.

52 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

A careful American observer has recently declared that
" the German people are as inseparable from the Kaiser
as we, in America, are from our Constitution." He adds
that " the Social Democratic Party in Germany is, itself,
organized upon the principle of submission to the monarchy,
and does not in the least resemble the Democratic Party
in the American sense of the word " — a statement true
enough if the submission is understood to be not voluntary
but enforced.

It is upon the ground of Kultur or efficiency that the
Germans justify their system of government. But that
from such a system flow certain consequences of grave
and serious moment for humanity they do not attempt
to deny.

The State is, in their eyes, supreme. It can do no
wrong ; it can offend no moral law ; for duty to the State
is the climax of morality. It can excuse no disloyalty or
indifference. It claims, and it is entitled to claim, the
subordination of every citizen, and in every citizen of his
whole nature, body, soul, and spirit. Neither above, nor
beside, the State is there, nor can there be, anything which
a citizen can justly regard in comparison with the State
itself. It would be amusing, if it were not distressing,
to observe how German thought naturally rises above the
individual, above the family, above the town, above the city
to the State ; but at the State it stops dead. It takes
no account of Europe or the world, humanity or God. It
takes, or it seems to take, no account of other States than
the German. No feature of German political speculation
is more remarkable than the narrow limits within which
it moves. Even in the domain of philosophy and theology
German writers have lately exhibited, and have felt no
apparent shame in exhibiting, a curious ignorance of much
that has been thought and taught outside Germany. But
in political history they think of Germany alone. '' The
real hypothesis of all their reasoning is an exclusive
nationalism. We read of Deutsche Treue, Deutsche Tap-
ferkeit, Deutsche Kultur, until we begin to realize that
the German mind lives in an exclusively German world
of its own. The wind of the spirit that blows freely
through Europe stops at the Rhine, and a new wind of
the German spirit takes its place." l

1 " Nietzsche and Treitschke. The Worship of Power in Modern Germany,"
by Ernest Barker, pp. 19, 20.

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 53

No authoritative German writer since Kant has, appar-
ently, asked why England or France or Russia should
not, in international relations, make precisely the same
claims as Germany, and how, if such claims are made by
all the great States, they can be adjusted without an un-
ceasing warfare between them, until, at last, all the States
are absolutely merged in the one supreme, victorious State.
That State, as the Germans necessarily anticipate, will be
Germany itself. For the essential superiority of the
German people to all other peoples, as of the German State
to all other States, is an axiom underlying much, if not
all, that German publicists and philosophers have lately
written upon the history and the destiny of mankind.

The worship of the State, and of the German State, is
admittedly inconsistent with the relation in which Chris-
tianity has stood, or has aspired to stand, towards the
national, no less than the individual, life. Nietzsche is no
Christian at all. His hatred of Christianity is only second,
if it is second, to his hatred of Great Britain. Bernhardi
is a Christian after the Kaiser's own heart ; but he holds
that Christianity, if it is good enough for the Church and
the family, neither possesses, nor ought to possess, any
influence upon the conduct of nations. The repudiation
of the Christian faith is naturally followed by the repudia-
tion of Christian morals. The individual man becomes
no more than a machine. He is the subject or the serf
of the State. Whatever the State bids him to do, it is
his duty to do, because it is the will of the State, and
nothing is, or can be, higher than the State. But the
State, or the Army as the impersonation of the State,
may, and will, commit every crime for its own ends. There
lies in this doctrine of the State the germ of the " fright -
fulness," which the Kaiser preached to his troops before
they sailed to China at the time of the attack made by
the Boxers upon the Legations in Pekin, and which he has
since practised, or ordered to be practised, in Russia, in
Poland, in France, in Flanders, and in Belgium. If the
Germans are called, and if they resent being called, Huns,
it is only fair to plead that the Kaiser himself held up
the example of Attila before their eyes. Unfortunately
Attila has reappeared, but not St. Leo the Great. There
is literally no action, however immoral, however inhuman,
of which the Germans in their present mood would not
be guilty, or would not be capable of being guilty, if it

54 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP;

afforded them the promise or the prospect of victory in
the war.

There has been, in fact, a reversion to barbarism. It
may be scientific barbarism ; it may be civilized
barbarism ; it may even be professedly Christian
barbarism ; but none the less it is barbarism.

The worship of brute force has asserted itself in two
ways which deserve a passing notice. If force is the
measure of right, then, as large States possess a force
superior to small States, they are entitled to trample upon
all such States as are not strong enough to resist them.
Germany and Austria have so acted in relation to Belgium,
to Poland, to Serbia, and to Montenegro. Yet, if history
teaches any lesson, it teaches how great is the service
which small nations have rendered to humanity. For
among the small nations of the world must be counted the
Jewish, the Greek, the Dutch— nay, the British. The
elimination of the small States would be a loss unspeak-
able. Yet it is this loss which Germany aspires, and
intends, to bring about.

Again, the Germans have waged the present war in
almost complete disregard of human life. It has not
seemed to matter in their eyes how many lives were sacri-
ficed, or how great and wide were the sufferings inflicted
upon the living in their own State, so long as the State
could achieve its end. The spectacle of German soldiers
in daily peril of being shot by their own compatriots in
the rear, if they were not shot by their enemies in the
front, has been to all minds and hearts, except the German,
infinitely pathetic. Yet this wanton indifference to the fate
of individual citizens, and, a fortiori, of individual enemies,
is the direct outcome of the national alienation from the
will of Jesus Christ, as He came on earth to be the
champion of the weak, the sorrowful, the oppressed, and
the bereaved, and to teach the value, and the equal value,
of every human soul in the sight of the universal God.

But the reversion to barbarism has gone still farther.
It has shown itself in a contempt for the arts and graces
of civilization. German generals have been found to assert
that no venerable buildings, sacred or secular, no church,
no university, no museum, no picture-gallery can for a
moment count in comparison with the progress and the
predominance of German arms. German writers have been
found to contemplate with a sinister delight the possibility

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 55

of desecrating the graves of Shakespeare and Faraday.
The violation of international compacts, to which the pleni-
potentiaries of Germany had formerly, or recently, set their
hands, has been followed by crimes like the poisoning of
wells, the sowing of the ocean with mines, and the dropping
of bombs from Zeppelin airships on defenceless towns and
villages. Science itself has been desecrated by a perver-
sion of its discoveries to purposes as inhuman as the scalp-
ing of prisoners among the Red Indians in North America.
The " hymns of hate," which have been popular in the
German Empire, have been like the paeans of savages gloat-
ing over the sufferings of their enemies. Even the novel
practice of driving nails into the statues of national heroes
is an echo of the barbarism which the world had long
believed to be dead and buried.

The Kultur of Germany may be, in German eyes, an
advance upon pre-existing civilization. A German writer,
Professor Ostwald, has formally declared " that Germany,
owing to her genius for organization, or social efficiency,
has attained a stage of civilization far higher than that
of all other peoples. This war will, in the future, compel
these other peoples to participate, under the form of German
social efficiency, in a civilization higher than their own.
Among our enemies, the Russians, in brief, are still in the
period of the undisciplined tribe, while the French and
the English have only attained a degree of cultural develop-
ment, which we ourselves left behind fifty years ago. Their
stage of culture is that of individualism ; but above that
stage lies the stage of organization or social efficiency,
and it is this stage which Germany has reached to-day." J

That stage may conceivably be higher than any pre-
ceding stage in human history. But, if it is so, then
human history is no record of development or progress.
All that Christianity has done, or has tried to do, for the
amelioration of society has been a fault or flaw in the
evolution of mankind. Germany has asserted her superiority
over the Christian nations of the world by reviving, with
many terrible exaggerations, the barbarism which the
Church of Christ had, in long ages, partially, and not
unhopefully, subdued.

At the best, then, German Kultur is a fateful experi-
ment ; and in the lurid light of the experiment it is worth

1 Journal de Geneve, No. 29, 1914 ; quoted in " America and Germany," p. 46.

56 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

while to consider what is the true relation of the State to
its citizens and of the citizens to their State.

There can be little doubt that, if citizens in the future
are to discharge their patriotic duties, they must be taught
from early childhood how heavy is their debt to the State,
and how urgent is the obligation upon them to pay it by
personal service and sacrifice. The individual will be
regarded, not by himself, in the light of his own interest,
but in his subordination to the State. He will realize that
he cannot attain the perfection of his own moral or social
nature, except in society ; and he will repudiate the idea of
expecting and demanding the benefits which society confers
upon him, without making an adequate return for them.

As the individual is dignified, first, by membership of
the family and then of the clan and the town, so, too, will
he gain further dignity as a citizen of the State. Patriotism
is an inspiring and ennobling virtue, if only because it
lifts a (man's eyes above himself into the region of altruistic
duties and responsibilities.

But if there is a brotherhood of individuals, so is there,
at least in idea, a brotherhood of nations or States. It
is an error to assume that one State can rightly conceive
and execute a policy, which would be intolerable or impos-
sible, if it were the policy of all States. Kant's great
principle that it is a man's duty to act in such a manner
as would be beneficial to the world, if all men acted as
he acts, is not less applicable to States. It is, indeed, the
Golden Rule enunciated by Our Lord, though perhaps in
less persuasive terms than His who first laid it down.
Statesmen and diplomatists, if they desire to promote human
good, can pursue no better goal than that of inducing
communities to act in the spirit of Christian gentlemen.
Whatever distinguishes civilization from barbarism in per-
sonal life, e.g. a recourse to the judiciary for the peaceful
settlement of disputed questions, should, in the long run,
be practised by all the civilized nations of the world. The
case of the Alabama has now pretty well faded from
memory ; but it was a case which initiated the only sound
Christian principle of regulating international disputes.

It may be argued that the true and the false spirit of a
nation's life are nowhere more clearly seen than in its
relation to its colonies and dependencies. " The white
man's burden," as it has been so well called by Mr.
Kipling, positively forbids such practices as Germany

THE STATE AND THE CITIZEN 57

appears to have employed in the country of the Hereros or
in the Cameroon ; but it prescribes the spirit which, upon
the whole, though not without grave mistakes, has actuated
the British Government in India, and that Government has
found its reward in the general loyalty of the Indian princes
and peoples during the war.

No doubt authority rests, and must rest, upon force.
Yet force should be not that of one State armed against
another, or against others, but that of the United States of
Europe, and, ultimately, of the world, banding themselves
together against the aggressiveness of any one State.

For there can be freedom in a State only when it allows
freedom outside itself. But freedom is the condition of
progress. The danger of suppressing individual opinion
and action is as serious in a democracy as in a monarchy
or an oligarchy. Burke has, indeed, argued that the
tyranny of a democracy is the most dangerous of all
tyrannies, because it allows no appeal against itself. If
small States have done as much for the advance of the
world as large States, if minorities have been as often
right as majorities, if individuals have again and again
asserted the wrong of laws or usages which had until then
been universally accepted, if they have fought and suffered
and, not seldom, died for the reforms which have made
human life sweeter and happier, then it follows that the
State attains, or comes near to attaining, its ideal, in so
far as it allows every individual citizen the utmost measure
of liberty which is not incompatible with the rights of
other citizens and with the welfare of the State.

It appears, then, that education after the war will be
directed more than it has been towards good citizenship
as its goal. The citizen of the future will be instinct with
the love of his country. He will estimate no personal
sacrifice too heavy as a return for the benefits which his
country confers upon him. He will feel proud of subordi-
nating his private interests and ambitions to the public
good. He will shrink from such trifles, disputes, and
antagonisms as impair, and may even destroy, the efficiency
of his State. But he will look upon his State as one
member in the confraternity of States which constitute the
sum of civilized humanity. He will prepare himself to
defend his State by compulsory training, if not by com-
pulsory service, in arms. But he will remember that his
patriotism, good as it is in itself, may become an evil,

58 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

if it ignores or disputes the rights of other nations than
his own. The nations of the world are a family ; and
the more closely they are united by ties, commercial and
political, the nearer will they approximate to the ideal of
humanity. It is not by warfare, then, but by arbitration
that States, like individuals, will aspire to settle their differ-
ences. There will be a Federation, such as the United
States of Europe, which will bring the collective forces of
the nations to bear upon any one nation which may be
thought to aim at violating international peace. It is prob-
able, as indeed President Taft once declared, that there
will, in the end, be no international question which may
not be brought before some such tribunal as the Court of
the Hague. For when the love of country coincides with
the love of mankind, progress — the only progress worth
attaining and ensuring — becomes possible.

Many years ago, in 1842, the poet Tennyson, in
" Locksley Hall," drew a prophetic picture. There were
two elements or aspects in the picture. One of them has
been already realized in the present war. The world has

Heard the heavens fill'd with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies, grappling in the central blue.

It will be the sacred task of humanity in the future to
realize the second aspect of his picture :

Till the war drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

CHAPTER III

The Cultivation of Patriotism

By THE EARL OF MEATH

I HAVE been asked by the Editor of these essays to con-
tribute an article on the Cultivation of Patriotism. I
gladly accede to his request, for it appears to me that
the sentiment of patriotism, when founded on the love of
home and of free institutions, and when unalloyed by
admixture with the baser qualities of arrogance and of
vainglory, is a source of untold strength to a nation. Such
a sentiment cannot be ignored with impunity. It cannot
be forced by educators or statesmen, nor is it capable of
being produced at the arbitrary will of the tyrant. It is
a delicate plant which refuses to be cultivated on uncon-
genial soil, but, given the proper conditions of growth,
it is in the power of the cultivator, either by neglect to
starve it into atrophy, or by care and proper nurture to
cause it to bring forth fruit, so that it shall repay him a
hundredfold for his toil and attention.

No foolish fear of fostering a military spirit should ever
lead those who have in their hands the direction of youth-
ful education to stunt or repress the growth of this valuable
sentiment ; let them rather guide it into healthy directions,
where its progress, far from being a source of clanger to
humanity, may, by stimulating the energies and purifying
of the motives of the sons and daughters of Britain, be
the means of bringing untold blessings to millions of the
world's inhabitants.

The present world -war has called forth a marvellous
exhibition of the power of patriotic feeling amongst the
free peoples of the Empire. His Majesty the King, in his
noble Message to his people of May 25, 191 5, pointed this
out when he said : '•'- I desire to take this opportunity of

60 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

expressing to my people my recognition and appreciation
of the splendid patriotism and self-sacrifice which they
have displayed in raising by voluntary enlistment, since
the commencement of the war, no less than 5,041,000
men, an effort far surpassing that of any other nation in
similar circumstances recorded in history, and one which
will be a lasting source of pride to future generations."

The self-sacrificing effort which the nation has made
to supplement these large figures by placing at the dis-
posal of the Government the services of every man fit
for national work between the ages of eighteen and sixty
is another proof of the existence amongst the peoples
of Great Britain of immense reservoirs of patriotic feeling,
and a similar spirit is manifest in all portions of the Empire.
Compulsory national service has been adopted in Australia
and New Zealand, and doubtless will shortly be in force
in the other self-governing Dominions.

If the war should last for a considerable time longer,
it is probable that compulsion will be enacted in the case
of women who have not offered their services to the State,
for work of a national kind suitable to their sex. The
exhibition of patriotic feeling amongst women, and the
splendid manner in which they have spared neither health,
strength, nor money in advancing the public interests, has
strengthened the hearts of men, has added to the glory of
Britain, and has established a national asset of incal-
culable value. They have proved themselves worthy to
be invited to take their part in the future in the government
of the British Empire and in the maintenance of its honour.

Such has been the power of patriotic feeling amongst
the vast majority of the freedom-loving British peoples ;
but let not our justifiable pride in this exhibition of
patriotism blind us to the fact that there have been un-
mistakable signs amongst small sections of both rich and
poor, especially in the British Isles, of a selfish, indifferent,
cowardly spirit which has declined to associate its interests
with those of the community at large, and has to the best
of its power attempted to seek exemption from all national
sacrifice. These sections are principally to be found
amongst those who have grown suddenly rich and who
have managed to escape from the responsibilities attaching
to wealth, and, at the other extreme of the social hierarchy,
amongst those who have become victims of the exploita-
tion of the former class, or who by misfortune or their

THE CULTIVATION OF PATRIOTISM 61

own weakness have sunk to such depths of misery and
penury as to render the growth in their minds of any
patriotic feeling an almost absolute impossibility.

The experience we have gained in this time of national
war stress should guide our conduct in the future. Recog-
nizing the value of patriotism, we should do our utmost to
cultivate the sentiment amongst all classes, and especially
amongst the young. It is evident that it is a plant which
needs a congenial soil. Let us remove all hindrances to
healthy growth ; let us break up hard, ungrateful soil,
and replace it by rich and fruitful mould. We shall be
repaid a hundredfold for our trouble.

There must be an end to slums, to exploitation of labour,
and to all conditions which contribute towards a low national
standard of moral, mental, and physical health and strength.
Lord Beaconsfield once said : " The public health is the
foundation on which repose the happiness of the people
and the power of a country. The care of the public
health is the first duty of a statesman." We must see
that the people are provided with decent homes and with
the means of acquiring with ease a direct interest in the
soil which under present legislation they may at any time
be called on to defend. " The foundations of national
glory," said King George V, " are set in the homes of
the people, and they will only remain unshaken while the
family life of our nation is strong, simple, and pure."
True and noble words, which it behoves us never to forget !

What are the steps, then, which can be taken to
encourage the cultivation of patriotism?

r . Every effort should be made in the schools to explain
to children the solid foundations on which British patriotism
is founded — to point out to them that, notwithstanding much
which is regrettable in the conditions of life at home,
speaking broadly, in no country, and under no form of
government outside the British Empire, are more equitable
laws, purer justice, and more righteous administration to
be found.

2. Greater attention should be paid in the schools to
the teaching of the history and geography of the Empire,
and some knowledge should be imparted in regard to the
characters, religions, ideals, customs, and manufactures of
the 420 millions of our fellow-subjects throughout the
world.

3. Greater stress should be laid in schools on the teach-

62 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

ing of practical subjects which would enable every boy
when he left school to be able to earn his own living,
and every girl to be able to cook, to make her own
garments, to care for a baby, and to keep house.

4. Both boys and girls should be taught the rudiments
of hygiene, sanitation, and physiology, so as to have some
slight knowledge of the causes of disease and the means
which can be taken to avoid it.

5. The training of children in character and in self-
restraint should cake precedence of mere book-learning —
and the co-operation of parents should be invited in all
schools in order that such training may be properly con-
tinued at home. The " Duty and Discipline Movement "
might perhaps assist in this direction, and the adoption
of the " Boy Scouts " and " Girl Guides " curricula as
part of the training of every boy and girl attending schools
should form part of a national system of juvenile character
training.

As the founder of the " Empire Movement," the watch-
words of which are " Responsibility, Duty, Sympathy, and
Self-sacrifice," perhaps I may be excused if I suggest
that a more general adoption of the movement throughout
the entire community, and especially in the schools of
the Empire, would materially assist towards the cultiva-
tion of a national and imperial patriotism founded on sane
and reasonable lines. It need hardly be pointed out that
it is the moral character of the people of a nation which
determines the position which such a nation shall occupy
in the world.

It is useless to multiply armies and fleets, to supply them
with the most modern appliances of war, if the men behind
the guns are ignorant of the meaning of the terms loyalty,
obedience, self-sacrifice, courage, and devotion to duty.
The same remark is equally true in regard to the avoca-
tions of peace. The country may possess richly endowed
universities, colleges, and technical schools ; its factories
may be supplied with the best machinery ; but if its
merchants, its manufacturers, and its workpeople are self-
seekers, devoid of honesty, careless of the general weal,
idle, and profligate, ruin will sooner or later overtake that
country, and sooner rather than later.

If we desire the cultivation of patriotism amongst the
rising generation, support should in the first place be given
to any efforts which may be made by parents and teachers,

THE CULTIVATION OF PATRIOTISM 63

and by organizations like the " Duty and Discipline Move-
ment," of 117 Victoria Street, S.W., to instil into the
minds of the young the importance of certain virtues which
in the past have been sometimes neglected — namely those
of unselfishness, and of respect and of obedience to lawful
authority. Without these virtues no people can become
permanently great. History distinctly teaches us this
lesson. Wherever and whenever in the past history of the
world a people have become united by reverence for the
powers that be — whether these powers were represented
by an autocrat or by a popularly elected ruler — or when-
ever and wherever a people have been animated and united
by some common ideal of a personally unselfish character,
there and then that people have stepped into the front
rank amongst nations. When, on the other hand, a people
have lost respect for their rulers, or have allowed the selfish
interests of the individual to take the place of devotion to
the State or the common good, then, however apparently
strong, however rich, however lavishly equipped either for
peace or war, that people have ultimately fallen from their
high estate.

The lesson of civic duty needs to be taught to both
rich and poor. If in the past the rich had been more
alive to their civic duty and had taken a more personal
and active interest in the welfare of the masses, and in the
training and education of the people, there would have
been less class hostility, and the opening of this war would
have found us an even rnore united nation than it did.
The patriotism displayed by the nation has been great,
but British patriotism has during the course of the war
been not infrequently robbed of half its effective force
through a national lack of discipline and of preparedness
for all eventualities.

Let us see to it that in future our patriotic fervour be
not weakened by lack of discipline. Let us remember that
no nation can be permanently strong which declines to be
united by the fortifying cement of discipline. Let us not
be misled by words. Hatred of German " Kultur " and
of the cruel, heartless discipline practised by our enemies
should not blind us to the imperative need of a reasonable
discipline, without which it would be impossible for the
free nations of the world to withstand successfully, either
in war or peace, the concentrated blows of a trained military
autocracy seeking the domination of the world.

64 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

We cannot hope to engraft the civic virtues on an un-
disciplined race. Let our first endeavour in the cultiva-
tion of patriotism be to restore, where lost, a reasonable
discipline to the home and to the school, and then we may-
hope to instil that sensible loyalty to King and Empire,
that sense of duty to the State and to the community, that
love for our fellow -creatures, which shall enable the subjects
of King George, in whatever part of the globe they may
reside, to think, not only imperially, but nobly and intel-
ligently, thus rendering them worthy of the vast privileges
and responsibilities to which, in the providence of God,
they have been called.

Our word is peace, our rights are equal laws,
Our arms of love we spread from sea to sea,

Our life is progress toward the broader cause,
Our hope, through justice, to give liberty.

CHAPTER IV,

The Alien Question

By SIR H. H. JOHNSTON

It is requisite to approach this problem of the United
Kingdom and of the British Empire in general without the
slightest prepossession founded on ignorance — ignorance
especially of ethnology and history. Unhappily, all British
Governments down to 191 6, Government permanent officials
of all Government departments (with a few exceptions),
all schoolmasters, all Civil Service Commissioners, have
united to oppose or neglect the teaching of ethnology
in our primary, our secondary, our public and proprie-
tary schools. Ethnology, it is true, is treated admirably
and on a broad basis and yet with scrupulous regard
to detail at our great Universities ; but as it does not
figure — to any extent that matters — in the curricula of
all Government examinations, it is very seldom taken up
as a subject of learning, even by those of our fellow-
countrymen who desire to serve the Empire abroad. It
is still less studied by the classes that furnish the members
of the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Simi-
larly, history — above all, modern history and history which
takes the sciences into account — is neglected in the education
of all parts of the British Empire. Therefore our statesmen,
our journalists, our men and women in the street, our
politicians, and almost every one except the clergy and a few
men of science approach the question of Alien Emigration, of
the naturalization of persons not of British birth, with preju-
dice, rancour, or unintelligence. I except the clergy of
all denominations and churches from my diatribe because
the influence of missionary societies has been enormous in
liberalizing religion and in imparting — I will not say an
internationalism so much as an inter -Imperialism — into the

5 6S

66 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

concepts of the Anglican, the Roman Catholic, the Presby-
terian, the Congregationalist, the Baptist, the Methodist,
the Quaker, and the Unitarian.

What does the study of anthropology and ethnology teach
us in regard to the past history of the population of the
British Islands ? It shows us that in ancient times Great
Britain and Ireland were fantastically shaped peninsulas of
France and Flanders, and that they received thus from
North-West Europe primitive races that were fleeing from
rivalry with more advanced types, or bold and reckless
pioneers of these newer types that were seeking fresh and
unspoiled hunting-grounds, grazing lands, root- and nut- and
fruit -bearing forests. The peopling of Great Britain in
Palaeolithic times was often interrupted and greatly restricted
by climatic conditions. The Ice Ages must have wiped
out the first colonizations, most of the second and of the
third, and the damp and misty climate that succeeded have
restricted Post Glacial human settlement to the grassy downs
or the sea-coast. The stony mountains were too bleak,
the forests too dense and too thickly inhabited by dangerous
wild beasts.

The earliest type of Briton as yet discovered — the Pilt-
down man of Sussex — was an ape -like creature, with pointed
and projecting canine teeth. He was apparently succeeded
by races more akin in skull form to the Australoid and
the Negroid ; then at a much later date came the Cro-
Magnon type, possibly the first definite example of the
highest type of Homo sapiens, a generalized Caucasian
not without suggestions in his skull and leg bones of the
Mongol and the Negroid. In appearance he may have
resembled both the higher types of Red Man in North
America or the tall peoples of North -West India.

Then, as he died out or became fused with preceding
types of population, there may have been invasions in the
far North of Scotland and Ireland by the Eskimo, coming
from Boreal Europe ; while the South of England, and
soon afterwards all Ireland and much of Scotland were
penetrated by the Mediterranean or Iberian type of man,
akin to the basis of the population in modem Spain and
Portugal, Western and Southern France, Italy and North
Africa. These were probably the people of the Neolithic
or perfected -stone-implement civilization. Then, again,
Eastern England was reached from the coasts of Flanders
and Holland by a round-headed type which may or may not

THE ALIEN QUESTION 67

have been akin to the Alpine peoples of Europe and,
farther back still, to the Mongols of Central Asia. They
brought with them, at any rate to some extent, the first
use of metals, improvements in pottery, and possibly the
art of domesticating animals and the pursuit of agriculture.

Some three thousand years ago or less arrived the first
Aryan populations, able to impose themselves on the pre-
ceding amalgam of British races by their bronze weapons,
their superior physique, their more warlike qualities. Quite
possibly they were themselves of mixed racial type, in
which, however, the Nordic or fair -haired man of Northern
Europe and Russia prevailed. For many centuries they
were the dominating racial type in our two Islands. They
were the ancestors of the Goidhelic Kelts, and their supre-
macy began to be contested about 600 B.C. by the British
Kelts, whose language still persists in Wales. The ancestral
British came from the estuary of the Somme and from
Belgium. They subdued the greater part of England and
Wales and South-West Scotland, and possibly attempted
occasional incursions into Ireland.

The rest of our country's ethnological composition is
set forth in written history. The southern coasts of
England, and perhaps of Ireland, were in all probability
visited by the Phoenicians, but they were first definitely
reached by the Greeks of Marseilles about three hundred
years before the Christian era. In B.C. 55-54 the Roman
conquest of Britain began, and by the middle of the fifth
century of the Christian era had linked up England to a
remarkable degree with the civilization and history of
Western and Southern Europe. Not even the huge extent
of Teutonic colonization which ensued from the beginning
of the sixth century onwards could efface this latinizing of
England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The Romans
at one time had conquered half Scotland. They never
reached Ireland as conquerors, but their civilization was
carried thither by British missionaries ; and Ireland in
the Dark Ages was a more Christian country than England,
'. and actually sent out missionaries to hasten the Chris -
Itianizing of Germany, Holland, and Scandinavia. Ireland
!also took advantage of the breakdown of the Roman power
iin Britain to conquer and colonize portions of Wales, the
Isle of Man, and much of Scotland. This action either
brought back to Great Britain or established there for the
first time the Goidhelic language, still spoken in Western

68 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

and Central Scotland and the Isle of Man, and only extinct
in South -West Wales since about nine hundred years.

The nearly five centuries of Roman rule had undoubtedly
imported many different racial types, many ": aliens " into
England and Wales.

I continue to harp on the subject of Wales, because
North Wales and Anglesey, especially, seems to have
attracted a very considerable degree of Roman coloniza-
tion. The Romans here fought out the last of their battles
with the Druids, whom they had chased from France and
followed up through the forests of Britain. You may see
to-day in North Wales most interesting churches — the dis-
establishment of which shows the complete lack of ethno-
logical knowledge in the British Government — which had
been first of all Druidical temples and were next con-
verted into Roman Christian churches, remaining as such,
with scarcely an interference from the Saxons, until they
were remodelled and touched up by the French civilization
of mediaeval England or the hideous utilitarianism1 of
eighteenth -century English Christianity.

The Romans, therefore, must have established many ari
Italian, Dalmatian, Pannonian, German, Gallic, or Spanish
settler in our principal island, who intermarried with the
British women and left his strain behind him.

But the greatest ethnological event in our history was
the Germanic conquest of England and Lowland Scotland
between the sixth and the eighth centuries. These appar-
ently long-headed, " Gothic " types from Western Germany
came chiefly from what is now Holstein and Southern
Slesvig, from Oldenburg and Frisia, and were represented,
in the wording of contemporary history, by the Angles, the
Jutes, and the Saxons. The Angles and Jutes probably spoke
a Low German dialect, of which the existing1 Piatt -Deutsch
is the descendant, while the Saxons were more likely iden-
tified with the modern Frisians, and their language became
the chief parent of " Anglo-Saxon," modern English, and
the Friesisch dialects of Slesvig, Oldenburg, and North
Holland. The Angles, Jutes, and Saxons were pre-eminently
a fair-haired, blue-eyed people, of robust build and good
stature, and with skulls that were long in shape rather than
broad. They found in our Islands a population which, simi-
larly, was for the most part dolichokephalic, though with
a broad -headed element in Eastern England that had'
remained from the time of the Bronze Age. The Scandi-

The alien question 69

havians — Danes and Norwegians — who began to colonize
Britain and Ireland between the ninth and the eleventh
centuries were also long-headed. In stature they were
even taller than the Anglo-Saxons ; they were blonder
and more uniformly grey-eyed and blue eyed, though
amongst them occasionally appeared dark -haired and dark-
eyed Danes, who still remain as the relics — possibly — of
the Bronze Age peoples in Jutland.

Anglo-Saxon rule over England was rudely upset by
the Norman invasion of 1066. These Normans, who
henceforth became the aristocratic caste in England, Wales,
Southern Scotland, and Ireland, were themselves a very
composite type — perhaps the finest and handsomest human
development that history has known, the culmination of
the White man. They consisted of a blend of Scandi-
navian, Frank, and Romanized Kelt ; indeed, they repre-
sented in themselves once again the principal strands of
the British people. They brought with them a Latin
civilization and a dialect of the French language. They
made our English tongue what it is to-day, a speech
mainly of Germanic stock but stuffed with Greek and Latin
words, either derived through the Norman French or by
the direct and artificial action of the Latin schoolmen.
The Normans conquered Ireland, and the conquest was
further carried out by their Angevin successors. The
Crown of England had passed from the family of William
the Norman to the descendants of Fulke of Anjou, which
meant that the Royal Family of Britain and Ireland was
of much more French stock, had more of the aboriginal
Iberian and Alpine elements in its composition, than its
predecessors from Normandy. The English King ruled
on both sides of the Channel, and his domain in France
extended to Gascony, with the result that many adventurers
of Basque, Iberian, Auvergnat stock came to England and
founded great families, whose blood percolates through all
our English, Scottish, and Irish aristocracy.

The French Kings of England were practical men, and
found both England and Ireland in a state of very imperfect
civilization as regards the arts and industries. They noted
the remarkable civilization of Belgium and South Holland,
and imported during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries hundreds, even thousands, of Flemish artisans,
artificers, agriculturists, stock-breeders, and planted them
in colonies throughout the coast regions of Wales, of East

yo EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

Anglia, and Southern England. A trend of colonization
also from France had set in with the advent of William
the Norman, which scarcely ceased until Tudor times. A
century or so before the first Tudor — the first really British
— dynasty ruled over England and Ireland, Italians had
begun to come here in search of employment : men full
of new and brilliant ideas, especially as regards naviga-
tion. One of these Italian families — the Cabots — induced
Henry VII to supply ships and money for a great over-
sea adventure — the crossing of the Atlantic to find North
America. The Genoese had already led British commerce
by the hand into the Levant, and right across the Levant
to Persia and Central Asia. Venetians and Genoese, alike,
in their bitter rivalry with Spain and Portugal, egged on
the English in Tudor times to establish trading stations
on the coast of West Africa and in Turkey. In Tudor
times we had no British portrait -painters, few, if any, British
goldsmiths or artificers in the precious metals. We
imported and employed in these capacities Italians (" Lom-
bard Street "), who in course of time became British citizens
and founded English-speaking families.

In the seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries came
the invaluable French Huguenots from Western France and
Southern France, and some of our most distinguished British
citizens at the present day are of French descent on one
side. Several of the leading industries of Belfast were
founded and are still conducted by men bearing French
names. French names, indeed, not only of Norman and
Angevin descent but of much more recent origin, stud
the Army lists and the Navy rolls, the Indian and Diplomatic
services, and stand out prominently in the achievements of
British science.

The very wars between Britain and Spain and the alliance
between England and Portugal during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries brought numerous Spaniards and
Portuguese to our coasts, either as shipwrecked mariners,
prisoners of war, or voluntary exiles. Many of these
remained. Many of them stimulated British enterprise
across the seas. Most of them founded British families.
More Spanish and Portuguese names were implanted in
our country by the readmission of the Jews into England
under Oliver Cromwell. The result of this action, which
perhaps chiefly took effect during the eighteenth century,
was the inclusion amongst British names of the Basevi,

THE ALIEN QUESTION 71

the Souzas, the Disraelis, or the Lopezes, and the almost
innumerable patronymics of Spain, Portugal, Venice, and
Northern Italy which appear in the political and industrial
annals of Great Britain, which stand out so prominently in
the scarcely written history of the British West Indies (where
the Jews ever and again acted as unacknowledged inter-
mediaries between Spain and England) . Readers of this
book scarcely need to be reminded that during the latter
part of the sixties and much of the seventies the United
Kingdom and the British Empire were virtually ruled by
a Jew of Venetian descent, hailing farther back still from
Spain ; and this great Jew — Benjamin Disraeli — who left
a lasting mark on the history of Britain and of the world,
was encouraged and partly saved from financial anxiety by
the generosity of a Jewess of Portuguese descent (Mrs.
Brydges Williams).

William of Orange conquered Ireland and established
himself as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, chiefly
with the aid of Dutch troops and Dutch generals, whom
he made peers of the United Kingdom. He introduced
many Dutchmen into the British service and into the British
aristocracy, where their names figure prominently. Queen
Anne, like her great-grandfather James I, had a Danish
consort, whose residence here attracted a few Danish
followers, the descendants of whom still spell their names
-sen instead of -son. George I, and for a short period
George II, imported thousands of German soldiers to main-
tain them on the British throne. All through the eighteenth
and the first half of the nineteenth century the influx of
Germans, due to the German origin and relationships of
our dynasty, was most noteworthy and vastly beneficial to
the home and imperial progress of the United Kingdom. I
have said in other books that it is not easy to write a
well -packed page of the history of the British Empire with-
out bringing in a German name — if one is to write that
history truthfully. A German accompanied as second-in-
command the great Alexander Mackenzie when he crossed
the Dominion of Canada from east to west and planted
the British flag on the Arctic Ocean and on the Pacific
Coast. Germans figure quite as much as English, Scottish,
and Irish pioneers in the opening up of South Africa, in
the discoveries of India, in British East Africa, in British
West Africa, in Australia, in New Zealand, and in Tropical
America.

72 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

The nineteenth century saw Britain becoming the home
of many a political refugee — Hungarian, Italian, Prussian,
Badenisch, and Pole. Eccentric some of them might have
been in their political propaganda, but most of them were
brilliant men, who achieved great distinction in our home
or foreign service. Of such a type, for example, was
Antonio Panizzi, who was long at the head of the British
Museum. In our own days thousands of Germans, and
still more thousands of Russian, Polish, and Rumanian
Jews, have come to England to seek peace, a respite from
religious or civic persecution, and a livelihood. A small
proportion of these adventurers have been wicked peoplej,
coming here to develop vile industries, but nine -tenths of
them at least have ultimately proved citizens of distinct
value, from their ideas, from the wealth they have made
and have spent in Britain and on British interests. In
our great Imperial adventures — most of them very splendid,
some of them very shady — German or German Jewish names
figure markedly. One German financier intervened finan-
cially to save Egypt for the British Protectorate. Several
German financiers beguiled timid British statesmen into
the planting of the British flag here, there, and elsewherq
in Africa, even when it frustrated the designs of Imperial
Germany. Prior to the outbreak of this lamentable war,
if any British man of genius wanted to start a new venture
that was literary or dramatic, the opening up of a new
country, the carrying out of a brilliant invention in industry,
in chemistry, in science generally, to whom did he first
appeal ? Usually to a German, and most often to a German
Jew. Facts are facts, however they may be unwelcome at
this and that stage of our national history.

In short, the summing up of this historical survey is
that throughout its known history, from the date of the
existence of Piltdown Man to July 19 14, Britain and Ireland
have not only received colonization from almost all types
of the European peoples, but more than any other part
of Europe they have been enriched, stimulated, built up
into the most magnificent position that any nation has yet
known in the history of the world by a succession of alien
immigrations. The literature of Shakespeare is virtually
international ; the English language is virtually inter-
national, as it has borrowed from more sources than any
other example of European speech. British art and archi-
tecture are international. British science is international.

THE ALIEN QUESTION J$

We are really — we British people — the pick of Europe,
because we have not shut out immigration, because we
have welcomed new-comers and new ideas.

This war, however, has caused a great searching of
hearts. It has been estimated that even since the expul-
sion of most of the Germans we have still in our midst
an alien population of 200,000 — Russian, Polish, Rumanian
in origin mainly, but also Swiss, Swede, Dane, and Italian ;
French, Belgian, and Portuguese. Great Britain and
Ireland still contain, despite the discomforts of the war,
many men and women of United States nationality, but
in this case the distinction between the two peoples is
almost derisory. An Englishman is scarcely a foreigner
in the United States, and to no greater degree is the
American man or woman in Britain. Are we to make
the existence of " friendly " aliens uncomfortable so that
they eventually leave our shores ? Are we to refuse any
more formal naturalization of foreign-born people ? Are
we when the war is over to take special means to prevent
people from other European countries coming here to reside
and do business and perhaps settle down. Some suggest
whilst the war is going on that we should constrain all
men of military age and of friendly foreign nationality
to leave Great Britain and repair to their respective countries
of origin, there to do their duty as soldiers. This seems
an unanswerable proposition, except when special excep-
tion is made for political refugees that might be maltreated
at home, or persons of weak health and poor constitution.
But this temporary measure will not solve the greater
questions of naturalization and future immigration. How
are we to deal with these ?

Mainly on their merits and by no sweeping dictum,
affirmative or negative. A foreigner of worth who has
proved his value to the British community by a sufficient
term of residence and a sufficient creation or importation
of wealth ought certainly to be naturalized if he asks for
the privilege. We should be surprised if our fellow-
subjects who had invested their all of wealth and energy
and talent in the United States (for example) might not
be given naturalization for themselves and their descendants
if they desired it. We know that there are many naturalized
families of British descent in Russia, in France, in Italy,
and in other European countries. But naturalization should
be a carefully considered privilege which is not granted

74 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP,

to any persons who by their poverty or their lack of proof
of sterling qualities are not worth making into British
citizens. However we may sneer at wealth and howevqr
rightly we may insist on the equity of methods by which
wealth is attained, we cannot deny that it is a factor of
importance in estimating the value of individuals and races.
Should immigration be continued without much further
restriction when the war is over ? Herein we must be
guided by the rise or fall of our birth-rate, and to some
extent by the nationality, physical and mental qualities of
the immigrants. Theoretically, if we are to write and
interpret history on the lines of truth, we must admit the
enormous indebtedness of the British people in all the
centuries which precede the twentieth to Germany. The
British people in the main is a Germanic people and speaks
a Germanic language. Because Prussia has poisoned
Germany, because there are cruel Bavarian Roundheads,
that is no reason for denying the very great physical and
mental value of the Germanic millions on the Continent
of Europe. Undoubtedly, Germany has been well served
by her special spies established in England, Scotland, and
Ireland prior to 1914, and even cleverly maintained here
in many cases since the outbreak of war. But these in
actual numbers are small in proportion to the honest German
immigrants who, if they did not return to Germany by
expulsion or by patriotism, have maintained a perfectly
honest and upright attitude towards their adopted country.
They have deeply regretted the gulf which now yawns
between Britain and Germany ; a gulf which doubtless
cannot be bridged for another fifty years, and which has
been widened and deepened by the murder of Edith Cavell,
Captain Fryatt, and the passengers of the Lusitanla, the
Falaba, and the innumerable other merchant ships sunk
without warning by German torpedoes, by the hideously
cruel maltreatment of British prisoners of war, and by the
many other unforgivable war outrages of the German
military caste. In the state of public opinion after the
war it may be impossible for a British Ministry to accord
naturalization even to those interned Germans against whom
no accusation of treachery can be brought ; and certainly
until a complete change in German feeling towards Britain
and the British Empire is manifested by a political revolu-
tion against the Hohenzollern dynasty, it would be neces-
sary to discriminate in our immigration laws against

THE ALIEN QUESTION 75

Germans and in favour of the subjects of our present
Allies. But the general question of admitting foreign
immigrants as residents must after the war depend greatly
on the numbers, the birth rate, the prosperity of the British
peoples.

Our attitude towards Germany for the next fifty years, or
even a century, will depend very much on the events of the
next two years. If Germany remains faithful to the
Hohenzollerns to the conclusion of peace and beyond, we
can have no dealings, commercial or international, with
Germany which can possibly be avoided. But as regards
the main question of alien immigration, I would submit
that we should be wiser to continue to leave things as
they are or as they were prior to August 1914 — namely,
carefully to scan all immigrants, to reject those whose
physical constitution, mental ability, and moral history do
not come up to the requisite standard, but to put no obstacle
in the path of those who are likely to prove valuable
citizens. Certainly not from any superstition as to the
existence of any special British race or class ; seeing that
we are compacted of all European types, with a dash of
the Asiatic and even of the African, and that we do not
hesitate to plant ourselves in foreign countries.

But those countries are usually thinly populated for their
size and capacity of food production. We do not want
Great Britain and Ireland to be an ever -open receptacle for
very poor immigrants who will sharpen the struggle for
existence among the poverty-stricken in our own land. We
might even forbid pauper immigration until the social fabric
of Great Britain is so reorganized that poverty, insufficiency
of good food and good housing, and " sweated labour " are
extinct ; and until hours of work are so graded that no
citizenness or citizen is overworked or without a reasonable
proportion of time for education, rest, and recreation. But
I see no reason why our immigration laws should be framed
to keep out from residence, or even from naturalization,
foreigners of good repute, of useful talent, and of sufficient
means.

As to conditions of naturalization1, I think those recently
issued by the Unionist War Committee not unreasonable,
except the last, No. 5. Here they are: —

1. The principle of parentage should be substituted for birth as the basis upon
which British citizenship may be acquired.

2. Seven years' residence in British Dominions before naturalization.

76 EMPIRE AND CITIZENSHIP

3. Renunciation of allegiance by the applicant for naturalization of his
previous nationality.

4. Full disclosure of previous history and business of every applicant for
naturaliza ion.

5. No naturalized person to be eligible for either House of Parliament, or the
Privy Council, or any civil office of the value of more than ^160 per annum.

I believe myself that we have done well for the Empire
and for the United Kingdom hitherto by taking a large view
in regard to this fifth proposition. I really do not know —
nor even much suspect — any instance in which any
naturalized British subject admitted to these high honours
has been false to the trust reposed in him, save in the one
notorious case of Trebich-Lincoln. On the other hand,
enormous benefits to the British Empire have accrued by
the Britannicizing of talented and wealthy foreigners who
have figured in our Parliament and our Privy Council.

I think there ought to be a national discrimination. It
ought to be as easy for a United States citizen to be
naturalized a Briton as for one of us to be naturalized an
American — on the lines of our international penny postage.

NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

CHAPTER V

National Education

By VISCOUNT HALDANE

In the summer of 191 4 humanity met with a staggering
shock. Of a sudden war broke out without parallel in
history for the magnitude of its scope and for the extent
of the values which it threatened. The destruction of life
and property became as ruthless as it was farspread, yet
none of the nations involved paused to look back. It was
for all of them a conflict of ideals and a struggle in which
the individual was forced to realize that the cause was
everything and he himself was nothing. In this titanic
effort the violence and the passion have deflected thought
as profoundly as action.

Such is the situation, and it is one which inevitably
gives rise to new and far-reaching problems. It is already
evident that in the case of each of the nations engaged the
recovery of its old position when the war is over will
depend on the possession of character and of mind, of
resolution in action and capacity in thinking. It is to
the development of these among the peoples they guide
that the national leaders may be called on after the war
to devote their first thoughts. In the struggle to excel
in this development the various nations will compete, and,
if success in the competition is to be attained, concentra-
tion and resolute effort will be essential. In this country
we dare not let time slip by without taking action, if it
be only in the direction of clearing our thoughts as to
the course we must adopt. For it is certain that without
much preliminary thought confusion and vagueness will
result.

For us the interests of the coming generation are all
important. These interests will be profoundly dependent

8o NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

on the way in which we educate those to whose hands we
shall in the course of nature have to transfer the torch.
The planning of such education is like the planning of
a campaign. It requires what may be called General
Staff work of a high order, for without this preliminary
work indecision and waste will be inevitable. We have
been unwilling witnesses in the course of the present
war to the advantages which are attained when a body
of picked military thinkers have for long years been set
aside and segregated from all direct concern with
administration and business, in order that they might
devote themselves to the organization of armies and to
strategical objects towards which the instruments made for
the accomplishment of these objects could be directed.
Such work implies the study of possible campaigns far in
advance, and systematic elaboration of the methods for
their prosecution when decided on. It has not been our
strongest point to concentrate on thinking ahead in war,
or, for that matter, in affairs of a different kind. We
are a good deal better in this respect than we used to
be. But other countries have been developing the habit
yet more rapidly than we have. Those who seek to plant
ideas here and to water them find that what is planted is
of disappointingly slow growth, and that its life is apt to
prove precarious. To induce a permanent habit of reflec-
tion and to render it useful is no easy task in these islands,
where what Matthew Arnold long ago called " inaptitude
for new ideas " is a general defect.

This inaptitude prevails in education not less than in
other subjects. It is true that if we turn back to what
Matthew Arnold himself and other educational reformers
wrote half a century ago we shall see, by comparison with
the state of matters to-day, that much has been accom-
plished ; indeed, most of what they asked for. The Act
of 1870 gave us a general and compulsory system of
elementary education. The Act of 1902 extended the
organization of this system and much improved it, by
rendering it possible to get free from a technical rule
which limited what could be legally taught in the national
schools. In Scotland the Education Act passed still more
recently in 1908 has carried the process a stage further,
with the result that instruction of a secondary type is more
widely provided there than it is south of the Tweed.
Again, an immense advance has been made throughout

NATIONAL EDUCATION 81

Great Britain in the development of technical education.
Much of it is given in special schools and institutions,
but even in the ordinary schools, both public and private,
there is increasing recognition of its value and provision
of facilities. Then there has been a marked extension of
the activities of the teachers in the Universities. Oxford
and Cambridge have opened their doors to the movement
for recognizing Applied Science as among subjects which
may be of a true University type. But still more striking
has been the establishment of the new Universities. Of
these there is at last a considerable number in existence.
What used to be merely University Colleges, institutions in
great cities of interest only to a comparatively small section
of the community and inadequately endowed and supported,
have been developed into Universities with a high place
in the city life and with resources in all cases largely
increased. At the outset there was a good deal of oppo-
sition to the effort to get this done. There was much
talk of the danger of Lilliputian Universities and of low
standards of teaching and examination. But this question
was brought to trial by the State before a very high
tribunal, and a firm decision was given in favour of the
principle. It is remarkable, as showing how slight has
been the public interest in education, that the newspapers
hardly noticed and did not report the proceedings which
took place before the Special Committee of the Privy
Council which conducted a semi-judicial inquiry into this
subject in the end of 1902. The occasion was the petition
of Liverpool for a charter of incorporation as a University
for the University College. The petition was keenly
opposed by the supporters of the old Victoria University.
This was little more than an Examining Board at Man-
chester which granted degrees to the students of several
colleges in the North of England, for whose students it
conducted external examinations, without controlling the
colleges or influencing the atmospheres in which these
students were educated. The question was whether for
this type of so-called Federal University there should be
substituted in Liverpool and Manchester teaching Univer-
sities, where the degrees might be given locally by those
who had watched the records as well as the examination
papers of the undergraduates. The opposition was of an
influential character. It came from men some of whom
afterwards, when the new Universities had at last come

82 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

into existence, threw themselves whole-heartedly on their
side . But the resisting party was large and was at first of a
formidable character. Finally the matter was decided by
a very remarkable Committee of the Privy Council which
sat and heard counsel and witnesses at length. The late
Duke of Devonshire, then President of the Council, pre-
sided. His colleagues were the ex -Prime Minister Lord
Rosebery, the Secretary for Scotland, Lord Balfour of
Burleigh, Lord James of Hereford, and Sir Edward Fry.
The case made for the petitioners was that under the so-
called Federal system education was being subordinated
to examination instead of examination being used simply
as a means for testing the reality and results of teaching
in an academic atmosphere. After hearing the parties for
three days the Committee took time to deliberate, and
finally, on the ioth of February 1903, a date which should
be recognized as notable in the educational calendar of
this country, an Order in Council was promulgated which
pronounced that the case presented by Liverpool was made
out. The principle was affirmed, and in addition it was
laid down that the step of granting the charters involved
issues of great moment which should be kept in view, and
for the solution of which due preparation should be made,
especially with respect to those points upon which, having
regard to the great importance of the matter, and the
effects of any changes upon higher education in the North
of England, co-operation was expedient between Universities
of a common type and with cognate aims.

The results of thus laying down a great principle soon
became apparent. The old University Colleges in Liver-
pool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield blossomed out into
teaching Universities of the new type, in which the record
of the individual undergraduate counted for much and his
examination for his degree became, not an end in itself,
but a "means to an end, a test of the fashion in which he
had made use of his opportunities. Nor did matters stop
here. London had, by the University of London Act of
1898, put itself in a position to contemplate the bringing
together of her colleges in a general organization through
the establishment thereafter of a real teaching University.
Mr. Chamberlain had taken time by the forelock and had
obtained a charter under which a teaching University
became established in Birmingham. Bristol followed suit
some years later, and Durham reformed itself by incor-

NATIONAL EDUCATION 83

poration under a new constitution of the colleges of the
neighbouring industrial city of Newcastle. Ireland estab-
lished two new teaching Universities in Dublin and Belfast
respectively, in addition to the old University of Dublin.

Thus in England there were set up what amounted to
six newly constituted Universities, together with two more
that had been largely reconstituted. With the two new
Irish Universities an addition of ten had been made to
the old strength in England and Ireland. Wales had
previously established three colleges and had developed
a little later a University of the federal type. Scotland
had already its four Universities, and St. Andrews had
enlarged its scope by incorporating the University College
of Dundee. Moreover, for all the Universities, excepting
Oxford and Cambridge, which did not desire the inter-
ference of the Treasury, new grants of money were made
by the State, and through the medium of these grants the
so-called Treasury Committee and the Board of Education
began to put pressure towards development on modern lines
in the new English Universities. The effect of this, even
on Oxford and Cambridge, which remained independent,
was presently seen in the new efforts which these older
Universities began to make in the development of their
teaching in Science. In other places, such as Reading,
University Colleges began to grow up. Besides all this,
under stimulus from the Board of Education grants, an
improvement took place both in the number and in the
quality of the technical schools and institutions throughout
the country. In London an entirely new departure was
made by the establishment of the Imperial College of
Science and Technology, an institution which in many points
resembled the great technical college at Charlottenburg,
which is a rival institution to the University of Berlin.

The foundations which had been laid for London by the
Act of 1898 remained, however, to be built on, and this
necessity was recognized in the appointment of a Royal
Commission which, after four years of investigation, and
the examination of numerous witnesses, not only from this
country, but from France, Germany, and America, reported
in 19 1 3. The Report was an effort to lay down a policy
for a really great teaching University in the metropolis
of the Empire. The details of this policy and the scheme
which it recommended for developing the teaching side
of the University were based on certain general principles

84 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

formulated in Part II of the Report. The essence of these
principles was that " while the power of granting degrees
is one of the chief characteristics of all Universities it is
not the real end of their existence. The University fulfils
its end for the nation and the world partly by the advance-
ment of learning, but partly also by sending out into many
of the different paths of life a constant stream of men
and women who have been trained by its teaching and
influenced by its life. The object of going to a Univer-
sity is or ought to be to obtain a University education,
and the degree ought to signify that this end has been
attained. It is required for practical purposes as the sign
and guarantee of a University education."

Substantial progress has been made in the development
of great University Colleges in London of late years. The
Imperial College, already referred to, and the expansion
of the Bedford College for Women are notable examples
of additions that have been made. But until the work of
the various colleges has been adjusted so as not to overlap
unduly, and has been brought under the common direc-
tion of a real governing body on which the teachers have
a proper place, points on which the Report of the Royal
Commission insisted, the work of providing London with
an adequate system of University education will not have
been accomplished.

It is time to return from what is an illustration of the
general problem as it confronts us in practice to the
character of the problem itself. And here we come face
to face with a difficulty of great magnitude, the virtual
exclusion of the democracy as it is to-day from almost
every chance of pursuing learning.

How far can education of the University type be made
available for the general mass of our population ? It is
no doubt possible to give the chance of obtaining it to
nearly all exceptionally endowed boys and girls. Already
a good deal has been accomplished in this direction by
means of scholarships, and a good deal more is possible.
But at the best this part of the " educational ladder " will
remain very narrow. The great majority of children, thanks
to the policy of compulsion adopted in 1870, now obtain
an elementary education. But for the vast majority educa-
tion stops soon after the age of thirteen is attained. A
good many then proceed to forget most of what they
have learned. When I was in charge of the War Office

NATIONAL EDUCATION 85

I found that a surprising number of recruits could not
read or write. The reason was, not that they had not
learned, but that they had forgotten what they had once
learned. We put this right by seeing to the re-education
of our recruits. But the number was significant. It was
due to the fact that only a small proportion of our popu-
lation continue their education after leaving the Elementary
School. In England out of about 2§ millions of boys
and girls between twelve and sixteen nearly 1,100,000 do
not go to school at all. But this is not the worst. A
large proportion of those who do go only for a brief part
of the period between twelve and sixteen, the bulk of
those who attend being made up of boys and girls who
continue till thirteen or fourteen at the Elementary School.
Only about a quarter of a million attend at proper
Secondary Schools, and these do not by any means remain
there during the whole of the four years. About 390
out of every thousand between thirteen and sixteen get no
further education at all, and the bulk of the others get on
the average very little. In Scotland the state of things
is rather better, only some 280 out of every thousand
between these years getting no further education.

When we pass to the age between sixteen and twenty -
five what we find is of course much worse. Out of about
5,850,000 young persons in England and Wales between
these years of age about 5,350,000 get no education, while
93,000 receive a full-time training during some part of
the period, and some 390,000 get part-time instruction.
In Scotland the proportion of those educated is again rather
better. Whereas in England 917 out of every thousand
get no education during this period, in Scotland 832 is
the corresponding number. In England 18,000 enter
University institutions (including Agricultural Colleges), in
Scotland, with a relatively small population, the entries are
7,700. While only three per thousand of those between
sixteen and twenty-five get some kind of training of a
University type in England, nearly ten in each thousand
get it in Scotland. The figures I have given are of course
only approximate, but they have been arrived at after careful
examination by competent investigators.

It is thus apparent that the vast majority of our popu-
lation are not systematically educated at all after leaving
the Elementary School. In days like these, and with a
struggle for international supremacy in the application of

86 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

knowledge to practical life threatening us, the fact is a
deplorable one. For it means that if we are to enter on
a competition, not with Germans only but with other nations
also, after this war is over we shall compete at a dis-
advantage. It also means that we are not giving our
democracy a proper chance of supplying from its vast
reservoir of undeveloped talent the help we require. We
are as a nation neglecting the most obvious methods for
bringing the fittest to the front.

I have already pointed out that in the development of
our system of University education a great deal has been
accomplished since the commencement of the present
century. The educational authorities have done their best
among a people deficient in ideas and in interest in educa-
tion. I should add that in the development of our higher
technical schools in particular much has been brought about.
In the industrial centres opportunities for technical learn-
ing have been of late years provided on a very large
scale. The Board of Education in England and Wales
and the Education Department in Scotland have accom-
plished much. In Ireland too the same process has been
operative in a somewhat different form. It is instructive
to watch the tendency to bring the higher forms of these
schools into relation with the neighbouring Universities.
Germany, in the opinion of some of her most competent
authorities, has suffered by a sharp separation of the
Technical College from the University, a result which is
due to the principle on which her great system of secondary
schools, the preliminary places of training for her students
of University age, has been split up into systems of
Gymnasia, Real Gymnasia, and Real-Schulen. So com-
petent a critic as the late Professor Paulsen has, I think,
dwelt on this mistake. Fortunately, we are showing a
decided tendency to avoid the error. Education as a great
factor in life is one and indivisible. That is why a Univer-
sity like Cambridge is now going to considerable lengths
in extending the ambit of the education which it provides
to instruction in technical matters of a kind which would
be looked upon in Germany as belonging to a different
type of institution. In Manchester and Glasgow two great
technical colleges are being brought into close relations
with the Universities of these cities. And the same
tendency is apparent elsewhere.

The last thing that I wish to do is to give my fellow-

NATIONAL EDUCATION 87,

countrymen the impression that I would have them follow
where the German spirit leads. We have been the witnesses
in these days not only of ethical shortcomings in
the ideas of the leaders of the German nation, but of
sheer intellectual failure to comprehend. Germany has not
been intelligent in the things that matter most, any more
than she has been moral. But none the less she possesses
marvellous capacities for organizing, and of these capaci-
ties we should be unwise if we failed to take account,
or to watch what she is about. She is indeed an enemy
from whom there is a good deal to be learned by study
of her methods. I 1

Now I am keenly aware that we are in danger of over-
looking the formidable character of the organization which
Germany will presently bring to bear against us in the
training of those who must be our competitors for indus-
trial supremacy. It is in a region different from that of
which I have just spoken that this danger is greatest.
I refer to that region of instruction after the years of
elementary training have ceased to which I have already
referred earlier. Germany has realized that education in
her great system of Secondary Schools can only be for
the few, and she has set herself to solve the problem of
how to get over this difficulty in a way which is charac-
teristic. We have to watch what she is doing if we are
to avoid being outclassed. We should be very foolish
if we did not watch what she does in the preparation of
artillery. But it is not only in the organization of artillery
that she has shown a dangerous capacity for preparation
in advance. I wish to point out a serious peril to which
our easygoing attitude towards a great problem in educa-
tion is exposing us under present conditions, a problem
over the solution of which Germany, and other countries
also, will try to catch us unprepared in days that are
drawing near.

The sons of all classes in this country who are not
otherwise educated go for the most part to Elementary
Schools, where they are taught till about thirteen on an
average, unless indeed they proceed earlier to a more
advanced place of instruction. The sons of those who
can afford to continue this education go on to Secondary
Schools. Of these the provision in England is wholly
insufficient, but in Scotland it is considerably more ex-
tended. The great majority of the boys who go to the

88 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Secondary Schools remain there only for a year or so,
and of the few that go on by far the greater number stay
only until they are sixteen or seventeen. The parents
who can afford it continue the education of a very small
number of these boys a little longer at the Secondary
School, and then send them to the University.

But the vast majority of boys are the sons of working-
men who cannot afford to keep them after thirteen, an
age at which they may begin to earn. The boys therefore
either enter a factory or some other place of employment,
or they earn a livelihood by doing odd jobs, or in some
occupation which is open to boys only and which leads
to nothing beyond. They may run messages or sell news-
papers or find other miscellaneous employment in what,
so far as preparation for work as adults is concerned, are
blind alleys. Occupation of this kind rarely affords any
training for a higher kind of work, and it usually ends
in a life more or less undirected. It is out of this uncared-
for class that the wastrels of the future emerge. The
hooligan and the young criminal become rife in its
numbers. The waste of potential man -power which might
have strengthened the State is scandalous. For it is a
waste that is not only great but could have been prevented.

Already foreign countries are taking the matter in hand
with varying degrees of vigour, and in this country there
are indications of a coming attempt to grapple with the
problem. The London County Council has made an effort
to organize on lines of their own, but they have been much
hampered by the want of any power of compulsion. In
Scotland the Education Act of 1908 has provided for real
advances in the Scottish system of education. By
section 3 a School Board may provide any form of educa-
tion or instruction which is sanctioned by the Education
Department. By section 7 the duty is imposed on parents
of providing efficient education for their children up to
the age of fourteen. By section 10 it is made the duty
of a School Board to provide continuation classes for the
further instruction of young persons over fourteen with
reference to the crafts and industries practised in the dis-
trict and in certain other industries, as well as in the
laws of health, and to afford opportunities for suitable
physical training. The School Board may further make
bylaws compelling attendance at such continuation classes
up to the age of seventeen. There are also powers, con-

NATIONAL EDUCATION 89

ferred by other sections, for developing secondary educa-
tion, and for reforming the application of educational
endowments.

This remarkable Statute is a good way in advance of
anything that has been enacted in England, and it has the
root of the matter in it. As the result, considerable growth
has taken place. The Act has done something to demon-
strate how much is required in order to set the educational
system in the rest of the country on a proper footing. For
it has exhibited the principle of the obligation of the State
to provide facilities for the further education of that great
mass of the children of the working classes who cannot
proceed, as things at present stand, to the development of
the latent abilities which many of them possess, and which
all of them ought to have the chance of having developed.
The last thing the people of this country are likely to
do at this moment is to look willingly at the example the
people of Germany are setting for the solution of this
problem. But none the less it remains true that we have
to acquaint ourselves with the steps Germany has been
taking in this direction in recent years. For if we fail
to do so we shall fail to prepare ourselves for the shock
of contact with a new instrument of industrial competi-
tion. The trained workman may prove as formidable a
weight in the balance as the improved machine. We
cannot afford to be behind in either.

I therefore turn to the consideration of a new system
which Germany had begun before the war to call into
existence. I make the preliminary observation that I have
no desire to see this country slavishly copy German insti-
tutions. All I am anxious about is that we should realize
what is going on abroad, not merely in Germany but in
Austria also, and to some extent in France and the United
States. I will take the German prototype as my illus-
tration, because it is, or was before the war, being rapidly
developed. We must work out our own educational
salvation in our own way, but this we cannot accomplish
unless we provide ourselves with full knowledge of what
we have to guard against in advances that are being made
by our rivals.

The most definite attempt made in any country at a

thorough organization of the continuation school on lines

adapted to the necessities of special trades is that carried

j out in various parts of Germany on the inspiration of

90 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Dr. Kerschensteiner, the Director of Education in Munich.
The problem to be faced was how to find something better
than the old general continuation school for the boys and
girls who left the primary school at fourteen. Dr.
Kerschensteiner is a man with many fine ideals. In his
writings I have never come across a trace of the influ-
ence of writers such as Nietzsche or even Treitschke. On
the contrary, his books are full of insistence on the necessity
of genuine ethical ideals. "Instruction," he says ("The
Schools and the Nation," English Translation, p. 13), "in
matters of moral import is ineffective everywhere when it
is not combined with practical exercise or custom. In
this point of exercise and custom the public schools of
England and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge are
far in advance of us. We Germans always believe that
we can effect all school education by means of explana-
tions, by words or books, through mere lectures and
addresses of all kinds. That is certainly the most con-
venient and the cheapest method of public education. It
is, moreover, not quite fruitless, provided that the seeds
fall on a mind well prepared by home or other influences.
When this is not the case, however, the method is of little
value. The training of a people demands more. It must
accustom the boys and girls to direct, as far as their
nature allows, not only their thoughts and feelings but
also their actions in all critical positions towards the service
of common interests. But this only takes place through
work, through real practical work, whether in a school
organization or in practical life. ... I should like, there-
fore, to state the problem of popular education in this
form : it is the systematic training and organization of
the people to take pleasure in active constructive work for
the common good."

The author of " The Schools and the Nation " places
highest, of course, the education which proceeds through
the Secondary School to its culmination in University life.
But his problem is how to make the principle just stated,
which underlies this as well as all other forms of educa-
tion, apply to the education of the sons and daughters of
the working class. They cannot continue their education
after fourteen unless it be through the medium of special
training in their own calling, training which will pay for
itself. Can such training be so organized as at once to
produce, when adult life is reached, industrial efficiency

NATIONAL EDUCATION 91

of high value to the individual and the State, and at the
same time a real educational value ?

The method actually adopted in Germany for the solution
of this problem is the substitution of the special trade
continuation school for the old general continuation school,
and the making of such education compulsory up to
eighteen. The future workman is asked on leaving the
elementary school or before that time to choose a trade.
He then enters the service of an employer in that trade.
He works as an apprentice at a low wage. But the
employer is bound by law to send him to the appropriate
special trade school for about nine hours altogether in
each week. In that school the boy or girl is taught the
trade. But the teaching of the trade gives various oppor-
tunities for imparting knowledge of a wider kind. In
Munich, just before the war, the population of 600,000
included between 9,000 and 10,000 apprentices. These
were in compulsory attendance at separate trade continua-
tion schools for eight to ten hours a week, taken out of
working hours. There were fifty-six of these separate trade
schools. The number was not so formidable as it looks,
for a good many schools were housed together in one
building and the cost of running them was not large.
Of the fifty-six special trade schools seventeen were de-
voted to metal -work. They included instruction for smiths
and fitters for the building trades, art smiths, machine -
builders, craftsmen in delicate machine and mechanical
work, mechanics, fine mechanics, and also for gunsmiths,
smiths and wheelwrights, jewellers, gold and silver workers,
plumbers, gas, water, and electric light fitters, and metal
spinners, clock and watchmakers, and tinsmiths. For wood
working there were seven schools, which provided for future
carpenters and cabinet-makers, wood turners, coopers and
cask makers, and sculptors in wood and ivory. Then there
were for the building trades seven schools. These provided
for bricklayers and carpenters, sculptors in stone, stucco
workers and stonemasons, potters, stone setters, workers in
porcelain and earthenware, upholsterers, painters, decorators
and paperhangers, decorative painters, chimney-sweeps,
glaziers, painters on glass, porcelain, and enamel. For
the graphic trades there were four schools, for litho-
graphers, photographers, half-tone zinc engravers, book
printers, and compositors. For the food and provision
trades there were six schools, for bakers, butchers, con-

92 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

fectioners, wine and restaurant keepers. For the clothing
trades there were four schools, extending to shoemakers,
tailors and furriers, hairdressers and wigmakers, tanners
and glovemakers. For agriculture and the vehicular trades
there were two schools, which included gardeners, cab and
taxi-cab drivers. For paper and leather work there were
two schools, providing for bookbinders and cardboard
workers, saddlers, trunkmakers, and glovers. For shop-
keepers there were two schools, extending to druggists,
grocers, colourmen, and other businesses. There were also
schools for musicians, clerks, and others who had elected
for work which was not of the artisan type. A school
was grouped out of not less than twenty apprentices. These
figures I [have taken from Dr. Kerschensteiner's own book.
But there is a great deal of further information on the
subject in another valuable work, " The Problem of the
Continuation School," by Messrs. Best and Ogden, which
is based on personal investigation. This book explains
more fully than Dr. Kerschensteiner's work does how the
boys are induced to select a trade, and why, in a city of
600,000 inhabitants like Munich, all but 8 per cent, of
the boys go straight from the elementary schools to definite
trades. The reason is that in the eighth year of educa-
tion in the elementary school the boy of thirteen goes to
an " eighth -year class," in which he is taken to the work-
shops of the special trade schools and is there encouraged
to form a taste for a special kind of work. Those that
do not so elect go to a general continuation school. The
outcome has been that rather less than 8 per cent, choose
no trade or go to "blind alley" occupations. "The
children," writes Dr. Kerschensteiner, whom the authors
quote, " had tasted the joy of solid practical work, and
the shunning of skilled occupation was at an end." It
appears that the mode of attraction is the creative work
which they are allowed to initiate and occupy themselves
with in the laboratories and workshops of the trade schools.
The teachers look after and help them, but they are left
free as much as possible. When they enter an apprentice-
ship this takes the form of an undertaking that they shall
be taught their trade, and the " taught " worker is reckoned
higher socially than the untaught. The obligation of the
employer is of a very general and varying kind, yet it is
carried out. It may last for twelve months or it may
extend to four years, But the employer has to do what

NATIONAL EDUCATION 93

he has bargained to do, and may be fined if he fails. The
conclusion of the period of apprenticeship entitles the young
workman, if he has been satisfactory in school and factory,
to a certificate that he is a qualified journeyman. Later
on he may attain to the status and certificate of a master
workman. The trade guild looks after all these matters
in each trade and locality. The distinction aimed at
throughout is one between those who are " untaught " —
i.e. exploited for the gain of the employer — and those who
are " taught " — i.e. prepared with a view to gain for the
community .

The case of a young brassworker may be taken as illus-
trating the system. He has to attend the special school
for four years, during the first three for seven hours a
week, and during the last for eight hours. His education
in his special trade school includes trade arithmetic and
book-keeping, business composition essays and reading,
citizenship, sensible living and hygiene, information about
trades, goods, and tools, drawing and practical work.
Religious instruction is also given. For the first two years
no practical work is taught in the school, for the scholar
is learning in the workshop. In the last two years he
gets two or three hours of practical work of a higher
grade than he is likely to get in the workshop where he
is employed. The hygienic instruction takes the form not
only of special instruction in hygiene, but also of gymnastics
and suitable games.

As to the cost, Messrs. Best and Ogden report that while
Birmingham, with 830,000 inhabitants, spends £777,000
a year on its schools, Munich, with its 600,000 inhabitants,
spends £600,000 altogether. The employers give a
good deal of assistance in kind, considering that it pays
them to do so. The result, according to the authors of
:' The Problem of the Continuation School," appears to
bear this out. "We saw," they say (p. 13), "youths
making scale -balances for laboratory work (those square
chemical balances enclosed in a glass case for delicate
weighing) . They made them throughout in the school
(cases, balances, and weights). We saw them at work
adjusting the weights which they had made to the delicacy
of 5 milligrams ; boys from fourteen to eighteen years
of age made one hundred of these scale -balances for their
elementary schools to use in their laboratories. Purchased
in a shop they would cost £3 10s. each, while made in the

94 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

school the cost was only 17s. each. This reminds us of a
Birmingham buyer of such balances who had placed a large
order in Germany, and who declared it was impossible to
place the order in this country at anything like a reasonable
competitive figure."

In the fifty-six trade schools of Munich there are
about 150 teachers exclusively attached to the schools,
and about 300 more who give lessons there in addition to
other work. " The teachers," report Messrs. Best and
Ogden, " are recruited from all kinds of professions and
vocations. Academic and normal school-teachers co-
operate with master workmen, journeymen, artisans, and
agriculturists, and they exert an excellent influence on each
other. The artisan, the master, and the journeyman learn
to respect the schoolmaster, and the schoolmaster learns to
respect the master workman, who is engaged with him
on the same educational problem." The authors lay stress
on a feature which they appear to have observed particu-
larly. "Teaching in drawing and arithmetic is carefully
associated with practical instruction. Nothing is drawn
that has not been made in the workshop. Thus the drawing
is made interesting even to the boy who has no particular
impulse to attempt it. Moreover, any process in work or
construction is followed out by figures. It is by making
out estimates and bills that the pupil learns the significance
for cost of production of the material used and the time
expended. After the same fashion principles in physics
and chemistry, so far as the work illustrates them, are
taught and made interesting. Indeed, it is part of the
general system of teaching to use every opportunity of
stimulating interest in wider kinds of knowledge, within
sight of which the pupil is brought in the course of his
practical work."

In his book on " Education and Social Progress "
Dr. Morgan, the Principal of the Provincial Training
College in Edinburgh, has drawn attention to the difference
between compulsory continuation classes and trade schools
strictly so called. In the latter the young worker is taughlt
from the foundation all the departments of work in a certain
trade or skilled occupation, including the use of all the
hand and machine tools required for the processes involved.
In schools of this special character the entire apprentice-
ship is carried out, and the classrooms resemble workshops.
Now it is obvious that such schools, although they do

NATIONAL EDUCATION 95

exist in Germany and elsewhere, can never be numerous.
The cost and complication are prohibitive, and they cannot
be made a general substitute for apprenticeship. They
may, as Dr. Morgan points out, be necessary for a few
special crafts. But, as he truly adds, for the great mass of
workers what is really wanted is "a well -developed day
continuation school system for the various trades, with a
thorough mutual understanding as to the part of the train-
ing to be done by the school and workshop respectively."
It is upon this ideal that Germany seems to have concen-
trated. Dr. Morgan observes that in twelve of the States
which make up the Germanic Empire every apprentice has
to attend a continuation school for from six to eleven
hours a week during the whole period of his apprentice-
ship or until the completion of his eighteenth year, and his
certificate as a journeyman is only granted if he has satis-
fied the necessary educational tests. In ten of the States
there is " local option " regarding continuation school
attendance, and in only four States is attendance voluntary.

It is interesting to learn from Dr. Morgan and from other
sources, that in Edinburgh, where, as I have already stated,
the School Board has taken advantage of the powers con-
ferred by the Act of 1908, the curricula and practical details
of the work in the continuation schools that have been estab-
lished is submitted to consultative committees, consisting
of representatives of employers and employees in the dis-
trict, as well as of the teachers and the educational
authority. There appear to be in Edinburgh about twenty
of these advisory committees, each representing a different
trade .

Lest it should be thought that I am exaggerating the
seriousness of the advance in democratic education which
is taking place abroad, I will quote another set of
observers. And I will quote pretty fully, even at the
risk of repetition, for I am anxious to bring home to
those who do not realize what is taking place abroad its
seriousness for ourselves. I have already mentioned that
the London County Council has set itself to the task of
initiating the new system here. In 19 14, just before the
war, Sir Robert Blair, its Education Officer and a man
of great ability, made a Report, based largely on infor-
mation obtained by Mr. J. C. Smail, the London County
Council Organizer of Education for boys, as to trade and
technical education in France and Germany. This Report

96 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

is a valuable and instructive document. It is published,
and it ought to be studied by those who are concerned
about our deficiencies. Meantime I extract from it what
follows .

Sir Robert Blair begins by saying that the facts and
the observations made by Mr. Smail after visits to Paris,
Munich, Leipzig, and Berlin deserve the most serious con-
sideration, especially those relating to Germany. The
Paris special schools are mainly professional trade schools
which train foremen, leaving these to train the workmen in
the shops ; whereas the German continuation schools sup-
plement apprenticeship and are aiming at the uplifting of
every man in his fourfold aspect of member of his trade,
member of his family, member of the community, and
member of the State. In Berlin, Munich, Leipzig, and
other towns the organized efforts of the State and the
Municipality are reaching nearly every boy and many girls
in a way that would hardly be credited in England, but for
the fact that experienced officers have seen it in opera-
tion. The British method makes the best top. It also
produces the worst tail, and it does not do much for the
general raising of the great mass of workers. It must not
be forgotten that the London evening student makes on
the average fifty hours' attendance per session, while the
German boy makes 240. The German boy must take a
three or four years continuation course ; the English boy
may take as much or as little as he pleases, and 75 per
cent, between fourteen and seventeen either cannot or do
not please even for one year.

Such is the substance of the preliminary observations
of Sir Robert Blair in submitting Mr. Smail's Report on
what he had found on the Continent. I now turn to the
Report itself.

As regards Germany, Mr. Smail found evidence every-
where that she was aiming at building up a great industrial
nation, partly by the thorough training of the leaders as
experts, partly by the training of the middle -grade workers,
such as draughtsmen and foremen, as thoroughly accurate
and careful managers, and partly by the training of all
grades of workmen and mechanics as skilled craftsmen
and good citizens. France, on the other hand, is aiming
at industrial excellence, partly by the training of highly
skilled experts, and partly by the training of those who
should become the best workmen and the best foremen.

NATIONAL EDUCATION 97

This is a good exercise of the power of the State, but it
is not so systematic or thorough as the German method.
Our own method, on the other hand, is individualistic. We
aim in Great Britain at providing individual excellence,
partly by offering avenues of training and chances for
willing and persevering workmen to climb the industrial
ladder. "It is necessary," says Mr. Smail, " to bear these
ideals in mind while considering any organization for
technical education, for, while these ideals have probably
not been expressed, their influence has undoubtedly been
behind the progress made. The German ideal may be
termed the long view which must eventually lead the
German nation to and maintain it in a foremost place as
an industrial world power. The British method may be
regarded as more philanthropic than patriotic ; the ideal
is admirable, but the bulk of the nation's workers are
not catered for by this ideal, and on the bulk of the
workers much of the material prosperity of a nation must
depend." Mr. Smail observes that expenditure on extended
educational effort may be regarded and justified as a
national investment, for the character and capacity of its
people is the nation's greatest asset.

In order, he says, to appreciate the character of the
German effort it is necessary to bear in mind the pro-
vision that Germany has already made for the training of
the professional experts in the Universities, Technical High
Schools (another form of teaching of a University type),
and other special institutions. There are in that country,
as he points out in an appendix, twenty-two Universities
and eleven Technical High Schools, in addition to three
Mining Academies, four Forestry Academies, four Agri-
cultural High Schools, five Veterinary High Schools, six
Commercial High Schools (somewhat resembling, I
believe, the London School of Economics, which was
a pioneer institution), sixteen Academies of Art, and
eleven Academies of Music. The total of these teaching
institutions of a University or post -secondary type is eighty-
two, and they educate on an average 82,000 fully
qualified and 22,000 other students. In addition to
those in the list above given there are other schools
for Administration, Medicine, etc. The German plan
of thus training leaders has contributed much to clearing
the way " for a closer scrutiny of the middle and lower
technical and trade problems of education. As a result

98 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

the educational world in Germany is in a state of intense
vitality in the solution of the lower technical problems."
In these matters the United States are profiting by a study
of the German example, and we are threatened from that
side of the Atlantic with new movements.

One of the things which the Kerschensteiner method
promises to accomplish is the solution of the apprentice-
ship question. Germany has dealt with this matter by
law ; in France and England it has lapsed into an un-
satisfactory condition. "There is," says Mr. Smail, "an
organized system by means of which an apprentice is
sheltered by the State during his period of apprenticeship,
and has opportunity for learning his trade in the workshop
under a competent person, as well as securing in the con-
tinuation class a knowledge of the technology of his trade.
The reduction of the period of apprenticeship to four years
is probably a vital factor in the continuance of the system.
The British schemes, which require five, and in some cases
seven, years of apprenticeship, are not generally drafted
in the interests of the boy, but rather to secure a limita-
tion in entry to the trade. It is not always the case that
apprentices are placed under the charge of some one com-
petent and willing to teach them the trade. Further, boys
are generally allowed to pick up the technology of their
trade as they themselves may please. The number who
do this seriously from the beginning of their apprentice-
ship is extremely small."

Turning to the demand for unskilled boy labour in great
cities, which is always considerable, the Report quotes Dr.
Cooley, of Chicago, as estimating that the proportion of
unskilled boy workers is in Munich 10 per cent., in Berlin
40 per cent., in London 68 per cent., and in Chicago
85 per cent. But, then, in Germany unskilled boy workers
are required to attend general continuation classes, and
separate courses are provided for them, and they pass
gradually into skilled trades. By consulting the necessi-
ties of the employers Berlin manages to secure an adequate
attendance at continuation classes of about 90 per cent.
of the toys. The Report proceeds to give a striking
instance of the way in which vocational instruction of this
character is used as a medium for a more general educa-
tion. The apprentices to the boot and shoe makers in
Munich are taught the position of the whole trade in
Germany, its localization, size and growth ; the character

NATIONAL EDUCATION 99

of the manufactured materials in use and their origin ; the
imports and exports and output of foreign countries, with
diagrams and curves which the teacher makes interesting
by concrete explanation, concrete questions being shown
to turn on principles of general application. It concludes
by saying that a solution of the apprenticeship problem
may be looked for with the aid of definitely organized
compulsory continuation classes. It warns the public here
that Germany is systematically training the whole nation in
different ways for different spheres, and that the effect of
this in a generation will have far-reaching consequences.

The conclusion to which the story that I have
endeavoured to record points is that the new century
is witnessing the development of a fresh phase in educa-
tion, a phase which is likely not only to add to the
practical efficiency and power of the working classes, but
to afford the hope of at least partially redressing the in-
justice to which they have hitherto been subjected by
having the avenues to general knowledge and education
closed early in life. There are probably yet more possibili-
ties latent in vocational training than either we or even the
foreign nations, which in this matter are in advance of us,
have yet discovered. Even if a certain lowering of educa-
tional ideals were involved by such training it would still
be better to have something substantial than the alternative
which in practice is nothing at all. But it is far from clear
that lowering of ideals is implied. The new movement
which owes so much to the Workers' Educational Associa-
tion, and the devoted labours of men like Mr. Mansbridge,
and the stimulus which the new movement is receiving
from University extension classes, show that the atmosphere
in which training is given may be purified from materialism
and rendered of a high quality. It is to the continuation
of these movements, in the last mentioned of which this
country is in the van of progress, that we have to look
for the solution of one of the greatest problems of our
time. For it is not too much to say that on the level of
intelligence in the working classes of this country and
on the capacity for initiative which seminal ideals alone
can give depend much of our prospects in the future.
That was why the Royal Commission on University Educa-
tion in London recommended (in paragraphs 409, 410,
and 411 of its Report, and in the final scheme set out at
page 207) that the University -extension tutorial classes

ioo NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

conducted in connection with the Workers' Educational
Association should be developed, and a centre provided
in the Goldsmith's College, where the most inspiring
teachers could lecture, and where debates and social
meetings could be held. " At first," the Report said, "no
doubt the classes of the Workers' Educational Association
were devoted to a study of those sides of history and
theory which seemed to bear most closely upon the needs
and difficulties of the worker in the modern industrial State.
That was right and proper, for men and women of adult
years, not less than younger students, will do their best
work where their interests lie. Already, however, a
demand is growing up for courses in literature and other
subjects of value for their time of leisure, and we believe
this demand will grow, until the students of the Workers'
Educational Association will realize one of the greatest
truths a University can enforce, the essential unity of know-
ledge. We think the University should consider the work
it is doing for these men and women one of the most
serious and important of its services to the Metropolis."

In order to cover the main ground in this review of
the advantages and disadvantages to which the nation is
subjected by reason of the condition of our system of
education, it is necessary to glance at certain other features
of that system. A national system it is not—that is to say,
it is not a system fashioned in the light of a general
and dominating conception of a whole, a thought-out and
comprehensive purpose which has throughout been kept
in view. Our system has grown up sporadically. This
has not been due to the want of would-be reformers who
knew what they sought after. It has been due to the
want of ideas in the nation itself. No political leaders can
get far forward without a certain receptivity to work upon,
and this receptivity has been wanting. The great bulk
of our people, well to do as well as poor, have hitherto
been indifferent to effort at educational reform in a large
sense. Perhaps this world crisis, with the practical and
sharp lessons which it is teaching, may awaken us, and
convince the country that it is on the quality of its own
workers, and on nothing short of that, that it must rely
if it is to hold its own. We have been too much in the
habit of acting as though form could be divorced from
substance, and wisdom be embodied in a few epigrams.
The type of mind on which the older Universities have

NATIONAL EDUCATION 101

set most store has tended to develop this shortcoming.
Our future rulers are trained admirably in the old Univer-
sities for the forum and the senate. For concentration
on organization and method they have not been adequately
trained. Parliament is a mirror in which this shortcoming
has been reflected, and Cabinets in their turn have reflected
the mind of Parliament.

One of the most serious deficiencies in our system is
to be witnessed in the condition of the secondary schools.
What I jefer to are the schools in which our middle classes
are mainly educated or ought to be so. The great Public
Schools have no doubt marked deficiencies. Of these much
has been heard, and more is likely to be heard hereafter.
But the Public School system of training the boys who
attend them to rule themselves and so learn to rule others
later on has excited a good deal of admiration on the
Continent. There is nothing in either France or Germany
quite comparable to this system of training, and foreigners
are well aware of it. What I am really referring to is
the secondary school of a less well -understood type, the
type of the school on which the bulk of the middle classes
have to rely. The school of this type has been little
looked after by the State, and there is no clear view of
its function. The Education Act of 1902 has rendered
a great deal of reform possible by the establishment of
new authorities with wider functions than the old School
Boards. But even in this direction much remains to be
accomplished before it can be hoped that a united and
harmonious effort will be made throughout the country.
Then, again, no adequate provision exists for freeing educa-
tional endowments from the grasp of the " dead hand,"
often maintained for a period far exceeding that which
the law against perpetuities allows in the case of private
trusts. An Educational Endowments Commission is
wanted south of the border to do this work, as it
has been done in Scotland. Further, the secondary schools
must be of several types. There ought to be more variety
in these than exists at present, and the grading should
be more distinct. The higher secondary schools ought,
as a definite function, to have the duty of preparing
students for the University. Instead of doing so, they
stop short and leave a gap. The result is that the Univer-
sity is hampered in its work by having to spend much of
its energy in doing the work of preparing the undergraduate

102 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

by preliminary studies for his University training proper.
We are not alone in this respect. In the United States
the difficulty has been felt so deeply that the American
Universities have organized in connection with their work
so-called " colleges," into which the boys from the secondary,
schools go to complete a training which ought to have been
adequately given them. But with us the defect is far
from having been repaired. It used to be strikingly ex-
hibited in Scotland. There the first year at the University
had to be devoted to work which should have been done
in the secondary school. Bu,t of late years the secondary
schools in Scotland have been much developed in quality
and increased in number. The State supervises most of them,
and has instituted a Leaving Certificate which is intended
to be given only to boys and girls who, by their record as
well as by the result of examinations, are shown to be
fit to proceed to the Universities, where the certificate is
a passport to admission to University training properly
so called. In England there has been no parallel develop-
ment. The system of the Leaving Certificate has been
introduced, but only sporadically and not under direct State
supervision. The result is that the test is unequally applied
and is not general.

Now this is hardly due merely to the absence of effort.
It is as much due to the fact that there are far too few
secondary schools, and that many of those that exist are
in a very unsatisfactory condition. One of the most in-
structive volumes that has been issued by the Board of
Education in recent years is the Report of the Consultative
Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools, pub-
lished in 1 9 1 i . This Report contains an exhaustive review
of the situation. It insists on the necessity of far-reaching
reform, if the secondary school system is to be made
adequate to the needs of England. In particular it recom-
mends the introduction of secondary school certificates,
which should take account of the record of the pupils'
schoolwork, and should be a guarantee that the holders
had taken due advantage of the training for a stated period.
The judgment of the teacher and a suitable examination,
under the supervision of an independent examining authority,
should be the tests. It is suggested in the Report that
this authority should, for the present at least, be a repre-
sentative council, on which the Board of Education, the
Universities, the Local Education Authorities, the teachers,

NATIONAL EDUCATION 103

and persons with experience of practical life should be
represented. The Report recommends that there should
be two such certificates, one for pupils who have remained
in the secondary school until sixteen ; the second, a time-
leaving certificate, which should be attainable only by pupils
who have remained on until eighteen or nineteen. The
latter certificate would form the passport, not only to
University life, but to other forms of life, and should
accomplish the end which the State has already sought
to accomplish in Scotland. I doubt whether the Report
goes far enough in its recommendation as to the Examining
Authority. I think that the Board of Education might
now, in view of certain strides which it has been making,
organize the examinations for the certificates directly, using
the help of the Universities largely, and calling to its
aid advisory committees, on which other and necessary
interests would be represented.

It is probable that if effect were given to the main
recommendations of this Report the result would be to
ease the problem of State aid for the secondary schools
in England at once. Now this problem is not only, as
things stand, very, very pressing, but the absence of a
solution is exercising an evil influence in other spheres
than those of secondary education merely. As has already
been pointed out, the Universities are being heavily
hampered in their work by having to divert much of their
energies to preliminary studies which ought to have been
completed in the secondary school. How great an evil
this is any one may see who will turn to the Report of
the Royal Commission on University Education in London,
a Report which deals with this question at large. It is,
further, an important fact that those who are responsible
for regulating entry into the professions and occupations
which require a good standard of preliminary mental train-
ing are, under present circumstances, impeded in the diffi-
cult task of selection by the absence of the individual
guarantee which a reliable certificate of secondary education
would supply.

Our secondary school system is in reality the weakest
part of the educational organization in England. To
realize how short it falls it is only necessary to compare
it with the secondary school system in Germany, which is
the strongest part of the German organization. There the
system is probably carried to excess. What makes the

104 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

German problem comparatively easy is that the German
Freiwilliges Examen exempts the holder from compulsory
military service for more than one year. The certificate
therefore is strenuously sought after and crammed for.
To avoid the crammer the German authorities have laid
stress on the bringing to bear of the opinion of the teacher
and of record in making the test. But the secondary school
in Germany is, notwithstanding efforts made to obviate
the result, a tremendous place of discipline and of mere
book knowledge. The Germans, in consequence, turn their
eyes longingly to features in our great English Public
Schools which they have hitherto been unable to repro-
duce. The ideal for us and for them would be a
combination of the best features of both types of school.

There can be no doubt that the eight or nine years spent
in the German secondary school and the intellectual
discipline which is there instilled have exercised a great
influence, on the whole beneficial, on German University
life. Lehr and Lemfreiheit became possible simply
because the whole of the necessary preliminary training
has been accomplished in the gymnasium. The student,
who as the result of this arrives at the gate of the Univer-
sity some two years older than with us, comes with a
passport in the shape of his certificate, without which he
cannot proceed, and in the light of which the University
can rest satisfied that he is probably fit for training in
the higher atmosphere of the University. In that atmo-
sphere there is little examination and almost less super-
vision. The student is left free to choose his course and
make the most of his time. But when at the end of that
time he presents himself for his degree, he must satisfy
the University authorities that he has used his opportuni-
ties adequately. He must submit a thesis showing some
originality of effort in thought, and he must orally satisfy
his examiners that he has been a student in the real sense.
This at least is the obligation aimed at. The sanction is
not only that if the student fails to obtain his University
degree he will run the risk of finding some at least of
the best avenues in civil life closed to him. His Univer-
sity training is essential as the preparation for another test .
It is the work done during the period of training at the
University that enables him to pass that Staats -Examen,
the portal through which he must pass if he desires to
enter the majority of these avenues.

NATIONAL EDUCATION 105

It seems evident that what is most wanted in England is
a concentration of effort on the development and the reform
of the secondary school system. We have made immense
strides in primary education since the years antecedent to
the Act of 1870. But for secondary education, although
a good deal has been done, and the Education Act of
1902 has been a stimulus, almost everything that. is requisite
remains to be accomplished. Until a real advance has
been made, no satisfactory progress is possible in the direc-
tion of the full development of a complete national system
of education. Quantity and quality are alike deficient. And
until the deficiency is repaired not only elementary educa-
tion, of its full value only in so far as it fills its place in
an entirety reaching beyond itself, but post -secondary
education which depends on what is secondary for its
foundation, will remain imperfect.

It is this imperfection which lies at the root of much
of our national shortcoming in organizing power. Since
the war began, a determined effort has been initiated to
make up something of this shortcoming. A Special
Committee of the Privy Council has been constituted
to superintend and give sanction to the work of a new
Advisory Council. This advisory body has on it repre-
sentatives both of Education and of Science. The object
is to develop the number and quality of those who will
devote their energies to applying science to industry. For
the accomplishment of this object it is necessary, not only
to improve organization in the secondary and technical
schools and the Universities and University Colleges, but
to develop the scholarship system and the necessary
pecuniary facilities for picked students devoting themselves
to post-graduate research. The necessity for a marked
advance if, in industries dependent on science, this country
is to recover lost ground, or even hold what it has now,
is everywhere apparent. To take as an example the
chemical industries in the United Kingdom, there are only
some 1,500 chemists, including analysts, employed in the
whole of these industries. In Germany the four chief
firms in the colour industry alone employ 1,000 research
chemists.

The new Committees are doing valuable and necessary
work. But they do not profess to be able to get at the
root of the problem, which can only be reached by dealing
with the organization of education as a whole. Still, it is

106 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

a great matter that the war has pu,t ideas into our people
which have induced them to take even this step. It can-
not be too firmly insisted on that all proposals for increased
teaching of science in our schools, and for giving it a
more important place in public examinations, useful as they
are in attracting attention to a grave need, merely scratch
the surface so far as real preparation of the ground is
concerned. We know quite well what has to be done,
and forty years ago Matthew Arnold warned the nation
of the consequences of not doing it. To-day there is a
body of experts who have carried on the tradition of his
teaching, and have developed his recommendations. The
field is mapped out. The keenness of the Board of Educa-
tion and of the cognate bodies elsewhere leaves nothing
to be desired excepting the putting into their hands of
the instruments they require. But the difficulty is, what
it always has been, the lack of interest and of ideas among
our people. Ministers are, after all, only the mandatories
of the nation, and if the nation will not give them a
mandate they can make but little progress. For years the
voices of the party of education have been as the voices
of those crying in the wilderness. But, while the older
Universities continue to be ruled by absentees and clergy-
men, and the interest in the other Universities remains
local and not national, higher education cannot flourish.
And it is the indifference which lets this state of things
continue in existence that accounts also for the slow pro-
gress in dealing with our secondary education and in getting
rid of the hindrances caused by religious controversy to the
improvement of our elementary schools. The want of keen-
ness is again due to the want of ideas. Scotland and
Wales have been better in this respect than England, and
as the result they have got more done for them and have
been enabled to do more for themselves. But then among
these peoples there has been diffused something of that
passion for excellence in knowledge which penetrates only
among the few in England. Without the touch of that
passion it would have been hard for them to get the
Scottish Education Act of 1908 and the Welsh Intermediate
Education Act of 1889 out of apathetic Cabinets and
indifferent Parliaments .

In the arts of war and the arts of peace the same thing
is true. We suffer from want of organized intelligence.
The warning as to the consequences has been given again

NATIONAL EDUCATION 107

and again during the last half -century. And those who
know are repeating it now. But if Cabinets are indifferent,
and Parliament is indifferent, and the Press is indifferent,
it is not to be wondered at if the warning turns out each
time to have fallen on deaf ears. And yet in the end the
Cabinets and the Parliaments and the newspapers turn out
to be what the public has made them, and thus it results
that it is to the people themselves that the evangelist must
go with his summons. Pie must tell them that however
easily we may appear to have escaped the consequences
of our own low standard in generations gone by, the present
generation is not one in which a similar escape is prac-
ticable. For other nations have advanced in this very
business of organizing knowledge while we have stood still,
and in material respects they are now ahead of us. And
whether it is Germany that is concerned, or France, or
the United States, or for that matter our own Dominions,
there is only one way in which we can secure our position
in the future, and that is by not being behind these coun-
tries in the organization of knowledge, and above all in
the preparation of that future generation that will have
to carry the national banner. No Protection, no wall of
tariff, will help us if we suffer from this deficiency. Nay,
if taken by themselves and in isolation, they will rather
hinder us, for they will divert our steps into byways from
the straight and narrow path of mental discipline along
which with hard toil of the spirit our coming race must
struggle if it is to attain supremacy and keep it. And
it is not only scientific knowledge that is required. It is
the wider outlook, the deeper insight, that comes of what
is spiritual, even more than from what is purely intel-
lectual. Never was there a time when the preachers were
more needed by the teachers. Can the Churches but rise
to it they have one of the greatest opportunities of leading
that has ever come to them. For there is a disposition
everywhere, a disposition which the tremendous event of
this war has heightened, to regard the dogmas and the
doctrines round which theological quarrels have centred
as themselves symbolic of deeper realities about which there
can be no genuine doubt. Faith begins to have a new
significance, and the spirit of those who call to faith is
in consequence being penetrated with new and dominating
impulses.

Let us now try to realize the extent of the ground that

io8 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

has to be covered if provision is to be made to enable
the future generation to compete on even terms with its
rivals across the seas.

In the first place the number and the health of the
future generation must be improved by the resolute carry-
ing out of the measures necessary to prevent pre-natal
wastage and infection. To enter on this subject at length
would be beyond the scope of this paper. It is enough
to refer to the Reports recently issued by the Local Govern-
ment Board. Probably 15 per cent, of those who might
under better conditions have been born into the world as
healthy children die before birth from preventible causes,
while a large number of the residue are born diseased or
defective. The recent Report of the Royal Commission
on Venereal Diseases, and its Appendices, throw a search-
ing light on one terrible source of this evil, and show
that much may be done to diminish it. But phthisis and
other transmissible diseases are not less formidable. For-
tunately, we now know how to diminish these sources of
wastage. Again, at least 10 per cent, of the children
who are actually born die within the first twelve months
from causes which could in large measure be obviated.
If these two wastages were got rid of, we could contem-
plate the steady diminution of the birth-rate with easier
minds — easier because there would be a great gain not
only in quantity but in quality of life, and some of the
most difficult problems of public health would in conse-
quence be much reduced in dimensions.

But the matter does not end there. The reforms I have
mentioned belong in the main to the department of local
government. To the department of education belongs a
further reform, that of the physical care and development
of the child through its educational period. This is a
question with which real progress had been made before
the war by the Board of Education. Indeed, the recently
published Reports of Dr. Newsholme, of the Local Govern-
ment Board, and of Sir George Newman, of the Board of
Education, are among the most striking evidences of actual
progress made — progress, it may be added, which probably
places us ahead in this respect of any other nation. The
proper organization was being rapidly developed before the
war with the aid of voluntary assistance under scientific
direction from the State, and there was promise of very
valuable results for the population generally. We must

NATIONAL EDUCATION 109

see to it that we do not let our minds be diverted from
this most vital branch of reform, for it lies at the root of
progress in education, as well as in other things.

In the second place, it is much to be desired that there
should be an improvement in the condition of our
elementary schools. Not only are better buildings re-
quired, but if we are to get the teachers we need the
remuneration we offer must be improved. This reform is
less pressing than others only because a good deal has
been done in this direction during the last twelve years.
But much remains to be done, not only as regards buildings
and teachers, but in the direction of physical and other
training. It is, for example, plain that physical training
may be greatly aided by the introduction of methods of
self-discipline, such as Sir Robert Baden Powell's Boy
Scouts' organization has applied with conspicuous success.
It is also plain that in the last years at the elementary
school we have failed to take the opportunity of training
boys for practical life in the way in which it has been done
on the Continent. The last year, in particular, should be
one where the boy is made ready and encouraged to think
of his future calling, and to look forward to the continuation
school .

In the third place, if the order is made to follow the
stages in life reached, comes that vital necessity for intro-
ducing a far-reaching system of vocational training to
which I have already devoted a good many of these
pages.

In the fourth place there is the great effort that must
be made to put our secondary school system on a proper
footing, and of this I have already said sufficient to
indicate the nature and necessity of this effort. I will only
add that in France three times as many of the population
as with us study in the upper classes of the secondary
schools, and in Prussia more than five times as many.
These figures tell their own tale.

In the fifth place comes the development of our Univer-
sity system, and the introduction of much needed reform,
which will, among other things, give to the teaching of
science not only in the Universities but in the secondary
and technical schools a larger place. I say no more than
I have already said on this subject in the preceding pages,
because my views were fully expressed in the Report of
the Royal Commission on University Education in London,

no NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

views which I hold certainly not less strongly than I did
when I signed that Report.

As regards both the continuation and the secondary
schools, public opinion is probably now ripe for a feature
corresponding to the " Boy Scout " training in the
elementary school, but of a more advanced character.
Compulsory cadet training would, I think, be an unmiti-
gated advantage for the great majority of boys up to
about eighteen, the age at which those who care to do
something for national defence have the Territorial or
Citizen Army open to them in normal periods. Such
compulsory training would probably be popular with the
boys, and consequently would not interfere with the dis-
position to join the regular Army later, a danger to which
compulsion for adults is held by many to lay itself open.
Moreover, it would render the raising and training of a
large Army in an emergency such as we are witnessing
much easier and more rapid.

The contribution of the Universities and the University
and Technical Colleges to National Defence would naturally,
as at present, assume the form of Officers' Training Corps,
and from these the older boys in the Public Schools should
not be excluded. The war has shown the value to the
nation of the Officers' Training Corps movement, and its
possibilities as a side of post-secondary education are by
no means exhausted. It should certainly be a prominent
feature in our University life.

The war has indeed made the demand for urgency about
reforms such as I have suggested more pressing. They
seem to me vital for our national life unless we are con-
tent to subside, slowly it may be but surely, into a lower
place in the hierarchy of the great nations. None of the
reforms so loudly called for to-day in newspapers and on
platforms can take their place or in any material degree
affect their necessity. They will cost money and involve
sacrifices. We must accomplish them with the utmost
economy in days in which we are becoming a country
overburdened with debt. But accomplish them we must.
For if we do not we shall lose the tide.

CHAPTER VI

Organization of the National Resources

By SIR JOSEPH COMPTON-RICKETT, M.P.

IN discussing the resources of the nation we must be careful
not to limit those resources to immediate money gain and
to material advantage. For the moment it is evident that
the mind of the nation is concentrating upon a higher
ability of production in order to make good its losses,
to carry taxation easily, and to come to close grip with
the dead weight of its debt. Important as these con-
siderations may be, we must not fail to take stock of our
intellectual resourcefulness, lest in a passion for production
we lose hold of that capacity which enables us to rise to
higher planes of living, and incidentally to lift our treatment
of business to the same measure of ability. It is possible
to develop a selfishness so intense that it does not take
account of the diverse conditions of the Empire, and regards
the prosperity of foreign States as contradictory instead
of complementary to its own. We must freely admit that
the British are jealous of their individual independence,
and do not easily submit to rules and to regulations. It
is the old story, the alternative, presented again and again
in history, should liberty be claimed upon its abstract merit,
or because of the benefit which accrues to the nation which
declares for it ? We cannot always have it both ways,
and it looks as if the moment had arrived when the British
democracy must make up its mind and pronounce. Shall
we take life as easily as in the past, smoke our pipe and
swing our legs upon the handiest fence, a little out at
elbows, but happy ; or, realizing that liberty has often
degenerated into licence, call the nation to account and
entrust some of its affairs to those competent to co-ordinate
them ?

112 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Something may be said for our native independence.
It is not wholly due to our insular position, to simple
ignorance of others, but to the fact that these Islands have
been the refuge of men and of ideas which did not com-
mend themselves to continental rulers. These homeless
exiles, whether human or ideal, for many centuries have
settled here, for we were the ancient outpost of civiliza-
tion. Fugitives, discontented with their old belongings,
claimed sanctuary for every kind of opinion, industrial,
scientific, constitutional or anarchic. It is not strange
that the British race has been largely affected by this
constant immigration. But now America has taken the
place of the British Islands and receives the outpouring,
not to say the outscouring, of Europe.

Yet we admit that bread must come first. A nation
to be really great is better for some wealth. After the
demands of bare living have been met, it must reserve
energy for the higher things, or it will lose its life in the
very act of saving it. There must be a margin of profit,
a surplus which can be put out to interest in leisure for
Science and for Art, and for a better understanding of the
Universe . It was out of this surplus profit that China
of old built up her civilization, and we owe more to the
wealthy areas of the Euphrates and of the Nile than
mankind has fully realized.

We must look to the peculiar position of our own
country, for it has insular advantages as well as disabili-
ties. Our way is in the sea and our path is in the great
waters . In spite of the tediousness of the long voyages, and
the perils of the deep, there is comparative safety in sea
transit. With the building of great vessels the economy
of water carriage has been increased, and the use of steam
has added to its rapidity. We have only to imagine an
earth where the oceans were landlocked seas, lacking
spaciousness and depth, and where communications were
mostly overland. The British Empire might indeed have
grown into a second Russia, but on a much smaller scale.
Tn dealing with our own resources we are bound to keep
in mind the necessities of the Empire. It is absolutely
necessary to maintain communication with every portion, and
there is no better means for so doing than the maintenance!
of trade. For if the Emnire was not engaged in inter-
trading it would weaken its interdependence ; commercial
alliances would be formed with other States, and out of

ORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES 113

these would presently grow some political relationship.
Nothing, therefore, must diminish our control of the sea-
ways, nor oust us from the position of the premier carriers
of the world. It is most desirable that the nation should
continue to be an international clearing-house, and by its
financial operations adjust the balance of trade. We can
only retain this position by continuing our large opera-
tions in countries sympathetic to our assistance, developing
their industries by means of the loans which we issue to
them, and receiving from them the interest due to us in the
form of products, raw material or otherwise, such as we
cannot produce ourselves or which it is not worth our
while to create.

All these relationships have a bearing on our mercantile
marine, and this practical monopoly of seafaring industry
which we now possess is a principal condition of empire.
We have been accustomed to carry, not only from the
Mother Country to the Dominions, but to every foreign
country with which we have dealings, from one Dominion
to another, and even from one foreign country to another,
until we have become the common carriers of the world.
Our loans reach the borrower in the form of goods manu-
factured in our own country, and we retain the profits of
sea-carriage as an element in the price of our exports,
whilst we diminish the cost of our imports by returning
to this country with full freights instead of in ballast.
So long, therefore, as it is necessary for us to import raw
material for our manufactures, and to add considerably
to our supplies of food, we have occupation for our vessels
both ways and can carry cheaper than any nation which
restricts itself by a severe limitation of its imports. Inci-
dentally, the mercantile marine is the nursery of our Navy.
Taken altogether, we may put our merchant service as one
of our resources which are essential to our imperial posi-
tion. So long as we keep this fact in mind we need not
favour any particular fiscal system, for fiscal systems are
not intended to establish international welfare, but to favour
a particular people — one political organism.

In coming closer to the subject we must assume a con-
dition of peace. It would be a mistake to argue the
question upon the assumption that we shall continue to
regard any portion of the world as politically outcast. If
this conflict were to be brought to a close without our
obtaining a 'decisive result, then the combatants would have

ii4 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

to remain on guard like fencers who were getting their
breath before they renewed the struggle. Under such a
state of things it would be wholly impossible for any nation
to devote itself to its best interests. Trade, like all else,
would lie under the shadow of an impending disaster, and
there could be no pretence of organizing this country or
the Empire. But those who have so argued are really
half-hearted about the result of the war. They assume
that we shall have to meet a Germany as capable as the
one with whom we ceased to deal when she invaded
Belgium. This theory assumes that the commercial world
will be grouped into two opposing alliances which will
have nothing to do with one another, but each of them
desperately contending in the neutral markets of the world.
It would be better to continue the war than to accept
such a peace, for violent commercial antipathies pf this
kind would be almost certain to lead to further outbreaks
in an immediate future. It is not worth while even to
discuss a commercial policy which could at the most only
last a short time and which would be accompanied by
very unfavourable conditions and be carried on in the
lurid atmosphere of distrust. It may, indeed, be wise to
have an alternative system to which we could resort in the
unfortunate chance of a future disturbance. For we can-
not frame life under conditions of ill-health, but for a
normal and sane state of things. For example, we have
been willing to sacrifice our personal liberties for a time,
but we should certainly not convert the Defence of the?
Realm Act into a substitute for Magna Charta.

Turning again to conditions of peace, we must look to
our resources in the land and in the population. Is it in
the best interests of the Empire that we should seek to
maintain in these Islands an ever -increasing number ; or
do our settlements on other continents assure to us freer
geographical conditions and a better future for our race?

First, in regard to the soil. Cultivation falls far below
the amount of wheat and meat which these Islands require.
It has been said that this country comes only just within
the wheat zone of Northern latitudes, and that our climatic
conditions are not so good as the great wheat -bearing
districts of the Old and of the New World. With regard
to meat this is otherwise ; but land is more valuable in
this country, and the feeding -ground of the American Con-
tinents can produce more cheaply. Yet it is difficult and

ORGANIZATION OF. NATIONAL RESOURCES 115

costly to transport live beasts, and dead meat imported
in a chilled condition has to accept the contingencies of
transit. On the other hand, wheat can be transported
expeditiously, handled easily. It is an advantage to the
bread consumer that the millers' grist should be made
up from wheats drawn from various parts of the world.
In our climate pasture is not subject to the same risks
as attend the growth of the wheat plant, and on the whole
the extension of wheat cultivation will probably not be
carried to such an extent as to considerably affect our
importation. Mixed farming will go on as heretofore, but
with better result. If, however, we are to do the best for
our land, it is quite impossible to leave its cultivation to
the haphazard of the individual cultivator. The old-
fashioned farmer, with his leisurely ways and his weekly
market, is clearly doomed. He must give way to scheme
and to purpose, a scheme which will take into consideration
the supplies of the world. As I have attempted to show
elsewhere, the local farmer is very little interested in the
produce of distant countries, though it is virtually com-
peting with his own. But a Farming Co-operation, whose
agents were everywhere, could regulate the character of
production by anticipating the demands and supplies of
six or twelve months ahead, and would direct the energies
of a farmer to that particular product best suited to his
soil, and the most likely to secure a good market. The
farmer would then become simply a producer ; his pro-
ducts would be sold for him and his seed and appliances
co-operatively provided. For the balance of food required
we must draw upon the markets of the world. It is very
doubtful whether our own Dominions would care prefer-
entially to favour us except in time of national emergency.
Many of them might have a market close at hand at a
better price because of the comparative advantage of
carriage. If the United States of America continues to
multiply her population, she may become an importer of
wheat, willing to give Canada a better price than the
British market could offer. If Canada is to give us a
preference, we could hardly ask them to sell to us more
cheaply than to the United States. Of course in a state
of war we should have to give the open market value if
Canadian production generally was secured to the Mother
Country. Under ordinary circumstances we can make good
the difference out of Russian wheat, a wheat well adapted

n6 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

to British milling, or from Indian and Australian supplies.
There will always be a certain amount of Canadian wheat
for which this country would be prepared to pay a high
price in order to improve the millers' grist. At the present
time we have the world upon which to draw. If the
harvests of the Northern Hemisphere are disappointing,
the Southern Hemisphere will come in to redress the
balance, to make good the deficiency. To be left at the
mercy of the climate of this country for the food we eat
would never be tolerated.

But it may be said, What are you going to do if foreign
supplies continue plentiful, freights are low, and the British
farmer is reduced to such straits that he cannot carry on?
Is it not necessary that a minimum quantity of food suffi-
cient to help in an emergency should be grown in these
Islands? We admit that this contingency must be taken
into account. It is evident that land is the one indis-
pensable thing. A form of property unlike all others, it
can neither be increased nor 'diminished, and yet the national
life would be seriously affected if the land were diverted
to selfish or temporary objects. To place such land, either
immediately or gradually, under the control of the com-
munity is only the exercise of a common right inherent in
the very thing itself. Village communities with common
land were a feature of ancient England as of other coun-
tries, and the Crown, as representing the community, has
an implied right in its freehold to-day. The feudal culti-
vation of land demanded homage to the sovereign and a
response to a call to arms on the part of the feudal chief.
If the community recovers the freehold, it must of course
be on terms which recognizes that sale and purchase of
land has been free for many years, but behind such liberty
of market the rights of the community have existed.
Assuming the nation becomes the freeholder and that all
rights of cultivation, great and small, are derived from
it, a diminution or, in extreme cases, a temporary suspen-
sion of rent will act like a bounty and will carry the
cultivator over a few months of distress. But it will be
said, the soil is not intended to be simply a manufactory
for food ; it is to give the population home, health, and
opportunity. Instead of the large farm, with its scientific
treatment and its unbroken area, establish small holdings,
revive yeoman farming, employ a much larger number of
people. Why should you concentrate such masses in

ORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES 117

towns, with the evils of factory life impairing the health
of the future race, when you could bring more land into
cultivation, divide to a much greater extent, and provide
homes to which Nature would contribute a restfulness and
peace ? Is it not better to enjoy a sunset than to attend
a cinema ? And why should sunsets fade unseen while the
streets are crowded and the skies darken ? Attach the
people to the country, breed a stronger race — the soil is
more patriotic than the street. Give stability of tenure,
a sense of ownership, and the national life will be
strengthened, for the wealth of the country will be expressed
in healthy men and women.

However true that may be, it is doubtful whether an
increasing number intend to settle upon the land. The
spread of education, the development of the intellect, and
the multiplication of interests consequent upon both, tend to
draw people together instead of dispersing them. Nature
is interesting, but slightly monotonous ; she requires inter-
pretation, for she speaks in a tongue of her own. We
shall have to reckon upon the competition of good employ-
ment in the towns. If wages are maintained at a high
level, it will require much agricultural advantage to com-
pete with town employment, and it is very possible that
a scarcity of agricultural labour may recur. Scientific
farming on a large scale, with electric -driven appliances
and fewer hands, will probably become the method of
the future. It is not very likely that the war will make
a difference in this respect. It may even increase the
desire for society and for neighbourliness. The scattered
cottages, even the hamlet, will be thronged with the ghosts
of the battlefield.

Before we plunge into peasant proprietorship let us see
how far our proposals are likely to be appreciated. But
has not emigration to the great North -West and to other
outlying parts of Empire shown that loneliness with agri-
cultural pursuits are not unsuccessfully associated? Some-
times ; but the results are not always as satisfactory as
they seem. It is the farmer of the Old World who makes
the success. He finds a better market, a more responsive
soil, a sense of independence, and a Iweek-end at the nearest
city, which, combined together, make life tolerable.

We have referred already to the large and elastic capital
which has helped the Dominions and opened fresh avenues
of trade in foreign countries. These loans have been

n8 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

made, not in gold, but in manufactured goods, in railway
and electric plant, agricultural machinery, and much else,
according to the form most desired by the borrowers. This
export of material employs our factories and our mercantile
marine. The interest upon the loan is paid to us in wheat,
meat, hides, or some other commodity native to the borrow-
ing country. We are not yet aware of how far our capacity
to lend will be affected by the absorption of capital occa-
sioned by the war. Upon the return of peace there will
be an enormous demand, both at home and abroad ; the
ravages of war will have to be repaired and a large number
of commercial undertakings, extension of works, and similar
developments which have been arrested for the time, will
come pressing together into the market. The enemy will
be too exhausted, commercially crippled as we believe, to
come into active competition with its former competitors,
for competition suggests sacrifice. We already see that
the credit of this country stands high, and that our enemies
are faced with the rapidly declining confidence of neutrals.
With that credit we may hope to do our part fully in the
openings for trade, which promise to widen considerably.
We shall borrow better than any nation in the Old World,
and provided that we work together, employers and
employed, capital and labour, we shall manufacture more
cheaply. There is a long vista before us of favourable
trade conditions before a time of reaction sets in, if that
ever occurs. But to do this it is essential that we lighten
the burden of taxation, not so much by diminishing the
amount that we have to pay for interest and in the reduc-
tion of the principal of the debt, but in broadening the
back that carries it. There is only one direction in which
we can successfully increase our national income, and that
is by acquiring a control of enterprises which can be
worked for the benefit of the community. To begin with,
we should naturally turn to monopolies. We have applied
this principle in municipalizing electric, gas, water, and
light railway undertakings. It does not follow that every
experiment must necessarily be successful. In some cases
the area has been too small to gather the required amount
of business. But we cannot gainsay the principle. Where
there is no competition there is little or no incentive to
the economy practised by private ownership and no call
for invention. A communal authority may just as well
gather in the profits for the relief of rates.

ORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES 119

If we apply this to large monopolies, there is equally good
reason for communal action — and sometimes better. Why
should not the communications of the country be in the
hands of the nation as we monopolize the carrying of letters
and parcels ? For these and other great undertakings fresh
departments would have to be created, largely autonomous,
though responsible to the Government as formerly to their
shareholders. The control should be practically free from
meddling interference, as, indeed, the Army and the Navy
are supposed to be. The elimination of wasteful com-
petition, the better service, the steady development of the
national resources — all these would help to swell the
national income. The skilled management already at the
disposal of great concerns would be available to a larger
extent for the nation, to whom the high payment of ability
would be a trifling addition to the cost of working. Exist-
ing liabilities to individuals could be discharged by State
bonds of different character at fixed rates of interest,
according to the findings of a commission appointed for
the purpose of determining them. The public would not
be more remote, probably not so remote, as the shareholder
is from the management of his own company at the present
time. An increased amount of labour would be nationally
employed upon terms which must be more satisfactory to
the employed than any which private capital could offer,
for it would be reliable. It could have a pension scheme
as part of the reward of labour, and the workman would
feel that the profit which he contributed to make was
going direct to the State instead of into private hands.
Trade disputes would be less frequent, and could prob-
ably be avoided by the recognition of a sliding-scale
method of remuneration. At any rate, the State has con-
stantly to intervene in trade disputes at the present time,
whereas employment on national service would secure more
consideration for a worker and a healthy public opinion
which would be just as well as generous.

Such collectivism could be cautiously extended, and it
would meet to a considerable extent the rather vague
suggestions of Socialism which, on a national scale, are,
for the time at any rate, impossible in this country. We
depend so largely upon foreign trade, that the international
position is as important to us as the national. It is not
difficult to see that we should require other civilized States
to start with us upon full-blooded Socialism if we are

120 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

to compete with them in the markets of the world. Of
course, no confiscation of existing property in personal
ownership could be discussed, and probably is not enter-
tained. No great reform has ever been successful when
confiscation was attempted, unless it were preceded by
revolution. In such comparatively minor matters as the
freeing of the slaves, or the disestablishment of a Church,
existing interests have been protected or have been bought
outright. Therefore, in any case, State Socialism iwould
only be introduced by degrees. But the growth of com-
munal control and of State ownership will probably secure
the best of Socialism for us without its inherent weakness.
Yet we must go a considerable step farther in State
control of the resources of the country. Our organizing
ability, so widely distributed, is exercised at the present
time in a wasteful manner by the commercial world. It
is almost an accident whether one industry is developed
or another deserted. There is no means <of determining
whether an excess of labour and capital are being directed
to one industry and too little to another. Profits may
be unreasonably raised by combination or unreasonably de-
pressed by competition . The consumer may be paying
too much at one time or too little at another. If he be
paying too little, he is estranging capital and starving
the worker. The unfair cheapness of an article leads to
extravagance and to waste. An employment of labour
and capital in excess of natural demands for a product
necessarily implies a withdrawal from some other employ-
ment of both, more useful to the community. That which
the individual cannot accomplish because he has neither
the facts at his disposal nor the field to survey, national
government should be able to do. It may be the duty of
the new department, the Ministry of Commerce, to con-
trol the output of the country, to see that it is maintained
at the full, that new industries are experimentally started,
and that an excess of output in some particular direction
is checked. Already financial organizations of a national
character have been suggested in order that likely projects
may have some support. In other words, we are bound
to make the best of what we are doing and can do. But
when we have done our share in the United Kingdom,
there will be work which it will pav us better to have
done elsewhere. There are great Dependencies of the
Empire where coloured labour should have an opportunity,

ORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL RESOURCES 121

The intelligence of Eastern races is quite competent to
factory work, and there is no reason why the Eastern
markets should not be supplied from the labour of our
coloured fellow-subjects, particularly where the raw material
is grown at their doors. Provided the labour of the United
Kingdom is fully employed, the Indian worker should have
his share. Mills could be run with shorter shifts than
in this country under good sanitary conditions . The Oriental
worker requires less animal food and less clothing, because
the heat of the sun makes up for the difference between
him and the European.

There is reason to suppose that a much better wage
could be paid to the Eastern worker than he has ever
received, enabling him to lift his scale of living ; whilst
the cost of production would be reduced by not having
to bring the raw material to this country and to export
it to the original source of supply across half the world
in the form of manufactured goods. In any part of the
world the minimum wage must be determined upon a base
of comfortable living, and having disentangled that cost
from wages and fixed it from time to time by local com-
mittees (as at present in coal -mining), the share which
labour should have in profit should be a simpler problem
in most cases, to be arranged perhaps on sliding scale like
that which secured industrial peace for many years in
South Wales during the latter part of the last century.
Whilst a liberal share must be reserved for labour, it
would be remembered that labour is a first charge upon
gross profits and is paid with definite regularity. There
are capitalist profits unreasonably large, but there are also
failures and bankruptcies, which form part of the average
in reckoning the return made to capital. Greater con-
fidence, a disclosure of facts, would solve many of the
difficulties between employer and employed ; difficulties
which are often due to misconception. In those excep-
tional cases where profits are too large the nation can
recover that which has temporarily escaped its control by
means of income-tax, super-tax, and death duties. These
last can be trusted to reduce the largest estate to manage-
able proportions, as they are imposed again and again
upon successive transfers of the original property.

We venture to say that if the problems which will be
successively presented to us are handled with courage and
enterprise, there is no reason to fear that the world will

122 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

not want us for many years to come in the various services
which we have rendered in the past with so much effect.
An economy in direction of our powers is demanded. Our
energies, instead of being spread over too wide an area
like a great river finding its way to the sea through a
delta of small streams and marshland, will have to be
confined in deep channels, restrained by embankment, and
utilized to the utmost. Given peace and goodwill, there
is no doubt this country will be able to discharge its liabili-
ties, carry its taxation, and reduce its debt with the same
ease with which it has pursued its way during a period
of unrestrained individualism. We are coming more closely
together, and this sense of common citizenship will prove
even commercially profitable.

CHAPTER VII

The State and Industry

By WM. GARNETT, M.A., D.C.L.,
Formerly Educational Adviser to the London County Council

What has the State to do with Industry? Most British
manufacturers have hitherto held that the less the State
interferes with industry the better for all concerned. They
have asked only to be allowed to go their own way with
as little factory legislation and inspection as possible. They
have held that they know their own business best and
would be hindered rather than helped by any interference
from without, however well intentioned it might be. In
their opinion the functions of Government lie entirely out-
side the field of industry or commerce, except to see fair play
between parties. The Ministers of the Crown may there-
fore be lawyers and politicians, and the permanent officers
of the State may be purely administrative. No know-
ledge of science, industry, or commerce need be required
of them. If an industrial leader rise to Cabinet rank it
is an accident and of rare occurrence, while there is no
record of a man of scientific attainments attaining that
dignity. Perhaps Lord Playfair most nearly approached
it. The unqualified attitude of competition which obtains
throughout British industry, and the spirit of individualism
which largely characterizes the schools and the whole up-
bringing of the commercial and industrial classes in this
country, have tended to encourage the view that industry
and commerce should be left to fight their own battles with
as little interference as possible on the part of the State.
The manufacturer pays his income-tax with a subconscious
impression that it is an item of entirely unproductive
expenditure.

But there have been exceptions to the attitude of oppo-

123

124 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

sition to Governmental interference. As long as home
markets are held exclusively by home manufacturers and
competition is purely domestic the State may stand aside.
When foreign goods find their way into British markets
some leaders of industry say that this enables the foreigner
to pay for British goods sold to him and encourages British
trade abroad, but others invoke the State to institute a
protective tariff ; and when the foreigner takes to supply-
ing his own market with goods formerly made in Britain,
so that the balance of trade is against this country, the
cry for a protective tariff becomes more general. The
manufacturer has not hitherto asked the State to help him
to produce better or cheaper goods, or even to assist him
in opening up foreign markets and securing foreign con-
tracts. The spirit of competition has prevented any such
united action on the part of the trades, which have been
very slow even in inviting the co-operation of men of
science in charge of public laboratories, partly because they
have had little confidence in the assistance they could
render, and partly on account of unwillingness to share
information. There is one case, other than the imposition
of a tariff, in which State assistance has not always been
unwelcome either to industrial capital or labour. In the
event of disputes leading to strikes the mediation of the
Board of Trade has sometimes been useful.

Hitherto association among employers has existed in this
country mainly, if not exclusively, for two purposes— to
defend themselves against the demands of labour, and to
keep up prices against the consumer. It is sel'dom, if ever,
that an association of manufacturers has existed for the
purpose of carrying out experimental investigations in their
common interest, or distributing work among the several
members so that it may be carried out in the cheapest way
possible in the interest of the consumer and of British
trade in foreign markets, or of organizing a system of
training for different grades of employees.

If home production and home consumption alone had
to be considered, the trades would not be much the worse
off for this system of competitive individualism ; but when
foreign consumption of home-made goods and home con-
sumption of foreign goods come to the front the case
takes an entirely different aspect, and, if British industry
is to hold its own under these conditions, there must be
association for industrial research, for the distribution of

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 125

work, and for the training of all grades of workers. In
the first and last of these objects the State is able to
co-operate with the trades.

The war has taught us much with regard to industrial
possibilities, especially with respect to the help which
industry can receive from unexpected quarters. States-
men, administrators, manufacturers, teachers have all had
before them object-lessons, in which they have, in many
cases, themselves taken part, and many of the old tradi-
tions which have been accepted without experimental
investigation have been blown to the winds by the
exigencies of war. Much that has been done during the
last two years lies for the present under the cover of
the Defence of the Realm Act, but there are some illus-
trations which are already public property. For example,
soon after the war broke out there was a great dearth of
chemical glassware which would sustain rapid variation of
temperature without fracture, and analytical chemists as
well as chemical manufacturers were in some difficulty.
Such glass had not been made in England, but the in-
vestigations of a committee appointed by the Institute of
Chemistry and aided especially by Professor Jackson, of
King's College, have led to the solution of the problem,
and chemical glassware is now made in this country of a
quality equal to the Jena ware and at approximately the
same price. There was a similar difficulty with regard
to hard porcelain, and this also has been solved in the
pottery school at Stoke-on-Trent. When the Ministry of
Munitions commenced the establishment of shell factories
all over the country the initial difficulty lay in the provision
of gauges for the inspectors. The ordinary fuse of an
1 8 -lb. shell is made of so many parts, that something
like eighty gauges are required for testing them before
they are assembled to form the fuse. It was consequently
announced eighteen months ago that 70,000 gauges were
required as quickly as possible for the use of in-
spectors, and as a rule each gauge must be correct to
three ten -thousandths of an inch. The country haid been
dependent very largely on the Continent for precision tools.
British toolmakers were already overcrowded with work,
and the Ministry of Munitions had recourse to what the
trade would certainly have regarded as a dernier ressort
viz. the technical schools — with such success that it is prob-
able that very nearly 100,000 gauges will have been made

126 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

by these institutions and accepted by the Government before
the end of the year (i9i~6). Not only gauges, though,
on account of the delicacy of the work, these are by far
the most important items turned out by the engineering
departments of the schools, but parts of machine tools and
many other items requiring considerable skill in execution
are among the work executed by the schools for the Ministry
of Munitions, the War Office, or the Admiralty. That
technical institutions could successfully cope with emer-
gency work in this way caused almost as much surprise to
British manufacturers as the response of such democratic
countries as France and Britain and her Dependencies to
the call of war created in the minds of Central Europe.

But not only tools but men were required for the manu-
facture of munitions of war, and herein came another
surprise even to those who had been intimately acquainted
with the training of mechanical engineers. Nearly 25 per
cent, of the men employed in the engineering trades of
this country had joined the colours. It was important that,
as far as possible, ordinary engineering work should be
continued in order that we might have something to give
in exchange for imported food, but the demand for shells
was paramount. Classes in fitting and turning were con-
sequently established in the workshops of many educational
institutions, and some schools were specially equipped for
the purpose. Later on tool -setting was added to the
subjects taught. The classes were attended by clerks,
artists, barristers, and many others who had never handled
engineers' tools, including women of almost all ages, as
well as men of advanced years who had been engineers
in their youth ; and it was found that an " intensive "
course of instruction, extending over 150 hours (half-time
for six weeks), was sufficient to enable these nondescript
workers to earn a living wage in a shell factory, with
prospects of rapid increase to 50s. or 60s. a week. Here,
again, it has been shown that the technical departments of
the schools can render service of the most practical
character to the State. Probably nearly 20,000 workers
have been thus trained. Lens grinding for optical instru-
ments is another subject which has been similarly taught.

Another point which has been brought into prominence
by the national emergency is the value of scientific organiza-
tion in works. Not only has this enabled unskilled and
semi-skilled workers to be employed to the greatest advan-

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 127,

tage on work which in former days would have been
carried out exclusively by skilled men, but with the with-
drawal of artificial limitations it has been found possible
in this country, as in America, greatly to increase the
output per man and per machine without inflicting any
hardship upon labour, and workmen have learned that under
war conditions there is no limit to demand, and wages
increase in proportion as the work is speeded up. It
may, of course, be contended that the great advantage
which has accrued to the workman through withdrawal
of all limitations upon output has been due to the excep-
tional pressure of war conditions ; but America has proved
that similar advantages to the worker obtain in time of
peace. In America the hours of work are not longer,
but the workman earns more than double the wages earned
in this country because his output is more than double ;
and this output has not choked the markets of the world,
because there is an unlimited demand for manufactured
goods if only they can be produced at a sufficiently low
price. The increased output per man, though it raises
his wages in the same or higher ratio, actually lowers
the cost of production because it means increased output
per machine, and machines do not receive wages, and it
means increased output for the buildings and establish-
ment, and the cost of upkeep and of management is not
increased in the same ratio. If the workers of the country
will remember the lessons of the war in this respect, and
if employers will abstain from putting any difficulties in
the way of greatly increased wages, provided they are
fairly earned — although it may be that the piece-worker
earns more than his foreman, just as in the public service
a professional expert may earn more than his administra-
tive chief — Britain may hope after the war to put forth
her whole industrial strength in order to win back her
claim to be the " workshop of the world," instead of work-
ing at less than half -power as of late years. These are
questions which cannot easily be controlled by the State ;
they depend upon the voluntary action of employers and
employed ; but something might be done in the schools
to bring about a clearer understanding of the economic
problem involved without the necessity of State control
of works.

How can the State aid British industry ? I do not
propose to enter into the vexed question of " Tariff

I28 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Reform." New industries which are important to the State
require protection during their infancy like all other
young creatures belonging to the higher orders, but it
may fairly be contended that direct assistance during the
years of development is more useful than a protective
tariff ; for though the tariff may secure the home market
against the competition of foreign goods produced at lower
cost, in order that foreign markets may be open to British
goods the actual cost of production must be brought down
to the foreign cost, and this reduction in cost is not hastened
by a protective tariff.

If industry is to be encouraged by the State, the Execu-
tive Government must first realize that it has some respon-
sibilities for the development of British industry. It is
not sufficient to increase the territorial area of the Empire
if foreigners are permitted to secure monopolies over the
mineral wealth of the Dependencies. Arrangements by
which plant or machinery for dealing with the mineral
resources of the country is erected by foreigners, to be
paid for by a monopoly of the products for a term of
years, should be legalized only when the Board of Trade
is satisfied on scientific evidence that the proposed monopoly
is not inimical to British interests. But the most important
demand on the attention of the Government is the entire
absence in this country of the manufacture of goods which
are necessaries of life or essential to the conduct of war.
Attention has been called in the preceding pages to some
features of industry which have been revealed by the
present war, but probably nothing has caused so much
surprise to the public generally as the revelation of the
extent to which we have been dependent on foreign nations
for manufactured articles which have become the neces-
saries of life and of civilization. Some years before the
declaration of war the writer was interested in representa-
tions made to certain Government departments on the
question of the production of optical glass and the manu-
facture of optical instruments. The position was that we
simply did not know how to make certain glasses employed
in the most important instruments required by the Admiralty
and the War Office and for other scientific purposes, and
the assistance of the Government iwas sought for a scheme of
laboratory investigations similar to those which had rendered
possible the Jena glassworks. It was pointed out that in
the event of European war the Navy and Army would be

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 129

unable to secure the necessary supply of range-finders, gun-
sights, binoculars, and other essential instruments, but the
reply was to the effect that the assistance, if granted, would
create an inconvenient precedent. Although an extensive
system of commandeering optical instruments was adopted,
there are those who maintain that thousands of lives were
lost during the early months of the war through lack of
sufficient optical instruments at the front. Since those days
precedents have been ignored, and experience has shown
that if the aid of the scientific investigators who were readily
available had been secured the situation could have been
saved. The position of this country and America with
regard to dyestuffs is too well known to need more than
a passing mention. Reference has already been made to
glass and porcelain for chemical purposes. For very many
drugs we were, and still are, dependent on foreign sources.
The need for local anaesthetics came very prominently to
the front at an early stage, and here the chemical labora-
tories and teaching staffs of many educational institutions
were requisitioned to serve the military hospitals. In the
hardware trade not only the public, but in many cases the
retail shopkeepers, were ignorant of the sources of supply
of the goods they bought and sold. Purchases were made
by provincial retailers through London factors, and a
dealer informed the writer that until supplies were stopped
through the war he had no knowledge that three -fourths
of the tools he sold were of German manufacture.

It may fairly be contended that it is a primary duty
on the part of the State to secure that the country shall
not be dependent on a possible enemy State for such essen-
tials as drugs and optical and chemical apparatus, and,
whatever the cost, persons should receive the requisite
training and works should be established for the manufac-
ture of all necessary goods for the supply of which we
are at present restricted to a very limited number of foreign
sources. If it were suggested that we should abandon
our arsenals and dockyards because we can buy foreign
guns and warships more cheaply than we can build them,
the absurdity of the proposal would be at once apparent.
But ships and guns are of little, use without auxilbrv
appliances, and it is only necessary for this to be clearly
appreciated to make manifest the folly of relegating to
foreign countries the manufacture of these appliances, or
the preparation of any of the materials on which their

i3o NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

manufacture depends, simply because the work done (at
home does not pay. It seems a far cry from a Dread-
nought to a test-tube, but a warship is of little use without
explosives, or a submarine without a periscope, and the
manufacture of explosives or of optical glass is a delicate
chemical process which has to be watched and tested at all
stages. Without the experimental apparatus of the laboratory
the work of the explosives factory is impossible. It is only
by this far-sighted policy of keeping an eye on every essen-
tial detail, however apparently remote from the main issue,
that a war can be successfully waged, and much the same is
true of industrial competition.

The Government has already taken one important step
in recognition of its duties towards industry. In July
191 5 a Committee of the Privy Council was formed "for
Scientific and Industrial Research," aided by an Advisory
Council of men well known in science and industry. A
sum of £25,000 was entrusted to the Committee for the
first year, and the grant has been increased by £40,000
for the current year. The Advisory Council has appointed
Standing Committees for Engineering, Metallurgy, and
Mining, and others are in contemplation. To these com-
mittees will be referred particular questions relating to their
respective groups of industries. It is the duty of the
Advisory Council to make and consider proposals for insti-
tuting specific researches ; for " establishing or developing
special institutions or departments of existing institutions
for the scientific study of problems affecting particular in-
dustries and trades ; and for the establishment and award
of Research Scholarships and Fellowships." The researches
which have already been aided include, among others,
laboratory glass, optical glass, refractory materials for
furnace work, the properties of insulating oils, the corro-
sion of non-ferrous metals, hard porcelain, tin, and tungsten,
and the deterioration of structures of timber, metal, and
concrete in sea -water, as well as the conservation of coal.

This departure on the part of the Government is a very
distinct recognition of an important responsibility, a respon-
sibility which has been further recognized by the assistance
rendered to the manufacture of dyestuffs. The success
which is likely to be achieved depends very much on
the response of the leaders of industry. The State, whether
acting through the Privy Council Committee or otherwise,
can assist an industry ; it cannot, as a rule, assist a par-

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 131

ticular firm which may be one of many. In order, there-
fore, that any trade may secure the full benefit of the
action of the Government it must be prepared to combine
for the purpose of industrial research ; and, if it is to
produce at the lowest cost, the objects of the combination
must include distribution of work among the several
manufacturers and the training of all grades of workers.1

One of the most hopeful results of the present war con-
ditions has been the increased willingness of the leaders
of industry to form associations for some, at least, of the
purposes indicated above ; but what has been effected in
this direction is a very small fraction of what is required.
For purposes of industrial research trade associations may,
to some extent, be replaced by the Standing Committees
formed by the Advisory Council, but the essential feature
of success is the " pooling " of information, and this must
be a voluntary act on the part of manufacturers. The
trade association must take stock of its methods and diffi-
culties, and select the subjects on which investigation is
required. It must then make a schedule of public insti-
tutions (university departments, technical schools, etc.) in
which provision has been, or can be, made for experi-
mental work in connection with the trade and also of the
scientific workers available. This schedule should be pre-

' Since this article was written the Government has made an important
announcement with reference to industrial and scientific research. It was on
the 1st December, 1916, in reply to a deputation introduced by the President of
the Royal Society, and supported by the President of the Institution of Civil
Engineers and by Professor Baker of the Imperial College, that Lord Crewe,
then Lord President of the Council, announced that a Royal Charter had been
granted to the official members of the Committee of the Privy Council for
Scientific and Industrial Research under the title of " The Imperial Trust for the
Encouragement of Scientific and Industrial Research," so as to enable it to hold
land and personal property for the furtherance of its objects ; and in order that
it should not be entirely dependent from year to year on Parliamentary grants,
in as much as its work must be continuous from year to year, it had been
decided to anticipate five years' expenditure on a scale of five times the current
rate by a single grant to be paid over to the Imperial Trust. It is understood
that this sum, which must be of the order of ^1,000,000, is in addition to any sum
which may be voted in the annual Estimates, and its expenditure will be
restricted to research undertaken in connection with trade associations which
will utilize the results for the benefit of the trade generally. In this way the
fund will be used to encourage the formation of such associations. Lord Crewe
also announced that the Board of Inland Revenue had agreed that contributions
made under suitable conditions by traders to industrial associations formed for
the sole purpose of scientific research, or to the research section of an existing
association, 'should be free of income-tax and of excess-profits tax.

'132 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

pared in consultation with the Advisory Council or one
of its Standing Committees. In many cases it will be
found that the existing provision for experimental work is
insufficient or wholly wanting, and it should then be the
business of the Advisory Council, in concert with the trade
association, to make the necessary provision in a central
institution, conducted more or less after the model of the
National Physical Laboratory, or a local school, like the
Pottery School at Stoke-on-Trent. While some, and it
is hoped many, investigations will originate with the trades,
others will be suggested by the Standing Committees of
the Advisory Council, and many others by the scientific
workers who are engaged in carrying out the experi-
mental work.

It has been customary for so-called " practical men "
to disparage the assistance which scientific workers can
render to industry, and that not altogether without reason.
Too often the scientific adviser employed in a works is a
young man at a very low salary who has had no oppor-
tunity of gaining experience outside his college laboratory.
It would not be reasonable to place a medical student in
the consulting-room of a specialist and condemn medicine
because his experience was not adequate to the needs of
the situation. Another reason why, in this country, industry
has not received as much help from science as among some
of our industrial rivals is that, on the one hand, the
scientific professor has kept aloof from industry in his
university laboratory and has frequently been prevented
from taking any part in commercial work ; the manufac-
turer, on the other hand, has not taken the scientific worker
into his confidence or attempted to use his ability and
resources to the best advantage. It has been stated that if a
professor of mechanics were taken round a weaving shed he
would probably suggest a number of alterations in existing
practice, only to learn that all these had been tried and for
good reason abandoned long ago and that the present system
was the best that could be devised. This would probably
be quite true, as far as the suggestions are concerned, if it
were the professor's first visit to a weaving shed. Im-
provements in industrial processes are not generally made
on the first half -hour's acquaintance. If scientific and
industrial research are to be of full value to industry,
the researchers must, in many cases, live in close touch
with the industry. The gap between the professor's

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 133

laboratory and the factory must be bridged. Lord
Kelvin was a scientific instrument maker (Kelvin and
White) for part of his time, a practical yachtsman for
another part, and a professor conducting a research
laboratory with the help of his own students only when
he was not engaged in some other enterprise.

Sometimes a new discovery can be at once adapted to
commercial requirements, but this is not often the case.
Those scientific researches which have revolutionized indus-
tries have frequently required a long time for their
development, which has taken place in three stages.

1 . The purely scientific research which has led to the
discovery. This may have been conducted with a totally
different object, or purely for the purpose of the advance-
ment of knowledge for its own sake. The less the State
or any other authority attempts to " organize " scientific
work of this description the better.

2. Adaptation and Standardization. In this stage the
discovery has to be adapted to industrial requirements so
as to be commercially useful, and processes of manufac-
ture and mechanical parts have to be standardized so that
they can be reproduced with precision. A vast amount
of scientific labour was required before Faraday's apparatus
for producing a magnetic spark gave place to the dynamos
capable of a specified output with a specified efficiency
when driven at a specified speed.

3. Commercialization, involving the design and manu-
facture of plant capable of turning out the product on a
commercial scale.

It is in the second of these stages that organized State
aid can be made most effective. It must be carried out
on a semi-commercial scale, because reactions in a test-
tube may be very different from those in a steam pan.
The work is essentially industrial research.

The process of mining coal affords an illustration of the
three stages of investigation through which an invention
may have to pass before it can be utilized in commercial
manufacture. In the first instance a small hole is bored
and the cores are carefully examined by experts. This
is a purely scientific investigation. The result is simply
an increase of knowledge. Neither the hole nor the core
is of any commercial value. If no coal is reached, the
investigation has to be abandoned in that particular spot.
If seams of coal of workable thickness are found, scientific

134 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

research passes into the stage of industrial research and
shafts must be sunk to render the coal available. This
operation may be far from a simple and straightforward
proceeding. Sinking a shaft differs from boring a small
hole to the same depth. Running sand may be met, which
has to be frozen before it can be excavated, and the neces-
sary tubbing inserted to line the shaft. Other difficulties,
foreseen and unforeseen, may occur, but the objective is
perfectly definite. Engineering skill, time, labour, and
capital are all that are required.

When the shafts have been sunk to reach the coal they
must be connected underground, the necessary wagon
ways must be started, and all the apparatus for hauling,
winding, ventilating, screening, and loading, together with
many other subordinate appliances, must be provided before
the coal can be worked on a commercial scale. The
whole process affords a somewhat crude illustration of the
stages of investigation, adaptation, and commercialization
necessary in order that the work of the scientific researcher
may produce results of industrial value.

There is another type of industrial research of a simpler
character in which the object is to' remove some difficulty
or uncertainty in a manufacturing process, or, perhaps, to
discover some more economical method of carrying out an
operation. Here the investigator has a distinct object in
view towards which alone he works. In the course of his
investigation he may possibly alight on some independent
discovery, if his mind is on the alert and his eyes are open
for side issues, but the original investigation is a problem
of a definite type enunciated by the trade to meet a felt
want.

If research is to be successful there must be an adequate
supply of scientific workers. The reference to the Advisory
Council covers the provision of higher scholarships for the
training of these workers, and the Consultative Committee
of the Board of Education is recommending the Govern-
ment to provide £200,000 a year for school and univer-
sity scholarships leading up to these. But if Britain is to
put forth all her industrial strength, trade associations must
co-operate with the State in a vastly greater educational
reform than is indicated by the provision of scholarships,
however numerous and valuable. The first and greatest
task is to develop in all schools that spirit of collectivism
which is encouraged in the universities and public schools

THE STATE AND INDUSTRY 135

by means of sports. The footballer plays for his team
and the oarsman rows for his boat. In the field he will
fight for the honour of his brigade. The spirit of the
classroom in the competition for places, prizes, and scholar-
ships is purely individualistic. It has been said that in
the present war the great public schools and the public
elementary schools have shown up better than the ordinary
secondary schools, from which the majority of those
engaged in commerce and in directing industry are drawn.
We do not want the schools to become a tool in the
hands of the State for " educating " children to regard
themselves merely as pawns to be moved about by a
military despotism. They must regard themselves as intel-
ligent citizens with freedom of action, like the football
player, but that freedom subordinated to the common weal.
Self-interest is to be respected, but the claims of the com-
munity come first. Knowledge is to be shared and not
used for purely selfish ends . The interest of the community
will in the long run make for the greatest happiness of
the individual. Here is the problem for the schools. When
it has been solved, trade associations for the advancement
of British industry will be possible.

The second problem, which is much easier for the State
to handle, is the establishment of a system of continuation
schools which shall provide at least part-time education
for all boys and girls up to the age of seventeen, attend-
ance being compulsory and mostly during workshop hours.
Here, again, there must be co-operation between the trades
and the State, and it is very desirable that such co-opera-
tion should be voluntary, the trades falling in with the
legislation necessary to give effect to the scheme. In the
continuation school the interest of the work must focus
upon the daily occupation of the pupils, except that in
the case of those engaged in " blind-alley .occupations "
some permanent employment in which the pupil is interested
must be selected by him as the guide to his training.
Focussing the interest in employment does not mean that
the education provided is wholly, or even mostly, technical.
Outside the continuation schools provision must be made
in State-aided schools for all grades of workers, including
works managers, scientific advisers, and industrial states-
men. These courses should be sketched in the first instance
by the trade associations, as has been done by the Man-
chester engineers ; but this is not the place to enter upon

136 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

educational details. It is necessary, however, to point out
that in the schools of the future, while attention must be
paid to language and literature, children must be brought
much more closely into touch with their environment than
has hitherto been the case. There is more of " the
humanities " in the construction of a toy or the making
of a simple experiment, carried out spontaneously for the
love of it, than in a page of irregular Latin verbs or in
the speculations of the schoolmen.

There is another way in which the State can assist
industry if only manufacturers in each trade will combine
to co-operate with the State. Under the present system
of competition in foreign markets, as at home, each manu-
facturer can be represented only by such agents as he
can afford to pay, and these are frequently not comparable
with the representatives of foreign trade combinations. If
manufacturers would unite for joint representation in a
foreign country, agents of high standing and great ability
would be available and, as representatives of the wholq
British trade, they could be supported and introduced by
the Consular and, when necessary, even by the Diplomatic
Service. Here, too, is a vast field of educational work for
schools and colleges in the training of commercial represen-
tatives of British trades — men whose training will not have
been confined to shorthand and book-keeping, office routine
and a modern language, but men who will have a thorough
knowledge of the country or countries to which they will
be sent and also of the goods they have to sell, including
such a knowledge of their manufacture as will enable them
to discuss modifications in detail to meet the requirements
of foreign customers.

CHAPTER VI If

The State and Labour

By PROFESSOR S. J. CHAPMAN

The problem of the State in relation to labour raises two
questions : the one, What should be aimed at in labour
arrangements ? and the other, How far is the State the best
engine, or even an efficient engine at all, for bringing about
the desired end ? Both of these questions would be difficult
to answer in normal times, for a community like the English
in which springs of action that might be ignored in a
simpler social system have developed into important
economic forces ; and they are much more difficult to
answer to-day. But immediate attention to them is called
for, since economic organization after the war will be in
a more or less chaotic condition, and at the same time
in an unusually malleable condition, and chance is seldom a
perfect architect. As in human affairs, however, an end
only becomes precisely defined when it is on the verge of
being realized, we cannot hope to frame more than a rough
idea of the State's future duties with reference to labour.
And before attempting to frame even a rough idea, it will
obviously be needful to grasp the tendencies that were ruling
antecedent to hostilities.

Looking at the labour world in the broadest possible way,
three movements proceeding from three different sources
appear to stand out. One, which began as a vague demand
for greater productive efficiency, had already created some
stir in capitalistic circles, and was developing a definite
programme for securing what was called " Scientific
Management." Another (constituted of several movements
that were assimilating), with only partially formulated
ideas, was pressing the claims of labour for an improved
status in reference to production, greater security of income

137

138 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

and position, higher wages, and, generally, a scheme of
remuneration which would make wages more like a partner's
share in the product of an industry and less like a com-
modity's price. With a part of this mixed movement, a
state of purposeless fermentation and local discontent with
trade union organization and policy were associated. The
term " Syndicalism " is sometimes applied to this element
in the labour movement, though its affinities with the con-
crete syndicalism of the Continent are not pronounced. The
third group of tendencies marked a growing interest on the
part of the nation in the conditions of life and physical and
mental well-being, intermingled with concern for the future
of the race. From this arose housing reform, schemes for
equalizing opportunities, the minimum wage demand, and
eugenics.

The three complex social currents distinguished above
cut across one another to some extent. But the first was
primarily capitalistic in its origin, though, liberally regarded,
its end was a national one ; the second was peculiarly labour
in its initiation ; and the third, national or State, though
portions of it could be equally attributed to labour. Thus
social betterment relating to housing and the conditions of
life has received weighty labour support, but labour
organizations have not shown themselves disposed to spend
lavishly upon it either in money or effort. Again, the
Poor Law reform agitation, or attempted agitation, confirms
the conclusion drawn above. Its promoters were largely
middle -class and its propaganda ended generally in a limited
or tepid following, though labour sympathy was not lacking.
The truth is that it did not happen to be in touch with any
nucleus of the distinctive labour movement. Another
example may be drawn from education. It is one of the
most hopeful signs of the times that there is no class without
its coterie of educational enthusiasts, but there are striking
differences in point of view and relative emphasis as between
class and class. Industrial leaders incline to rely too much
on the efficiency test, and to encourage only the technical
and commercial education which makes expert producing
machines— excellent things in themselves, but by no means
all that education stands for. The social reformer's ideal
of an education which discovers talent, and by developing it
makes the best men and women and gives opportunities to
the poorer classes, has seldom won more than a mere intel-
lectual acceptance in capitalistic quarters. To the employer,

THE STATE AND LABOUR 139

broadly speaking, it seems to be only remotely " business,"
and, so far as it is, to conduce to severer competition, which
he cannot be expected to encourage. And in labour circles,
this conception of one of the functions of education has
received neither the first blessing nor unqualified and unsus-
picious support. Indeed, the elementary step of raising the
school age has divided the labour world ; and there are
those who fear lest the policy of giving special opportunities
to picked individuals should weaken the cohesion of labour.
The insistence, in the popular movement for the higher
education of workpeople, on the principle that the work-
people when educated should remain workpeople — which has
its good side, it must be allowed, in repudiating the mere
bread-and-butter notion of education — is significant.

All this, of course, is to view things in the mass and not
draw fine distinctions ; but viewing things in this way, we
would certainly seem to be Warranted in representing the
movements affecting labour prior to the war as working
from the three angles of a triangle, as it were, so that,
when not exactly opposed, they were competing rather than
co-operating. Given understanding among our official and
unofficial leaders, and the avoidance of precipitancy, one
effect of the war may be to resolve this triangular system
of forces into parallelograms of forces. But, before this
is argued, something must be said of State action along the
old lines.

We may agree at once that, apart from financial con-
siderations, nothing has occurred to justify the curtailment
of the national labour or betterment movement, while much
has occurred to impel it forward in certain directions. It is
true that we should have learnt to be less apprehensive
about the physical and moral strength of the race, but at
the same time we must be realizing more fully its extreme
importance. The minimum wage policy may have to be
carried farther. Again, during the demobilization of the
Army and the remobilization of industry, employment ex-
changes will have to work as they have never done before ;
and, if the economic system can retain some of its recently
acquired plasticity, the function of these institutions will be
permanently magnified. In many other directions also, more
will be required of the State. One question in particular
will stand out for consideration de novo, namely the ques-
tion of the industrial position of women. This raises issues
that will be discussed in a later section, but we must notice

140 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

here that a minuter scrutiny of the conditions under which
women may be safely employed will have to be under-
taken. The industrial activities of 'women may, and probably
will, continue on a larger scale than heretofore ; and, if so,
it will be more than ever pressing to consider how to avoid
their undue strain. Between no industrial work and indus-
trial work of an arduousness and daily duration that a man
can stand without undue strain, but not the average woman,
there are numerous intermediate positions. It ought not to
be beyond the powers of organization to fit in the employ-
ment of women, under conditions suited to their powers,
with the employment of men under different and less
restricted conditions. The open-minded must have been
convinced by now that the disposal of this Gordian knot by
the slashing system of far-reaching prohibition is probably
the course most to be avoided. Lengthy comment on the
work of the State in spheres already approved cannot now
be attempted, but we must not omit to observe further that
for all time the value of its social action will probably
remain greatest where it now does most. Education with a
human and national end in view, and the furnishing of
opportunities in other ways (among which offering a future
to the enterprising on the land may be more urgently
demanded and needed after the war), make the men which
make the State and lay the foundations of our well-being.

We may conclude that more and not less will be required
of the State on the old lines — even though more economy
and less comfort may have to be aimed at for a time —
particularly in view of the probability that the national
attitude which the war has induced in the mass of the popu-
lation will survive sufficiently to bring to social reform on
the old lines a great accession of popular support. But the
disturbing thought confronts us that financial stringency
and a smaller national income may limit the Government's
capacity to do all that should be done. Will there be
obstacles in restricted means, and can they be minimized ?
This question leads directly to the considerations to be
developed next.

Our analysis of pre-war conditions brought out three non-
co-operating, and in part conflicting, groups of tendencies,
and our immediate concern now is exclusively with the
bearing of State action upon two of them. Up to the
time of the war, the State had interested itself mainly in
what we have called the national group, except to interpose

THE STATE AND LABOUR 141

occasionally in other matters in an indirect or advisory way
as public interest seemed to dictate. But there is every
reason to suppose that the lines of projection of these three
groups of movements will be deflected and attracted to one
another by the war. For example, the interest of the State
is likely to be drawn to the question of labour efficiency,
both because of the enormous problems of finance that the
war will leave as a legacy and because the State's economic
policy, apart from finance, must have a productive side.
The nation's revenue will become a matter of the deepest
concern ; upon it the future of the social reform that has
already been started will depend ; and what the revenue can
be is largely determined by what the nation's income is.
Again, it must not be assumed that the Government will
entirely ignore the productive problems involved in the
maintenance or" key industries and fundamental industries,
and other problems that may be raised when it is sought
to cement our political alliances on the economic plane.
Foreign competition in over-sea markets, if nothing else, will
inevitably bring the State to the capitalistic angle of vision
with regard to producing costs. But this attraction will not
mean a surrender of the State's constitutional point of view ;
when it assumes the organizer's interest it cannot and will not
discard its national bias. In short, its productive policy is
bound to become inherently a social policy. Moreover, in
entering as an interested party into the problem of produc-
tion, the State, by virtue of the fact that it stands for all
classes, will be naturally involved on the labour side ; and
only in so far as it can reconcile its productive objects with
labour claims will it be able to maintain a productive policy.
It is, therefore, conceivable that the angles dividing the
three groups of tendencies already defined may be so
reduced that the tendencies will become co-operating ones.
And this is possible for another reason also. The aims of
the different groups of labour may become less sectional,
because something of the war's public point of view may
survive, and the labour movement will acquire the habit of
the national outlook if it identifies itself more with what
we have called the national social movement.

The wish is strong enough to be father to the thought,
but there is nothing inherently improbable in the thought.
Scientific management could be advocated to promote the
interests of labour, only in that case more weight would
have to be attached to ultimate effects and' to the subjective

142 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

side of human activities. Opposition to scientific manage-
ment has been aroused by its too exclusive reference to
the magnitude of the output ; and doubtless it has been a
fault in the labour point of view to ignore or treat as
negligible the magnitude of the output. It does not follow
that as more is produced more goes to labour, but it may-
be arranged for more to go to labour ; and with this
arranged — which means the concession of no small part of
the labour demands — scientific management, liberally inter-
preted, would become a corollary of the contention of labour,
provided that the security of the workman's income was
not sacrificed, or diminished in any way, without a quid pro
quo. The question of this security is one source of existing
conflict. The workman is fighting for more security ; and
the regulations of his trade union are to some extent
designed to ensure it, by checking the substitution of un-
skilled for skilled labour, for instance, and by making the
demand for skilled work rigid, despite mechanical improve-
ments, as in the case of rules relating to the ratio of
machines to operatives. But " scientific management "
assumes the levelling or lowering of these protective barriers.
It has yet to discover how to recommend itself to labour
interests : that a way can be found by pruning and modifying
the crude capitalistic conception of scientific management,
without sacrificing its essentials, will be maintained later.
Similarly, the labour demand may be reduced in substance
to the capitalistic, for what fosters the motive powers of
production must tend to magnify the output. Men work
better when their future is assured than when they are
beset with constant anxieties. Their work is also superior
when their status in their firm or industry is such that they
identify themselves with it, and when they not only share in
its prosperity, but directly feel themselves sharing in it,
because of the system by which their wages are regulated.
Private incentives have hitherto been too exclusively ex-
ploited in production : it has yet to be realized that social
motives can be cultivated for economic ends and harnessed
to production. These considerations are purposely expressed
vaguely to keep their application general, and for the further
and sufficient reason that what is ultimately advisable, in the
matter of the operative's status and the regulation of his
wages, must vary from industry to industry, and has yet to
be enunciated in precise terms after discussion in contact
with the relevant facts.

THE STATE AND LABOUR 143

In connection with the conceivable reconciliation of the
demands of capital and labour, there is a point to refer to
that is of the utmost importance to our present inquiries.
It is that the accommodations needed for their harmony are
impeded or stopped by the crystallization of the productive
system in regulations and customs, which are, after all, only
means to an end. The relations between employers and
workmen had set so stiffly prior to the war that employers
tended to assume them in their mental speculations without
realizing that they were beg'ging any questions at issue.
Works organization had gone so long by rule that only the
most imaginative could struggle out of the accustomed
grooves. Similarly the arrangements made in the interests
of the workpeople, maybe after severe conflict, had almost
acquired the sanctity of " rights " defining the operatives'
property in the trade. Their observance to the letter was
frequently expected, however obsolete and unsuited to new
conditions they might be ; and even when workpeople took
a broader view, they were afraid to admit a breach lest all
existing defences might go and nothing take their place.
Few conceived of the possibility of getting better results
eventually as a result of modification. All this will come
out of the furnace of war vastly changed. Many an em-
ployer has had to suffer some control and to abide by terms
of employment and wages to which he would not have con-
sented as a free agent ; and the working classes have
already had some experience of working without the rules
and regulations by which their interests were, or were sup-
posed to be, safeguarded. To the widespread consent to the
temporary abeyances of these provisions which the majority
of the working classes patriotically but apprehensively
yielded, the success of the country has been largely due.

Now, in order that there may be no excuse for misunder-
standing, let the obvious thing be said at once, namely that
all the undertakings entered into to restore these restrictions
must be met fully and absolutely, without covert curtail-
ment, and in the most liberal spirit whenever the demand
for their restoration is made. The State could not
countenance, and no patriot could suggest for a moment,
repudiation, however trifling, or even suspicion of repudia-
tion, of the contracts that were made or implied. This
is obvious ; but, nevertheless, the departure from rule for
the duration of the war brings a new hope of social
and industrial progress in the near future. For, though

144 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

it is the workpeople's undoubted right to have reimposed
the old trade union safeguards, it by no means follows
that they will universally desire their restoration or con-
tinuance in their old form. They will not if it is
demonstrably not in their interests ; and there must be
numerous cases in which it will not be, and numerous
other cases in which greater advantages could be offered
alternatively.

In this connection, there are three points to bear in mind.
In the first place, experiments have been tried which labour
would otherwise have been afraid of risking, and there are
said to be instances in which an all-round benefit would have
resulted in any circumstances. In the second place, the
world will be very different after the war. The supply of
adult males will have been reduced by casualties ; and it
seems highly probable that numbers will emigrate to the
Colonies who would not otherwise have done so. After the
kind of life lived in camp many will be attracted to colonial
conditions, with which they will have come in contact in-
directly through their association with colonials. Moreover,
the colonial demand for labour will be more urgent than the
Mother Country's, seeing that the scantier a population the
more severely is a given percentage loss of people felt. In
many industries, therefore, we should be prepared to discover
without surprise that the displacement of the emergency
labour to any large extent would act detrimentally on the
employment and earning both of the men returning and of
those whose labour has been diluted ; and in any event, it
is unlikely that the arrangements best for the operatives
under the old conditions will remain best under the new.
In the third place it may be found that, though a small
section of labour would gain from the restoration of
certain rules, other sections would so lose that there would
be a substantial balance of loss. In these cases, as experi-
ments have been started and there is a good chance that
people will be in the mood to try new schemes, it would be
worth while considering whether some compensation for the
labour in question could not be so devised that everybody
would be left a gainer. Given a minimum of obstacles to
improved organization, greater productivity might soon make
up for the material losses of all classes due to the war. On
all hands one hears that a larger output per head is pos-
sible, even without an increase of effort. As path -breaking
is already far advanced, there is no initial inertia to over-

THE STATE AND LABOUR 145

come ; and it is certain that, after what has occurred, in-
dustrial organizers will be prepared to contemplate arrange-
ments with the operatives, the mere thought of which in
ordinary times would have caused them profound uneasiness.
It looks as if the post-bellum period would offer a great
opportunity to the wage -earning classes ; and being in the
strong position of having something to bargain with, they
can speculate without any appreciable risk.

But the situation will not be an easy one to deal with.
The old paths of peace will be no longer where they were ;
nor will they be immediately attainable. There will be a
jungle of difficulties to get through first, and antecedent to
this the demobilization of the Army and remobilization of
industry. A few words must be said of what confronts us,
for what exactly should be done in connection with the
labour question is closely dependent on what may be ex-
pected as regards the state of trade and supplies of labour on
the termination of hostilities. Four periods, which succes-
sively overlap, may be distinguished in events after the war :
first, the demobilization and transition period ; secondly, the
period of recovery from the destruction and deferment of
production and consumption occasioned by the war ; thirdly,
the period of reaction, if any ; and, fourthly, the long-
drawn-out period of new normal conditions. Much depends
upon the spaces of time filled by the first three periods,
which will not be the same in all industries, though at certain
points a general state of depression or briskness might be
induced by the synchronizing of a number of large in-
fluences ; and equally, as regards the character of the
periods, much depends upon the rapidity with which suitable
re -accommodations of productive forces can be effected.

Now it is vital to the country's economic future that,
when demobilization is taking place and we are equipping
and reorganizing ourselves to meet civilian requirements
more fully again, no unnecessary impediments should be
allowed to hamper our movements. The task of immediate
reconstruction will be sufficiently complex and onerous to
tax our powers to the utmost, and in connection with it the
gravest financial and other questions may arise. Moreover,
our future will largely depend upon our quickness. The
neutral competitor will have had a start and will have to
be caught up. And pretty much the same may be said of
the second period when the destruction wrought by war is
being repaired. Every day wasted during the course of

146 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

restoration work means another loss on the top of the heavy
losses still to be made good. Probably throughout this time
we shall feel a pressure of demand for labour not unlike the
war demand. The question, then, as to the time when settle-
ment of the labour problem can be most appropriately
sought is one of the deepest concern ; and of no little
importance is the allied question as to the method of settle-
ment, assuming it to be agreed among the operatives that
negotiations with a view to new arrangements promise the
brightest future.

This second question brings up for consideration the
functions of the State. It has been argued previously that
the State will have been rendered an interested party in the
labour problem in a much fuller sense than it was before
the war. But State domination is neither necessary nor
desirable, nor even possible. The Prussianizing of indus-
trial functioning would prove disastrous if it could be carried
out in England, and it could not. It would be galling to
the Englishman and destructive of the spirit that has made
for our industrial greatness. Compulsion will be largely
out of place ; but Government will have to be entrusted
with an extraordinarily responsible and difficult office. It
will probably be incumbent on the State to organize,
maintain and guide the multitudinous negotiations through
which alone satisfactory solutions can be reached ; and
it alone can bring uniformity into any emergency arrange-
ments, and keep the numerous discussions that must
take place in touch with each other, so that the several
agreements arrived at may give promise of enduring
by fitting into an harmonious whole. Men of the
diplomatic order, and others with the right insight and
knowledge, will be the chief requirements ; for if the oppor-
tunities of the future arc here read aright, difficult as is the
task of the industrial conciliator ordinarily, the new tasks
will be far more difficult, seeing that the range of debatable
subjects will be far wider. Moreover, the task will be the
harder so far as it is agreed by labour and capital that the
economic system, which has been forced by the strain of
war to make itself plastic, should be prevented from harden-
ing again into rigid forms, if possible. Its habit has hitherto
been that of the lobster — to grow a shell, discard it when
it becomes unbearably tight and then grow another. The
ideal to aim at is continuous plasticity under working agree^
ments which can be modified as need arises, seeing that

THE STATE AND LABOUR 147

schemes suited to all the features of an unforeseen future
cannot possibly be devised.

This sketch, fugitive though it is, of the State's hand in
the remoulding of the productive system, will be sufficient
to indicate that for the final settlement of human industrial
relationships, in a way that is acceptable to all parties con-
cerned, a somewhat lengthy period will be required. It
would, therefore, seem essential to enter into provisional
agreements, without prejudice to the form of the final settle-
ment, to enable industry to carry on meanwhile. This
is the more necessary in view of the fact that the war will
have so changed our markets and needs that all relevant
facts will not be known till some time after the termination
of hostilities. A hurried design, sketched when the future
of demand was unknown and the available supplies of capital
and labour were unknown — for who can say what emigration
will be or how many women will desire to remain wage-
earning ? — could never fit the circumstances and would
probably lead to regrettable reactions.

Consequently we may assume the need of provisional
arrangements. In the framing of these a State department
will undoubtedly have to take a prominent part, for reasons
similar to those urged with reference to ultimate arrange-
ments. Again, for the sake of insuring immediate response
to sudden post-war needs, these arrangements will have to
be made without delay. One awkward factor to allow for
will be price variations. Prices will be affected almost at
once, and they have a bearing both on the purchasing -power
of wages and the money wages that can be paid. The
question of wages, in view of price variations, will probably
be the most troublesome, and as prices will not keep constant
after once changing the disturbance will continue. To
meet this difficulty, some simple plan, to be acted upon
unless there were obvious reasons to the contrary, might
be devised and accepted ; and a simple uniform plan would
have the merit of preventing jealousy as between one class
of labour and another with reference to earnings. The
obvious course is to provide for some slide of wages with
an agreed index of prices for a period. But there remains
the question of the starting wage. In view of the need of
haste, one or two alternative pivots for wages might be
selected for the least exceptional cases. Something in the
neighbourhood of the present wage would probably be the
most acceptable pivot, and another possible one is the pre-

148 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

war wage raised by an agreed percentage based on the rise
in the cost of living. In special cases a new basis might
have to be adopted. But whatever the starting amount, if
prices declined at the rate that seems likely there would
have to be some corresponding descent in money wages.

As regards emergency action, the vital thing is to avoid
delay and cessation of work. More depends upon this
than many may realize in the first few months of peace.
And with reference to permanent resettlement, it is essential
to avoid haste and discard prejudice. A great opportunity
that may never recur is before us of so harmonizing conflict-
ing interests that class antagonism is transformed into a class
alliance to make good the war losses that can be repaired,
and continue unchecked along the path leading to greater
prosperity.

CHAPTER IX

The Relations between Capital and
Labour

/. THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR

By G. H. ROBERTS, M.P.

WHEN the hideous calamities of war have passed and
peace reigns again, the varied and complex group of
questions constituting the Labour problem will become
more insistent than ever. In pre-war days employers and
employed were drifting rapidly into a state of mutual
suspicion and ill-concealed antagonism. Then the pro-
testations of friendliness on the part of Germany had
lulled the nation into a sense of false security. When in
August 19 14 the naked evil stood revealed to all who
could and would see, all classes cast aside the differences
which had hitherto separated them, and a united people
sprang to agreement and determination to defeat the foe
whose aggressive purposes and moral turpitude had let
loose the hell-hounds of death and destruction.

With the exception of slight and occasional ripplings
of discord this splendid unity has survived, and made
easier the task of adjusting national resources to the pursuit
and attainment of victory. Had it been otherwise, disaster
would have inevitably ensued and the horrors of war have
been bitterly aggravated. What a tower of strength was
dedicated to the State in Labour's spontaneous outburst
of patriotism and ready willingness to serve ! Millions
of men laid on the national altar the proceeds of genera-
tions of strivings and sacrifices, making but the simple and
justifiable reservation that the things thus rendered to their
country should be restored unimpaired to them when danger

had passed, for these were the means they had fashioned

149

150 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

at tremendous cost and trouble with which to win better-
ment for themselves and theirs. Without internal unity
the prosecution of the war would have been hampered and
hindered, and more brave men would have died and more
treasure been expended. Heavy indeed are our losses
under both heads, yet it is good to know that in days to
come the conscience of Labour will be free of blood -
guiltiness, inasmuch as its conduct did not add to those
losses. None, therefore, will deny that national cohesion
has proved incalculably advantageous during the war.

Equally, I submit, will it be desirable in the period
ensuing on the establishment of peace. The absence of
industrial conflict will facilitate the readjustment of busi-
nesses from war to civil standards, and the measures of
reconstruction and development necessary for a speedy
recovery and future safety and prosperity. Some predict
that cruel and widespread class warfare will be precipitated
when cannons cease to vomit and trenches are emptied.
Surely every good citizen will be anxious to avert this
dread possibility. Having seen the son of the well-to-do
and the son of the labourer watching and fighting together
in order that their country may remain great and its people
free, I cannot think they will soon forget the comradeship
that inspired them to common endeavour and sacrifice in
withstanding the foe, nor that they will sanction lightly
the resumption of industrial hostilities, but will elect to
resort to the arbitrament of reason and justice. The
supreme social service that could be rendered would be
for parties and classes to sustain the closer co-operation
which prevails during the war in the trying days of early
peace. I am told this is too much to hope for. Assuredly,
however, most will desire that the better spirit should
survive, and will do their utmost to foster it.

It must not be overlooked that the concessions made
by Trade Unions are for the period of the war only. They
would not have been conceded to private interests, but have
been yielded willingly to uphold the integrity of the State,
on the clear understanding that they are part of Labour's
contribution towards the attainment of victory, and are to
be restored in their entirety when that purpose is achieved.
This constitutes a contract between the State and the Trade
Unions, the terms of which are implemented in the
Munitions of War Act. This Act provides for the com-
plete restoration after the war of any change effected in

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 151

Trade Union rules, regulations, and customs under this
contract. That this undertaking will be honoured is not
seriously questioned. Maybe some friction will occur, but
if the workers stand firm to their respective organiza-
tions they will, with the support of Parliament, revert
approximately to the conditions prevalent at the outbreak
of war.

Nevertheless, experiences gained through changes made
during the war will not be effaced. The extensive admis-
sion of semi-skilled and female labour into regions hitherto
the exclusive preserve of skilled artisans will have shown
employers that processes once confined to highly skilled
workers can be performed by less skilled. So it may be
expected that the status of classes of labour will be
readjusted in the light of this experience. But no
such change must be made arbitrarily. Any endeavour
to depreciate pre-war conditions will provoke trouble.
Unless this aspect of the matter is handled with care
and sympathy, irritation and probably strikes will ensue.
An ugly spirit will be engendered if employers give
cause for the belief that they seek to exploit for indi-
vidual ends the magnificent patriotism of the working
classes. Terrible will be the anger of those hundreds of
thousands of trade unionists who have been among the most
valiant defenders of the Allied cause if they return to
find that while fighting to keep intact their country their
industrial rights and privileges have been filched. There-
fore it is imperative that the restitution of Trade Union
concessions be as honourably effected as they were readily
surrendered. Given this, any changes experience has proved
desirable to make permanent may be negotiated without
prejudice in an atmosphere of mutual goodwill.

No thoughtful person maintains that methods shall be
stereotyped for all time. Finality in the means of wealth
production should never be contemplated. Persistent ex-
periment and improvement are essential in this as in other
realms. In the future, more than in the past, the standard
of nations will be determined by the efficiency of labour
and the fairness with which wealth is distributed among
its producers. Though we have prided ourselves on the
high quality of British labour and business methods, yet
the war has revealed startling deficiencies, and disclosed
the fact that the potentialities of wealth production are
enormously greater than hitherto dreamed of, and that by

152 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

proper organization and the smooth working of industrial
forces productivity is capable of extensive expansion.

The fundamental factor in the content of labour is
wages forthcoming in sufficiency and with unfailing
regularity. Among all classes an adequate and regular
income is regarded as the first essential of life.
Nothing is so demoralizing to the worker as low and
uncertain wages. The breadwinner who is the victim
of haphazard methods of industrial organization and
is subject to periods of enforced idleness becomes
moody and resentful when his wife and children suffer
deprivation, and when debts are incurred, the discharge
of which lowers the subsistence standard, or remains as
a burden gradually dragging down him and his to the
lower strata of society. Moreover, many a man whose
habits are exemplary when employment is good slips
unconsciously into a deteriorated state when work and wages
are intermittent, and he is driven to despair of maintaining
a decent standard of livelihood. Thereby is also created
a condition of mind reflecting class hatred, especially when
evidences of plenty, luxury, and extravagant expenditures
are flaunted before and about him.

Despite extraordinarily increased and increasing wealth,
large masses of our working population are yet denied
anything approximating to a guaranteed living wage. This
is one of the ugliest blots on our social system, as well
as the most fruitful cause of industrial unrest. Solve this
and the number of trade disputes will diminish. With its
solution, too, will decline the terrible evils of squalid homes,
ill -fed children, excessive drinking, and all those ills of
poverty origin which disfigure civilization. Some groups
of highly skilled and well -organized workers have made
substantial progress in this direction. Generally speaking,
however, the majority of workers possess no assurance of
a living wage when in work, let alone protection against
trade fluctuations. Thus the most urgent phase of the
Labour problem is a guarantee to every willing worker of
such a wage as will keep himself and his in a state of
decency and comfort.

At this point it is desirable to acquire a clear concep-
tion of what constitutes a living wage. A weekly wage
that but suffices for the weekly need is not a living wage.
To arrive at a just and equitable standard account must
be taken of the whole working life and the years of retire-

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 153

ment that remain. By this test a fair wage will be such
as provides adequately for the immediate need, and leaves
a margin out of which by savings, insurance, etc., every
worker and his family shall be made secure against un-
employment, sickness, and the other adversities which beset
them throughout life. In the event of the State estab-
lishing the right of every worker to wages based on this
principle, it will be entitled to require that provision be
made for non-working periods. Already the State compels
employed persons to insure against sickness, incapacity,
and in certain selected trades against unemployment. This
system might be extended so that all workers are insured
for a minimum weekly allowance when wages cannot be
earned, leaving to the thrifty the ability to make additional
provision as desired. Maybe this proposal will be con-
strued by some as a further interference with individual
liberty. Yet assuredly it is to the common good that when
sufficiency is placed within the reach of all, none shall dis-
pose of their substance so as to become dependent on their
fellows. Though knowledge of my class allows me to
state that the careless and reckless are a diminishing
quantity, yet they exist in numbers that might prejudice
the commonweal unless the State adopts safeguards as
here foreshadowed. Thereunder the indifferent would be
compelled to do what the better types undertake voluntarily.
Some advance by the State has been made towards the
fixation of fair wages, notably in the Trade Boards Act,
the Fair Wages Clause that is inserted in all Government-
contracts, and during the war by the Minister of Munitions
in State factories and controlled establishments. These
measures have laid the foundations of a system, which, sup-
plemental to the operations of trade unionism, is capable and
easy of development till an ample and regular income is
assured to every working-class family in the land. In
my opinion, it should be made a misdemeanour for any
person to take another into employment unless able and
willing to pay him a living wage. An industry that fails
to accord this is parasitic in character. Underpaid workers
have sooner or later to resort to charity, the Poor Law,
or other adventitious aids to help make up the deficiency.
Should there be any industry that cannot bear labour
charges on the scale indicated, which it is desirable to
preserve, it is preferable that it should be State-aided
openly and directly.

154 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Politicians and leaders of every class and school of
thought acknowledge that the war has wrought such a
social upheaval that depressed labour conditions cannot be
tolerated in post-war times. Our gallant defenders .have
earned the right to a fair and secure stake in the country.
Furthermore, it is believed that the occasion will have im-
pressed them with a sense of their worth, and inspired
them with a determination to make their native land a
fitting abode for all its people — a place in which every
one has a chance of full development. How much better
will it be if the spirit of unity animating all classes in
the course of the war incline all towards co-operation in
this task of regeneration, rather than that ex-service men
should be compelled to wage acrimonious struggle for the
right to live in a manner human justice demands, after
they have vanquished for all of us the foes of human
liberty and world-peace.

Particularly desirable is co-operation between the
employing and employed classes. Aloofness and mis-
understanding between these important sections are a potent
contributory to industrial inefficiency. Unless a closer
degree of partnership can be effected, the future of
industry will be extremely turbulent. Some employers are
too prone to regard an approach from their workpeople
as an impudent interference with their business. " We
intend to run our business in our own way " represents
the attitude of this type. But these employers must learn
that the way they run their business is a matter also of
social concern, and that they cannot regard labour as they
do inanimate things. Every one they employ is a human
being, instinct with feeling and need, aspiration and possi-
bility, like themselves. Gladly does one observe the
growing disposition to have recourse to conciliation and
arbitration in the settlement of disputed questions. Yet
that is not sufficient : the highest interests of industry
are of as much concern to employed as employer, and
they should be invited to consultation as to the means of
furthering those interests. It is invariably found that
workers respond to fair and considerate treatment. By
taking them into greater confidence, either directly or
through their accredited representatives, they will become
more interested and efficient workers, and more dignified
and responsible citizens. By the establishment in every
works of a committee, consisting of the directors and

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 155

managers, together with a corresponding number of
workers elected by their fellows, and holding regular meet-
ings, many valuable suggestions would be forthcoming,
causes of friction dispelled, and improved understanding
ensue, to the mutual advantage of the parties concerned.

No student of our industrial system will claim that un-
fettered private enterprise has been completely successful.
Rule-of-thumb methods are still too prevalent, scientific
organization and the most rnodern mechanical appliances
are not fully utilized. Land has gone out of cultivation,
and vital industries have languished to the detriment of
the State. Labour conditions are chaotic and bristling
with injustices and anomalies. Employers must now recog-
nize that in engaging labour they infcrentially assume
responsibility for its wellbeing . If they exhibit lack of
ability or unwillingness to co-ordinate satisfactorily the
interests of capital and labour, the State must intervene
for that purpose.

Whilst directing attention to the shortcomings of the
employing classes, enlightened labour opinion does not claim
that the workers are without fault. Yet this much may
be said in extenuation on their behalf : the lesser power
for good or ill has rested with them, hence their respon-
sibility is the lesser. Mr. Hartley Withers, lately Financial
Adviser to the Treasury, in a recently published book,
entitled " International Finance," states that a regime of
specialization " has brought to the majority a life of
mechanical and monotonous toil, with little or none of the
pride in a job well done, such as was enjoyed by the
savage when he made his bow or caught his fish." Having
regard to the uninteresting and changeless occupations re-
ferred to, it is not surprising that many sink into a state
of perfunctory performance of the daily round, and an
habitual yearning for the close of the working day. More-
over, many have experienced the fact that the use of
machinery has not lightened their labour, and that a fair
share of the prosperity that flows from improved means of
production is denied to them. Industrial history records
not a few illustrations where the intenser application of
skill and attention has brought little or no advantage to
the worker. For a time he may have been encouraged
by higher remuneration to test the possibilities of new
machinery and methods. When these have been ascer-
tained wage rate: >> > • been depressed to a point nearly

156 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

related to older conditions. Such a policy stifles ambi-
tion, weakens individuality, and tends to that restricted
production which is animated by conceptions of self -pro-
tection. The truth is that the relationship of employer
and employed too often lacks an ethical basis. Where
the quest of profit is pursued without due regard to the
human factor, there the worker will either consciously or
subconsciously adjust output in like spirit.

One of the great lessons of the 'war is that our industrial
system is capable of almost indefinite expansion. Despite
the withdrawal of over five millions of workers, changes
have been wrought speedily and yet so effectively as to
maintain production at an even higher level than prevailed
in pre-war times. These changes have been concerned
mainly with the reorganization of methods on more scientific
lines, the relaxation of trade union rules and practices, and
a widespread employment of female labour. While the
first -named will endure and be further developed, it is
not desirable that the other two changes should be per-
petuated as they have existed during the war. Excessive
hours and too -intensified application over prolonged periods
inevitably ensue in physical and mental tension and break-
down. Rest and recreation are as essential as technical
knowledge to efficient labour.

Inspired by a fine patriotism, many women have under-
taken tasks which considerations of race future and womanly
quality decree should revert to the sterner sex when the
national emergency has passed. Nevertheless, there is little
doubt that the war has facilitated the entry of women into
wider spheres of industry. Thus the question of female
labour is likely to cause anxious consideration. Many
Trade Unions have hitherto resisted the incursion of women
into the domain they seek to control. This attitude has
not been based so much on a sex objection as on the fact
that women have frequently been used to lower prevalent
rates of wages. Given an acceptance of the principle of
equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex, this trouble
would disappear.

The importance of regulating the hours of labour is
revealed by the investigations of the Committee on the
Health of Munition Workers. The Committee, which
included eminent doctors, officials, and representatives
of labour, was set up in 1 9 1 5 to inquire into all
questions affecting the health of munition workers. In

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 157

the urgent crisis of the need for shells the policy was
pursued of lengthening the hours of work, of establishing
a seven -day working week, of abolishing holidays and
periods of relaxation, and of speeding up workers to their
maximum pace and endurance. This policy soon proved
wasteful and dangerous. The Committee point out that
the country was involved in the " extravagance of paying
for work done during incapacity from fatigue just because
so many hours are spent upon it, and the further extrava-
gance of urging armies of workmen towards relative
incapacity by neglect of physiological law." The net result
was to limit output and to impair the health of the worker,
who was working longer hours and turning out fewer shells.
From the report of this Committee will be gathered the
fact that a proper regard for physiological law is essential
to industrial efficiency.

These conditions show that the main lines of progress
lay in the use of the most perfect machinery, the scientific
organization of methods, and, perhaps most important of all,
the individual efficiency of the worker. Under war stress
the status of groups of labour has been readjusted — semi-
skilled have been raised to that of the skilled and unskilled
to that of the semi-skilled, etc. Admitting that it is un-
economic to retain men of great skill and capacity at minor
operations, the foregoing should make for industrial pro-
gress. When industry is properly ordered so that workers
are regularly employed according to their respective
capacities, efficiency and expanding output will result from
every worker being able to visualize a career in which
increasing skill and honest endeavour are accompanied by
proportionate rewards.

It is not uncommon for employers to protest against
the establishment of standard wages and conditions of
employment because there are inefficients in industry.
Whilst the facts are often greatly exaggerated there is
substance in them, though the implication that Trade
Unions are concerned to uphold inefficiency is without
foundation. It must be remembered that workers combine
together in an endeavour to improve and to regulate the
conditions of their industrial life. To achieve their purposes
it is necessary to safeguard against disrupting their member-
ships, to the detriment of general standards, because the
capacity of a few is below the average. Minimum wages
are invariably fixed with a regard to the average worker

1 58 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

in a trade. Employers are not compelled to engage
inefficients, and as a margin of labour usually exists in
industry they are able to exercise considerable discrimina-
tion in selecting their staffs.

Even in submitting the foregoing I am vividly conscious
that the standards of efficiency of both employers and
workpeople leave much to be desired. Indeed, it is patent
that because of this our industrial supremacy is seriously
challenged by other great industrial nations, notably
America and Germany. Therefore, unless we speedily
enhance the efficiency of our industrial classes so that out-
put is stimulated, recuperation from the effects of the war
will be tardy, and the nation will be hurled from its
financial, commercial, and industrial eminence by those
countries which are zealously experimenting in and rapidly
solving the problem. Research proves that the problem
is complex in character. Only the superficial mind attri-
butes it entirely to any single cause, such as the wanton-
ness of Trade Unions or the shortcomings of employers.
The nation as a whole must share responsibility and search
out causes deep down at the very roots of society.

First, our educational system requires to be overhauled.
Short-sighted persons give too little heed to the school
age, and seem anxious to shorten it and to thrust children
to toil as early as possible. Yet a sound elementary educa-
tion is essential to all-round efficiency. It is the base
on which must rest the whole superstructure of perfected
industry, and unless laid firm and secure will fail to with-
stand the strain and stress to which international competi-
tion will subject it. During the latter stages of the school
period the aptitudes of the child should be watched
and noted. If directed to an industrial career it should
pass to the technical college, the curriculum of which
is shaped with a due regard to that form of industry
for which it appears the child is best adapted.
When the factory or workshop is entered, regular attend-
ance at the technical college should form part of the
period of apprenticeship1 or training. Thus will br
acquired a knowledge of the relation of a single process
to the completed whole. What is so deadening to
character as to place a lad in a works at an operation
which may be performed throughout the working life with-
out his ever really understanding the relationship of distinct
processes to a complicated product ? Wherever practicable,

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 159

too, he should be transferred periodically from one operation
to another.

Hitherto the recruitment of industries has been very
haphazard. Such a system as outlined is necessary to
insure the higher efficiency to be aimed at. It should
be observed that it involves a closer correlation of the
conditions of school life and the period of industrial train-
ing. Too often a lad enters a works for the simple reason
that it is near to his home, and without the slightest regard
to his individual capacity. This is a fruitful cause of
inefficiency, and accounts very often for the fact that a
man who might have made a competent engineer is an
indifferent clerk, or that he is a casual labourer instead
of a skilled artisan. A well -furnished mind engaged at
appropriate work, where the spirit of craftsmanship is
fostered, makes for a greater and higher quality of output.
When the problem is viewed broadly it becomes clear that
the doctrine of laissez-faire must be interred beyond the
possibility of resurrection. In future all classes in the
State must combine to promote the nation's industries with
a view to individual wellbeing and greater national self-
dependency, security, and strength. Given a wiser direc-
tion of the worker to the class of labour for which he
is best adapted, together with the establishment of universal
wage standards of the character before stated, with rising
grades of remuneration for those of superior skill and
industriousness, it may be confidently anticipated that
production will be stimulated enormously.

That the elevation of labour is dependent on flourishing
industry is self-evident. Regularity of employment and
high wages are only assured by good and stable trade.
Undeniably even under existing conditions all-round im-
provement in social standards would be effected by a
juster distribution of wealth. The colossal expenditure on
the war has, however, diminished the possibilities in this
direction. Hence if war wastage is to be rapidly repaired,
and the satisfaction of labour pursued, wealth production
must be augmented. This problem presents peculiar diffi-
culties in an old and settled country like Great Britain,
where the resources of land, minerals, etc., are already
in course of exploitation. Here progress must rest par-
ticularly on the application of intensive methods, such as
the utilization of the most perfect mechanical equipment,
the most scientific organization, and the most efficient

160 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

labour. Our great industrial rivals are attending to these
principles of industry, besides which they possess the advan-
tage of unexploited natural resources. Thus for us a
general increase of output becomes a matter of extreme
urgency. If not secured, we shall soon be outstripped
by competitors whose keenness and thoroughness ever
becomes more clearly manifest.

Output, then, being the outstanding factor, national
welfare demands the harmonious co-operation of all parties
for this purpose. As output expands, the greater the wealth
created and divisible. Hitherto the workers have not seen
this very clearly, mainly because they have been denied
the sense and advantage of partnership. Labour must be
given the certainty of reaping extra reward for extra skill
and effort, otherwise the additional exertion will naturally
not be made and the needed results will not be forth-
coming. In the past workers have been haunted with the
fear that expansive output would result in glutted markets
and unemployment. The occasion is favourable for re-
moving this dread. Terrible warfare will have reduced
the nation's man -power, and the necessity to readjust the
balance of our financial relations to other countries will
render it desirable to reduce the excess of imports over
exports. These conditions, coupled with an equitable diffu-
sion of national wealth whereby the demand for and the
consumption of commodities will be stimulated, will tend
to steady both trade and employment.

Whilst it does not seem possible to so order a complex
industrial system as to secure absolute immunity for every
worker against periods of under -employment or unemploy-
ment, yet much may be done by foresight and organization
to compass this evil. Cyclical fluctuations of trade and
seasonal variations of employment can be anticipated, and
the dislocations caused thereby can be ameliorated. Else-
where I have submitted insurance against these periods
as a palliative. But this will do little to steady trade and
employment unless measures are adopted for preventing
all possibly preventible displacement of labour. Recently,
owing to shortage of labour, the chaotic struggle at docks,
etc., has been grappled with, inasmuch as that it is found
possible to dovetail jobs and give greater regularity of
employment to this group of workers. This policy is
capable of extension. National and local authorities, too,
may by arranging the placing of contracts to correspond

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 161

with periods of trade depression also contribute to the
regularization of trade and employment. True, the placing
of such contracts may not directly absorb labour unem-
ployed at the time. Yet trade stimulated among groups of
workers reacts beneficially on the mass, and when applied
widely and systematically will greatly ease recurrent
industrial depressions.

Just as State supervision is necessary to the harmonious
co-ordination of the interests of capital and labour, so State
action is essential to the organization and regularization
of employment. In this connection it is gratifying to have
Government recognition of the importance of this, as evi-
denced in the creation of a Ministry of Labour and the
development of the Board of Trade more in accord with
a Ministry of Commerce. The function of the former is
to deal with matters affecting labour conditions ; while
the latter will watch and cultivate both home and foreign
markets. With a co-ordinated policy these two depart-
ments are destined to play an important part in the pro-
motion of trade and the well-being of the working-classes.

As industrial and commercial power will abide with the
nat'ons who erect their economic structure on the soundest
princinles, it behoves our industrial classes to early bestir
themselves. No people excel and few equal the Britisher
when terms are anvthing like equal. In this country
orsanizing and administrative talent is plentiful ; while with
considerate treatment our workpeople can prove themselves
among the most efficient in the world. Their cordial co-
operation can be won and their confidence gained if such
treatment is given to them. Place them in possession of
knowledge of the actual conditions of business and manage-
ment : make them feel that they are an integral part of
industrv bv disclosing to them the necessity for and results
of joint effort, and above all prove that when doing their
best the greatest possible return is made to them. When
escb side understands the point of view and difficulties
of the other a great steD forward will be taken towards
that harmonious co-ordination which is essential to the
nent and prosperity of British industry. Such a
po^cy combined with the anr»1i-it:on of science, invention,
g^d enterprise, will produce that efh"dQncy of production
which will keen the country in the forefront of nations.

Tf a better spirit in industrv is to prevail, employers
must abandon mistrust of and hostility to Trade Unions.

I i

1 62 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

In fact, workers should be encouraged to unite for mutual
purposes. On the other hand, employers should organize
for the regulation of "conditions common to the trade.
Experience shows already that in those industries where
employers and employed are well organized, and where
the two sides meet readily in conference, there conditions
are more settled and agreeable. These are signs pointing
in the right direction, revealing the fact, as expressed by
Professor Ashley, that " society is feeling the way with
painful steps towards a corporate organization of industry
on the side alike of employer and employed : to be, then,
more harmoniously, let us hope, associated together, with
the State alert and intelligent in the background to protect
the interests of the community."

With this corporate organization agreements as to wages,
hours, and general conditions will be negotiated and become
operative generally without the intervention of the State.
Nevertheless, both sides may suffer and industrial peace
be disturbed because some remain outside the respective
organizations and refuse to be bound by an agreement to
which they are not individually parties. The disastrous
strike in the London Docks in 19 12 was attributable
primarily to the default of certain employers in this respect.
In the interests of industrial peace this must be guarded
against. In June 191 2 the Government referred to the
Industrial Council, a body consisting of twelve representa-
tives of Trade Unions and twelve employers, presided over
by Sir George Askwith, the Chief Industrial Commissioner,
the two following questions : (a) What is the best method
of securing the due fulfilment of industrial agreements ? and
(b) How far, and in what manner, industrial agreements
which are made between bodies of employers and of work-
men should be enforced throughout a particular trade or
district ?

The evidence taken showed that, notwithstanding the diffi-
culties inherent in dealing with large numbers of work-
people, agreements in most cases are well kept. The success
attending the operations of various voluntary boards iof
conciliation and arbitration was noted, and the desirability
of maintaining this form of adjusting disputes was com-
mended. The basis of these boards is mutual consent,
and their value depends upon the loyal acceptance, on
the part of both sides, of the decisions arrived at in accord-
ance with the procedure of the boards. This acceptance

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 163

is purely voluntary, depending solely upon a sense of moral
obligation. Unanimity appears to have existed respecting
the desirability of preserving the principle of collective
bargaining. The report stated it was regarded as axiomatic
that nothing should be done that would lead to the abandon-
ment of a method of adjusting the relationships between
employers and workpeople which has proved so mutually
advantageous throughout most of the trades of the country.

Complete organization is, of course, the best means of
securing the fulfilment of agreements. Where the associa-
tions of employers and workpeople include an overwhelm-
ing proportion of the persons engaged in a trade on both
sides, breaches rarely occur, or if they do take place,
generally occasion little difficulty, since they are dealt with
by the prompt and efficient action of the Employers
Association or the Trade Union, as the case may be. But
where organization is imperfect, agreements reached by
such employers and workpeople as are organized are con^
stantly imperilled owing to the inability of either side to
take effective action against those whose fractiousness may
kindle industrial conflict.

To meet these cases the details of a scheme were drawn
up. This provided that where an industrial agreement
has been arrived at between representatives of employers'
associations and trade unions in a particular trade or
district, it shall be competent for the parties to the agree-
ment to apply (at any time during the currency of the
agreement) to the Board of Trade to cause an inquiry to
be held, by such authority as the Board of Trade may
direct, to determine whether or not the agreement shall
be extended and its terms made obligatory upon all persons
concerned. Upon receipt of the application the Board of
Trade shall arrange for an inquiry. If the authority thus
appointed are satisfied, after holding the inquiry, that the
associations represented by the signatories to the agree-
ment constitute a substantial body of the employers and
workpeople in the trade or district, and that the agreement
is a proper agreement and one that may suitably be ex-
tended, the authority may declare that the agreement covers
the whole trade or district. It then acquires legal sanction
and becomes an implied term of any contract of service
in the particular trade or district that the terms of the
agreement are an essential part of such contract. The
legalization of industrial agreements as suggested would

'1 64 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

eliminate one cause of strikes, and possesses the advantage
of retaining unimpaired the voluntary character of
employers' associations and trade unions.

In those instances where the organization of employers
and workmen is weak or lacking, legislation must be
resorted to in order to establish a living wage and regu-
larized working hours. This might generally take the
form of extending the principle of the Trade Boards Act
to include all such cases. Agriculture affords a typical
illustration. In most districts farm labourers have found
it impossible to take part in building up a. strong and
lasting combination. This is due to low wages, the isolated
conditions of rural life, and the comparative want of
mobility in seeking other employment. Yet the pursuit
of agriculture requires considerable training and the exercise
of much skill. It is alleged that the cause of the failure of
farm workers to obtain a living wage is to be found
in the depressed state of agriculture. But this is only
partially true, for where competitive industries exist higher
wages have to be paid in order to retain labour. Whilst it
is true that during the period of T.S71-T906 agriculture was
in anything but a satisfactory condition, it may fairly be
urged that had farmers exhibited more cohesion and enter-
prise, and been animated by a greater concern for the welfare
of the labourer, better wages might have prevailed. This is
proved by the fact that some of the more enlightened of them
have paid wages above the average, and still made farming
profitable. During the past ten years, too, the prices of
agricultural produce have risen, but the labourer has not
shared adequately in the renewed prosperity. It is certain
that the State cannot allow any section of workers to con-
tinue in receipt of uneconomic wages. Such industries as
that of agriculture are essential to the nation, therefore!
must be brought under State supervision, so as to secure
justice to the labourer and stability and prosperity to those
industries. Here again progress has to be acknowledged.
The Government having decided on a vigorous agricultural
policy have incorporated a minimum' wage of 25s. a week
as an essential part of that policy. Not only will this
advantage the rural population but it will react beneficially
on the whole wage -earning classes.

To achieve and secure these purposes our industrial
classes must possess an appreciation of great world facts,
and the bearing of not only national but international

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 165

economics on domestic problems. Owing to the neglect
of agriculture and of pivotal industries the defensive power
of the nation was weakened during the war. But for the
fortunate fact that our magnificent Navy was mobilized
at the outbreak of hostilities, and was able to blockade
the enemy's fleet, it might well have happened that our
people would have experienced scarcity and even want of
necessities. As it is, new and sinister devices of maritime
warfare have threatened the national life, and afforded
glimpses of the terrors which would have befallen us had
a number of enemy cruisers slipped away on piracy bent.
Most people hope this war may end war, but it may not.
Thus those responsible for national defence are bound to
be guided by the lessons of this war, conscious that the
destruction of ships and cargoes may be infinitely more
devastating in the event of another such catastrophe.
Lieut. -Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey, K.C.B., Secretary to
the Committee of National Defence, stated in evidence
before the Departmental Committee appointed to consider
the settlement and employment on the land of discharged
sailors and soldiers, that the weak point of this country in
the matter of defence is its dependence upon imported
supplies, and that while the cutting off, for a time, of the
imports of raw materials for industries would be serious,
the nation could tide over such a period provided it had
adequate supplies of food.

In this connection, too, the large number of merchant
vessels requisitioned for the conveyance to the several
theatres of war of troops, stores, and munitions has created
a shortage of ships available for overseas commerce. This
shortage has allowed shipowners to levy extortionate
freightage charges, which have contributed to swollen prices,
whereby the poverty of the poor has been cruelly aggra-
vated, and irritation and unrest been created even among
the fully employed and better -paid groups of workers.
Regrettable as is industrial disturbance during an unpre-
cedented war, it must be remembered that when workers
are exerting themselves to the uttermost over unusually
long hours for the sake of their country, resentment is
natural when it is found that the real values of hardly
earned wages are whittled away by an unnecessarily
enhanced cost of living. While most are willing to recog-
nize that in war-time a rise in prices is perhaps unavoid-
able, indignation is justifiable when it is known that part

1 66 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

at least of the burden is imposed by interests taking
advantage of a national emergency for private ends.

One way of avoiding a recurrence of these evils is by
increasing home-produced supplies. Whenever it is neces-
sary to go into the world -markets, the prices there pre-
vailing must be paid. During the war the needs of
belligerent nations have been so imperative, that those
holding supplies have controlled prices. According to
Professor W. G. Adams, the increase in the cost of
imported foodstuffs in 191 5, as compared with 191 3,
amounted to no less than £85,000,000, although the actual
quantity imported had not been increased at all. In the
case of home -produced supplies public opinion and govern-
mental action can influence prices, but are powerless in
foreign markets. This helplessness is strictly proportionate
to our need, inasmuch as that our great dependency on
outside sources has been the main cause of inflated prices.
At present we import four-fifths of the wheat and one-half
of the meat we consume, as well as enormous supplies of
cheese, butter, sugar, fruit, eggs, and other produce. The
average value of such imports, excluding tropical pro-
ducts, but including sugar, consumed in the United King-
dom in the three years prior to the outbreak of war,
1911-13, exceeded £200,000,000 per annum. Much of
these supplies could be produced at home, for our soil is
among the most fertile in the world, and our climate not
less favourable than that, say, of Denmark. By decreasing
reliance on imported supplies greater control can be exer-
cised over prices, and as the cost of living has a direct
bearing on wages, it is a sound and economic policy to
encourage and develop domestic production.

The foregoing emphasizes the necessity for Labour taking
a broad view of industrial affairs, and of co-operating on
national lines to make the country increasingly self-
supporting. This policy will contribute to the steadying
of trade and prices ; will bring individual and social
destinies under more effective control, and add to the
strength and prosperity of the nation, for future well-
being is indissolubly involved in the highest possible de-
velopment of native land, capital, and labour. Foreign
trade statistics regarded as an index of national prosperity
are often misleading. If while figures reveal prodigious
exports of cotton and woollen goods, boots, and other manu-
factures, masses of our own people are in need of, but

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 167

unable to purchase, these goods, can it be truly said that
the nation is prosperous? Similarly, when a huge volume
of goods is imported, while labour and materials near
at hand are not employed, can it be claimed that the
nation pursues the wisest and most economic policy? To
state these facts reveals a paradox. Our objective, then,
should be the exploitation of all home resources, and the
endowment of every family with a just share of the pro-
ceeds of industry, so that all may have a sufficiency of
necessities and full participation in the amenities of life.
A flourishing home market, created by the ability of all
to purchase and consume goods, gives the greatest possible
stability to trade and commerce. This does not mean
the destruction of overseas trade. As the status of the
working classes is raised physical and mental fitness
develops, together with greater interest and contentment.
These qualities constitute the basis of efficient labour and
expanding output. Placed in conjunction with initiative,
enterprise, and energy on the part of business men, pro-
duction will assume dimensions sufficient for both home
demands and a large foreign trade.

Realizing the waste and folly of idle lands, and the
heavy penalties of allowing essential industries, such as
aniline dyes, electrical machinery (particularly dynamos and
magnetos), optical glasses, etc., to pass under foreign
domination, the time is opportune for the survey and reform
of our industrial system. Stern necessity has brought into
existence a number of factories for the creation of muni-
tions of war. Reflection on the speed and efficiency of
their erection and equipment, in comparison with older
methods, amply proves that when necessity dictates and the
purpose is defined British brains can project and act as
swiftly and scientifically as any. While these factories are
furnishing weapons of war, should not their capacity for
turning out the munitions of peace be considered? Agri-
cultural and all kinds of machinery used in manufacturing
industries will be in great demand after the war. By
adapting these works to the need and stimulus of general
industry the State has an exceptional opportunity of associa-
tion in a great national trade revival. Careful planning
will be necessary to rehabilitate the nation from the ravages
of war ; therefore we should prepare for peace as
thoroughly as the enemy prepared for war.

It seems inevitable that wherever the question of future

1 68 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

trade conditions is canvassed fiscal controversies should be
aroused. These cannot be evaded. But it is desirable
that principles of trade should be reviewed dispassionately
and detached from past political struggles. Nearly every
one believes that reversion to pre-war conditions cannot be
exactly effected, and that this and many other questions
have to be studied and adapted to changed circumstances.
Yet without adhering slavishly to the past, it is unwise
to rashly embrace grandiose proposals which may bring
hurt and not benefit. The only safe course is to consider
fiscal principles in the broadest sense, with a sole regard
to the interests of the nation as a whole. Attempts on
the part of interested groups to manoeuvre Parliament
into setting up tariffs or other expedients merely to facili-
tate private profiteering must be frustrated. Equally those
who claim that the war makes no difference and that change
should neither be considered or made must be resisted.
In the life of nations as of individuals great crises emerge,
calling for a thorough investigation into methods and
practices. Unquestionably the present is a crisis in the
history of British trade. Inefficiency and supineness had
permitted German policy to worm itself quite into our
economic vitals, to the extent of menacing the State. Con-
siderations of safety and national integrity, let alone self-
respect, require that this be changed at once and for all
time. British trade, commerce, and finance must be
brought under, and remain under, British control, and if
fiscal change is necessary to insure it, then we should not
shrink from making it.

Vital industries must be fully developed and kept from
outside control. When war came no great country was
less self-contained in the essentials of her existence. The
State has now invested capital and undertaken to assist
in promoting the manufacture of dyes. Surely it cannot
tolerate the undermining of this venture from without . Until
this industry has had a chance of full development the
State is entitled to regulate imports accordingly. This
might take the form of limiting imports to supplying any
deficiency in national requirements. Again, an increased
wheat production is desirable from the standpoint of national
safety, and is fundamental to a revived agriculture. By the
guarantee to farmers of a price for wheat and oats a depar-
ture from fiscal practice is accomplished, but which if
successful will be beneficial nationally. A sugar-beet in-

THE STANDPOINT OF LABOUR 169

dustry, too, would aid rural development, and give the nation
a more complete control of supplies and prices, if the State
embarked upon the manufacture of sugar either directly
or in co-operation with others, its fiscal system would have
to be adapted to promoting that home industry. Many
working-class consumers are rightly suspicious lest fiscal
change result in advancing the cost of living and depre-
ciating the value of wages. But this is not inevitable.
Take, for instance, the case of wheat. The State might
constitute itself an exclusive importer, purchasing at world -
prices and arranging its distribution. Moreover, in a
properly graded income-tax and the excess profits-tax the
State has additional devices for protecting the people from
rapacious interests. These suggestions are neither con-
cerned with orthodox Free Trade or Protection, being
designed simply to show that modifications of our fiscal
system may serve to open up avenues of trade and employ-
ment, and so contribute to the general good. Even so,
the ultimate test of British industry will abide in the
character and efficiency of our industrialists, and not in
fiscal adjustments.

In writing this chapter I have sought to confine myself
to the subject of the book, and to deal with realities rather
than ideals : this, though, believing what is here set forth
will help towards a better and purer state of society. Whilst
strongly imbued with idealism, one must never forget the
tremendous distance that divides what is and what ideals
lead us to think should be. My immediate purpose is to
endow all with what Gibbon described as the trinity of
greatness : " A head to contrive, a heart to resolve, and
a hand to execute." That achieved, they will be proved
capable and worthy of sublimer things.

CHAPTER X

The Relations between Capital and
Labour

//. THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL

By SIR BENJAMIN C. BROWNE l

I HAVE been asked by Mr. Dawson to deal with this
question, and he told me at the same time that the same
subject was being dealt with by Mr. G. H. Roberts, M.P.,
from the point of view of Labour. Mr. Roberts has kindly
allowed me to see the draft of his paper, and I only
hope that I may be able to deal with it from the capitalist's
point of view as well and as clearly as he has dealt with
it from that of the workmen. Substantially it appears
to be, what has always been my view, that the interests of
capital and labour are in the main identical ; that they
ought to unite to make their trade as strong and as
prosperous as possible, and, having done that, the exact
proportion in which the profits are to be divided between
them is a comparatively small matter compared to that of
making the total amount to be divided as large as possible.
But before going into details I will touch on a few
preliminary principles.

As I understand it, our object is to think how, firstly,
to restore things to a prosperous and normal condition after
the war is over ; and, secondly, to consider whether we
can take advantage of what we may call this great revolu-
tion in order to bring about an altogether better state of
things. Of course, when we come to detail, a great deal

1 The writer of this chapter, who will long be remembered not only as one
of the pioneers of industry on the north-east coast of England, but as a warm
friend of labour and an earnest worker in the cause of industrial peace, died
on March ist of the present year, while this book was in the press. — The Editor

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 171

must depend on the terms on which the war finishes, and
how soon that event happens, and on these points we can
at present say nothing ; but we have three points that we
can consider :

(a) What was the position of capital and labour
before the war ?

(b) What is the position during the war ?

between capital and labour were most unsatisfactory — far
more so than they are normally ; there seemed to be
deep dissatisfaction on the part of most of the working
classes that they were not getting such large incomes as
they ought to get ; and this dissatisfaction was aggra-
vated very much by the rise in prices which had been
going on for some years. The general public seem to
focus their ideas of improvement into the question of
whether it is possible to get wages up to a substantially
higher figure than what they were before the war, without,
of course, throwing men out of work.

My own impression is that a very much improved state
of things might be brought about if we and our work-
men were to pull together instead of quarrelling. I should
say that the state of feeling between capital and labour
just before the war was pretty nearly as bad as it could
be. There had been an enormous amount of restriction
of output, and there was a very strong feeling of hostility
between the two classes. This was not shown so much
in the workshops, nor yet at the meetings of employers
and workmen, as in the newspapers and in public life —
especially in politics. Up to the end of the century I do
not think this had been nearly so bad, but things changed
for the worse rapidly after 1900, owingj, I think, very much
to the baleful influence of politics.

I find that we employers go to London, York, Man-
chester, Sheffield, or any other large town ; we there meet
with the Trade Union leaders ; we have long talks and
discussions, and, in the main, we get things thrashed out
and settled on a fair and reasonable basis : but then there
is probably no man in the room who has not had con-
siderable practical experience of the inside of a work-
shop and of how to deal with the majority of these
questions.

When the war came on what struck us all at once was

172 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

the very serious difference betwjeen the cordial affection
that existed between the officers and men in our armies
in the field and the hostility that appeared to exist between
capital and labour in the workshop at home : and yet,
roughly speaking, the officers very much represent the class
of men who are the employers at home. I believe that
the way the officers and soldiers trust each other is based
upon a thorough practical understanding of each other's
merits, and that the hostility between capital and labour
in the workshop is the bad thing that ought to be altered
and put on the same footing as the loyalty that exists on
the battlefield.

I believe myself that you can never get good work
out of any body of men unless they like and trust their
leaders. The workman ought to feel confident that his
employer will pay him as much as he can and do all he
can for his comfort ; and, on the other hand, the employer
ought to feel towards his workmen exactly as parents feel
towards their children.

Personally, I should say that kindly feeling between
capital and labour has been very much discouraged of
recent years, especially by the interference of people who
know nothing of the circumstances. It is so easy for
some great philanthropist to get up and say that obviously
the employers ought to give their men a larger share of
the profits, but I find that hardly one of the many and
great men, whether statesmen, University men, clergy-
men, or others, can really justify this apparent platitude
if he i9 cross-examined. The question is, Where is the
money to come from? If it can be shown that employers
are making very large profits, then it is natural for the
workmen to expect more money. Now, in the case of a
gas or water company, where the amount of capital
employed per workman is very large, a small sacrifice of
profit on the part of capital may do something very hand-
some towards increasing the return on labour. Suppose
you assume that in a certain business there is £1,000 of
capital for every workman employed and that each work-
man gets £100 a year income ; that is a very different
state of affairs to where there is only £100 of capital per
man employed, and sometimes a great deal less.

One very great change that has taken place in receait
years is that there are a few firms that make very large
returns upon their capital, and a very large number who

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 173

make very small ones or none at all ; and the latter are
apt to die down very rapidly.

Now, before the war, engineering and shipbuilding were
very busy, really owing to the fact that people who knew
what was going on were very much expecting the war,
and that the Admiralty and private owners were increasing
their fleets very decidedly. But when we look at the case
of profits what do we see ? War was declared on
August 4, 1914, and I have before me a return published
by Fair play in August 1913, one year before, which gives
a list of sixteen really important shipbuilding and marine
engine -building firms, and shows what they did. Now,
in 1 9 1 3 war was not generally looked upon as imminent,
though no doubt people who studied the question care-
fully had a good deal of anxiety ; but we find that out
of sixteen companies in 1909-10 seven were paying nothing
at all, and, speaking generally, those that did pay were
not paying more than 5 per cent, average. If any one
likes to take the trouble to go through the figures of the
" Stock Exchange. Year Book," which is a very easy thing
to do, he will find that, on an average, the profits on
engineering and shipbuilding works do not exceed this.
If one works pays ro per cent, and another pays nothing,
the one that pays nothing probably becomes bankrupt :
therefore, you have to consider not what is a sufficient
average amount of pay for the trade as a whole, but what
will become of the weak firms if the shareholders get
no return on the capital. I should say that in 191 3-14
some of the firms in engineering and shipbuilding were
in a more or less serious state, while others were doing
very well : but, then, you obviously cannot get those firms
that are paying large dividends to subscribe to help those
that are simply going down altogether, in which their men
are thrown out of work, and therefore there is the danger
of the workman losing a great deal if the profits are
cut down too much ; in fact, very often this is the reason
of his being thrown out of work altogether.

When I came to Newcastle as an employer, in 1870,
T had occasion to meet all the engineering employers of
Newcastle and Gateshead . I have kept an account of the
subsequent history of these businesses, and I find that two-
thirds of them perished disastrously. I think of the twelve
firms four still stand and prosper, but eight have closed,
and they have neither been absorbed nor amalgamated.

i74 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Again, in 1870, the Admiralty bought all their important
marine engines from four firms in London — Maudslay &
Field, Penn Miller & Ravenhill, and Humphry &
Tenant . Where are all these four firms now ? Gone,
and I am not aware that they even left any retired
millionaires to represent their past work.

When the Great Western Railway Company bought up
the Bristol and Exeter, South Devon, and Cornish Rail-
ways, it took to making all the machinery that those
railways required at its own works at Swindon, and the
consequence was that the works in that district which had
lived on supplying those three railways also went out of
existence. This is an example of how great the risks
of the trade are, and why manufacturing, as an invest-
ment, is less and less popular.

Profit-sharing is often advocated by amateurs, but, off
and on, through one firm and another, I and others have
been constantly offering to give the men a share of the)
profits in different businesses, but they never seem the
least keen about taking the offer ; and I am inclined to
think they are right. I think they would lose more by
the complication than they would gain by the profit. In
an average engine works there is £150 of capital, or
thereabouts, per workman, and taking the average of
mechanics, labourers, and apprentices, the average pay is
about 30s. per week. Now, assuming that the works pay,
one with another, 5 per cent., that means that the company
gets £7 1 os. per annum profit per man employed. But
30s. a week is £75 a year, so that capital gets, in the
form of dividends, one-tenth part of what it pays in wages.

I think I have had as much to do with starting works
as most people, and I always consider myself that if you
can rely upon dividing an amount equal to one -tenth part
of what you pay in wages that is just about what you
can go on at : at that point you are neither making nor
losing money. If you do better, well and good ; but if
you do worse you must look out for yourself very care-
fully. But what, of course, I should hope to see would
be, if we could make a fair start and give the men a
share in the profits, that the actual profits should be far
larger than they are now, and then labour might really
get more than it is doing at present.

I think it may also help our investigation if now I
make a rough forecast of what seems likely to be the

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 175

state of things when the war comes to an end, and, as
far as we can guess, what is likely to be the future of
trade, both immediately and (which is quite another thing)
permanently, after the war.

I should say that the vicissitudes that followed on the
Franco -German War and in other cases all show that where
the employer was a man of real energy and adaptive spirit,
and, above all, where he had a sufficient command of
free capital and was not too much bound up with other
people, he usually survived the storm and came out more
prosperous than ever, many of his competitors having suc-
cumbed to the disastrous times. After the Franco -German
War prices for coals and locomotive engines rose, but
not instantly : it was a few months before the effect was
actually felt, and it seems to me the key to the position
was that ultimately nearly all the world's energy was put
into repairing the damage done by the war, making up
for all the work that had not been done and providing
for the changed conditions.

I should think, after this war, the amount of work to
be done in the way of replacement and renewal of not
only railways but pretty nearly everything else will be
enormous. Everybody has worn out everything he has
got, and will want new and better things directly he
can afford to pay for them. Of course, it is conceivable
that things may go too far for this to be effective for
some time. I remember at one time during the Franco-
German War discussing with some Germans the effect that
its wars had had on Germany : they nearly all insisted that
hardly any History made enough of the sufferings which had
been caused thereby, especially in the case of the Thirty
Years' War ; and this has been brought out very fully
by Archbishop Trench : the annihilation — for we can call
it nothing else — of civilization in many districts, and the
utter ruin of enormous numbers of people, were things
of which we earnestly hope we shall never see any signs
again. But I can certainly remember Germans, who knew
very well what they were talking about, saying to me
that Germany had not got over the effect of the Thirty
Years' War before the Napoleonic Wars came, and that
Germany had not got over the effect of these when the
Franco -German War came.

But, now, to apply this to our own case. If we can
imagine the war ceasing within any reasonable time, one

176 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

would fancy it would take a good time to disband all
the armies, and that, if care is taken, a large majority of
the people, men and women, should get back their work
without so much difficulty as the public seem to fancy.
When all is said and done, the world is enormously in
arrears as to the supply of its wants, and there will be
far fewer people to supply them than there would have
been had trade been going on normally for the last throe
years .

I cannot help thinking that people exaggerate the talk
of trade going to Germany. When you take the average
number of unemployed in England, if we conceive them
all set to work profitably, it would show something like
the total extra amount of work that we could take in this
country ; but the whole amount of extra work would be
a mere flea-bite compared to the work that is turned out
by countries like Germany, and though no doubt our
Colonies will, by degrees, all be enormously developed,
it must be remembered that they will develop as con-
sumers quite as fast, if not faster, than they will develop
as producers. There is no doubt our feeling at present
is, and probably very properly is, very bitter indeed against
Germany, but it is no use to say more than what is true ;
and really I doubt if Germany, as a whole, has done very
much more to injure our trade than other countries with
which we have not, and must not have, any quarrel, such
as Belgium and Switzerland. We all remember that for
years Belgium had practically a monopoly of the steel
girders that are so much used in building houses. Switzer-
land got a monopoly of clock work before any of us
were born and has kept it firmly ever since — and no blame
to her, as she has probably done the work better and
cheaper than other people. It is easy to find certain
Germans who have done dishonourable things and who
have schemed and organized in a way that was not fair ;
but may not the same be said sometimes of other coun-
tries? I believe we can find cases where English and
German manufacturers have combined together to keep up
prices artificially. It is commonly considered, I believe,
that the price of ship -plates would have been raised
artificially very much higher in this country had it not
been that they were limited by the price at which Germans
could deliver the same plates by sea.

Now, <t will not do thr working classes any good \i *?:e

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL if 7

simply do work at home which might be done more
cheaply abroad, doing perhaps less of it, if the surplus
profits are all to go into the pockets of the manufac-
turer. And one can, in one's lifetime, think of numbers
of cases where things which were the monopoly of some
foreigner have been captured and taken over by the
English. Of course, sometimes it is the reverse. The
fact is that in these days of cheap carriage the question
of where a thing is made is of comparatively small im-
portance compared with what facilities there are for making
it. I remember some years ago our getting our first lot
of twist drills from America, and when we first got band-
saws for cutting iron and steel we got them from France ;
but very soon England could produce all these perfectly
well, and as cheaply. When steel wheel centres for loco-
motives came in first we got them nearly all from Germany,
but that was also a very transient state of things.

Of course, it is quite possible that after the war we
cannot leave things to their natural development in the
way we could have done had there been peace : it may
be necessary to spend trouble and money to foster and
create industries in some places ; but that is quite a
different thing from saying that the whole of our past
policy was wrong. When all is said and done, I must
say I like, as far as possible, to let every individual —
whether a man or a company — develop his own trade in
the best way that he can and leave other people to do
the same. I have heard Sir Graham Berry, who is sup-
posed to have been the greatest Protectionist Prime Minister
in Victoria, speaking on the question of nursing up young
trades in a new colony, and I quite felt that he made
out as good a case as people do for feeding a baby in
the sure hope that some day it will become a useful man
or woman. But I well remember him saying : " I do not
advocate Protection as a universal principle, but I say that
Protection is the right policy for the Colony of Victoria
to-day : whether it is the right policy for England now,
or for Victoria to-morrow, is a point that I am not dis-
cussing." And there is no doubt that when the world is
all out of joint, as it must be after a war like the present
one, we may have to adopt, in certain cases, special
measures which we should not be at all wise to look
upon as permanent institutions.

There are other causes which I think have conduced,

178 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY,

perhaps unintentionally, more than most people would think
to the bad feeling to which we have referred. One of
these is that, both among employers and the workmen,
the Trade Unions and Employers' Associations have taken
to interfering in detail more than is wise. I have always
held, as regards employers (and exactly the same principle
would apply to workmen's Trade Unions), that these bodies
were formed for defence, and not for aggression, and to
support the individual, not to tie his hands. For example,
I always held that if an employer came to us and said,
" My men insist that I should give them more wage than
is usual in the trade, and more than I can afford," it would
be for us, as an Association, to take up his case, to see
the men, and give our member our support to whatever
extent was just and fair ; but, on the other hand, suppose
an employer thought that it would pay him to turn out
super -excellent machinery for which he required specially
good labour and therefore he began to pay his men excep-
tionally high wages, I do not think his brother employers
should interfere with him.

1 remember when we first took up Admiralty work on
the Tyne we had in a great many ways to improve our
standards to something better than we were used to, and in
picking our men we probably increased our average rate
of wage ; but nobody interfered with us, and I think
that was quite right. If we made a success of it, other
employers would copy us ; if we made a failure and burnt
our fingers, we had only ourselves to thank. Similarly,
I do not agree that any one ought to interfere with the
workman if he deliberately chooses to take an easy job
at a low rate. If the workman goes to the Union and
says his employer is pressing him to work at a lower
wage than is fair, then by all means let the Union take
the part of that member and support him and get him
what is just and right : but, to take an obvious case,
suppose the Amalgamated Engineers were getting 35s. a
week ; a man is offered a job as chauffeur to a doctor and
he takes it at 35s. and nobody objects ; but another man
is offered a job as a chauffeur to an old lady, where the
work is not half as hard and where he will get a great
deal of time to himself, and if he, being either delicate
or a lazy man, likes to take this job at a lower rate I do
not think the Union ought to prevent him, because the
services he is giving are worth a great deal less than the

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 179

normal so the wage ought to be less, and he is not really
tending in any way to bring down the wages of his fellow -
men. When I was chairman of an Employers' Associa-
tion my feeling always was to let an employer feel that
he had our support in whatever was right and proper,
but that he should ask for it ; and if neither he nor his
men complained of the existing state of affairs I was always
very slow in interfering with it merely because some third
man, whether an employer or not, complained.

People often talk as if high wages mean dear labour :
this is not in the least the case. A common statement
that I have often made is that a navvy, who gets higher
wages, can dig a hole cheaper and more quickly than
an ordinary labourer who gets a lower rate of pay, and
probably he is far less tired at the end of the work.
Even where it is all a question of hand labour and no
machine, the quantity of work done depends far more on
the amount of brains that are brought to bear upon it
than upon the actual muscular exertion of the men. In
the same way, there is no necessary connection between
long hours and a large output : the most economical time
for a man to work is that at which he can keep himself
going for an indefinitely long period without any deteriora-
tion in the quality of his work or any undue fatigue.
In old times I remember in factories when the ordinary
workman left work at six in the evening, the boiler -yard
piece men left at five, but the chainmakers, whose work
was supposed to be the hardest of all, left at four, it
being supposed that by those times the men had done as
much as was permanently prudent.

To take another point, when the war came on a different
state of things was brought about to what had prevailed
before. I believe there is a general feeling among work-
men that employers, on account of the war, began to
make enormous profits : I should think it very probable
that in some cases they did so, but it is very hard indeed
to say at present. After this war there must be a vast
amount of machinery which has been put up for making
munitions and which will never be wanted again ; and it
may easily be a question whether the employers are able to
cover the cost of this before it is superseded and useless.

It is much more difficult to point out any definite pro-
gramme for capital than it is for labour, because its position
is much more complicated. Labour only communicates

I So NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

with the customer, on the one hand, and with the people
who supply the material, on the other, through the
employer. The capitalist is expected to not only rind the
works and the money, but also to get the orders, buy
the material ; and, in fact, without him there would be
no trade at all. This is not satisfactory, but it is so ;
and therefore, in legislating about him or his trade, we
must bear it in mind.

I question if it really is practicable, or desirable, to
legislate for the benefit of one complete class, such as
employers, and to devise laws which will have a uniform
effect on them all, large and small, rich and poor.

Suppose that for any purpose you want to bring a strong
pressure to bear on a body of employers. At first they
all suffer, but not equally ; gradually some, and then more
and more, are crushed out of existence. And now see how
this works. Those that are poorest will be ruined ; all
their workmen will be thrown out of work and will have
to seek employment at the gates of the employers who
survive. The customers of those who are gone have also
to seek to get their orders executed from these same
survivors. So, while the poor employer is ruined, the
rich employer gets more, and therefore cheaper, labour
and more orders, and therefore higher prices.

Nothing enables a man to face the unexpected, or to
survive long periods of trouble, like a long purse. The
poor man is ruined ; the rich man waits patiently and
then emerges to face reduced competition. Drastic changes
in the law, unexpected strikes, and all other sudden and
violent measures have this effect, and whatever may be
the intention of the ardent reformer, the practical effect
of his action generally is to make rich men richer and
poor men poorer.

The employers do not wish to be specially favoured,
but recent legislation has most pointedly disregarded their
interests, and, in doing so, has, I think, very seriously
injured both the trade of the country and, above all, the
interests of the working classes. The Workmen's Com-
pensation Act was drawn so as to hit the small employer
very hard : so were those mischievous laws encouraging
strikes (and they benefited nobody) ; and there were many
others .

I think the decline of the small employer is a
national calamity. I do not think that those of us who

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 181

have large works really suffer much from the bad legisla-
tion : it means that there are fewer of us, more customers
and more workmen ; and the customers and workmen can-
not get at each other except through us. But I think that
for the good of the country the small employer ought to
be encouraged in every way: at present his burdens are
greater than he can bear ; his risk of being ruined
has been enormously increased ; and you can no more
expect to have large employers without encouraging small
ones than you can expect to have grown-up people if you
let all the children die. And it cannot be much use to
prohibit the importation of foreign manufactures unless you
have Englishmen with leisure, ability, and capital ready to
take up the work, and such men appear to be getting
scarcer and scarcer. Probably Government employment
ought to be increased in some directions, because the
number of employers is becoming dangerously small for
the good of the country. To study an economic question
it is always wise just to consider how the principle would
work in an extreme case. So let us suppose that in some
industry there was only one employer, who had a monopoly :
all the workpeople and all the customers would be at his
mercy. But, one way or another, as long as the working
classes live by wages, we must somehow keep up a
sufficient supply of employers.

Now, having laid down the doctrine that the interests
of the employers and workmen are identical and that
employers are to be looked on as the officers of the indus-
trial army, we must try and sketch out what would be
an ideal state of things to attain to after the war.

I assume that full attention has been given to the
energetic development of our Colonies, and also to con-
sidering the supply of those things for which, being
necessary for our existence, we ought not to be wholly
dependent on foreign countries.

When the war ceases, the first point will be to restore
some millions of people to their permanent places in civil
life. If the War Office will cordially co-operate with the
employers and the Trade Unions, if we may begin to
restore men to civil life as soon as possible, and if we
are all willing to be a little patient towards the end of
the process with the last batches, I do not think the task
will be at all superhuman. All these men and women
were living somehow before the war, There will be, alas !

182

NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

fewer now, and besides the regular needs of the world
there are enormous arrears of work to be made up. But
in that, as in everything else, much depends on the cordial
co-operation of employers and employed.

Then the two bodies ought to be organized, as most of
them have been for some time, and they ought to meet
together on a footing of absolute equality, and no stoppage
ought to be allowed till every effort has been exhausted
to make a friendly settlement. But legislation ought to
be the last resource, and a very bad one. Settlements
across a table are friendly, but a parliamentary fight means
victory on one side and a defeat on the other, and bad
blood on both. If we could all look on one another as
members of the same family, we should avoid all quarrels
and bitterness ; and I think the old maxim is the safest
rule, " Never win a victory till you have exhausted every
chance of arranging a compromise."

May I add one word for the employer? Besides the
super -tax the Government have laid on him these burdens :

(a) They have taken over his works as " Con-
trolled Works," which takes away almost all his power
over his own property.

(b) They claim the right to tax his profits almost
at their own discretion.

(c) In giving orders they frequently reserve the
right to cut down the prices if, on after consideration,
they think them too high.

Now, I have not seen or heard that any employers
have objected to any of these things, nor will they. I
believe they will, as a class, do their utmost to bear any
burden which the Government consider that, in the
national interest, they ought to bear. They trust the
Government .

Probably what has been the greatest satisfaction to a
large number of people during this time of terrible sorrow
and misery has been the loyalty with which our officers
and men have stood by each other and trusted each other,
both in the Army and in the Navy. Now, these are just
the same men that represent the employers and work-
men in civil life, and the question is to account for their
rising, under the pressure of danger and calamity, to such
a much higher level than they occupied before. As far
as one can see this was quite simultaneous, both sides
instinctively joining hands, trusting each other, and pre-

THE STANDPOINT OF CAPITAL 183

pared to make evtry sacrifice, even of life itself, for the
cause for which they were fighting. Now, if we want
really to investigate questions on the actions of human
beings, we are simply wasting our time unless we are pre-
pared to go boldly down to the root of things, look into
their hearts, and see really at the bottom of all what are
the motives which have influenced these men, both for
good and for evil.

I think we must at once face the fact that, in the main,
men have far more good in them than bad, but that small
causes will stir up the bad while it requires greater ones
to bring the higher and nobler qualities into action.

There are especially three men who are, I think, re-
sponsible for the bad state of things, and who may be
looked upon, in fact, wherever they are found, as the
absolute enemies of those of their own class and of the
happiness and prosperity of all mankind. The first of
these is the employer who tries to combine artificially to
raise prices : he is simply diminishing' the amount of
trade, and thereby making less work for himself and for
the workmen. The second is the workman who com-
bines artificially to restrict the output : he is doing the
same thing . Probably both these men, in an ignorant and
selfish kind of way, believe that they are doing some good
to their own class, and we may give them a shade of
palliation on the plea that they mean well ! The third man
is much worse : he is a man who disbelieves in unselfish-
ness, conscientiousness, duty, and who, in fact, thinks that
every human being is simply guided by what he believes
to be his own personal material interest. It seems to ma
that this principle, carried to an extreme, is what has
been the curse of what is called the German " Kultur."
Some people, when one goes to business, tell one that no
man is really unselfish ; that every man is to be bought ;
that they have no faith whatever in high standards of
honour and chivalry. Sometimes they go a step further
and say that money is the guiding principle of everybody.

Postponing for the moment this last question about
money, and speaking of the others, the action of our
warriors at the front simply gives the lie to the whole
thing ; but, more than that, I have always felt myself, in
all our disputes with the workmen (and1 I have been in
plenty of them) that even in the bitterest strikes we were
dealing with an honourable and high-minded class of men,

.184 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

who might be prejudiced, who might be bitter, but whose
word could be depended upon, and a large majority of
whom really took a pride in their work ; and the end of
it has commonly been that we, the employers, who meet
the Union leaders, usually come to look on them as friends
not only with whom we can negotiate but whom we can
trust .

As regards the idea that money is such a dominating
principle, not to look any higher, the mere fact that such
a great many men, and still more boys, look on an increase
of money as merely an opportunity for spending more
time in play is a complete contradiction of that ; and
when young men are choosing their walks in life, they
are far more influenced by questions of whether they will
find the work interesting and whether the life attracts them
than they are by the mere question of how much money
they expect to get.

What we want, then, is to try and somehow re-establish
that trust between employers and workmen that has, to a
certain extent, fallen into abeyance, but by no means
altogether. What we want is more confidence and
sympathy. Everybody knows when the employers meet the
workmen, as they do regularly in most trades, for the
settlement of various disputes what an enormous amount
of work is done amicably and what a number of disputes
are nipped in the bud and never give any serious trouble ;
and it is certainly the case that if the leaders on either
side of the table agree verbally to any arrangement, or
promise to do or to refrain from doing anything, the other
side look on that promise as being quite as safe as a
legal pledge.

I have spoken of the really foolish and bad men, by
whom, of course;, I mean employers and workmen in exactly
the same degree ; but a great deal of harm may be done
by mistake and misunderstanding. We can only appeal
to our having confidence in each other, because where there
is confidence mistakes are easily explained, and where there
is kindly feeling injustices are easily put right.

CHAPTER XI

The Land Question

By W. JOYNSON-HICKS, M.P.

The men in the dugouts talk of a good many subjects, but there is one on
which they are all agreed. That is the land question. They are not going back
as labourers or as tenants but as owners. Lots of them have used their eyes and
have learned much about small farming out here.

" Many will go to Canada, some to Australia, I dare say," said one man, "but
I am one of those who mean to have a little bit of Blighty for myself. We see
enough in France to know that a man and his family can manage a bit of land
for themselves and live well on it." — At the War, Lord Northcliffe, p. 102.

The above quotations from the most widely read book on
the war, written by a Tory newspaper proprietor, must at
least give the Unionist Party cause to think. I remember
when 1 ventured in the autumn of 191310 write a long letter
to the Pall Mall Gazette urging the Party to deal promptly
and effectively with the land question, I was met with a
storm of indignation, both privately and in the press, which
stigmatized my letter as an amazing document for a Tory
M.P. to have penned.

All this was before the war, when individualism was
rampant, and when the last stronghold of privilege centred
in the possession of the land ; when, moreover, Mr. Lloyd
George was regarded as something a shade blacker than
Satan, and when the housing of cattle was considered of
more importance than that of a cottager. During the war
all this has changed. Our pheasants have not fought for
us, but our cottagers have preserved inviolate the sanctity
of our shores, and will, in the course of this year, restore
civilization to a battered world ; while Mr. Lloyd George is
the head of a Tory Government.

Let us see, then, what is the position to-day in regard
to Land Reform — very much easier, I admit, than it was
in 1 91 3.

I8.S

1 86 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Be it remembered that years ago the bulk of the land in
England was held, and largely held, as freehold, in small
holdings. The yeoman farmer of England was the man who
built up the armies which fought through the French cam-
paigns of Edward III and Henry V, and which crushed,
under Cromwell, the armies of Charles I.

Gradually these small farms were bought out by the
neighbouring landowners, who added field to field, and
parish to parish, till we now know that some of them own
ten, twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand acres, a monstrous
abuse of the land laws of any country — as I do not hesitate
to say, from personal knowledge, that no man can properly
control or manage such vast estates.

All through the weary Victorian era the sturdy yeoman
farmers, bred upon the soil, desired nothing better than to
live their life — hard though it may have been, but satisfactory
to themselves and to their country — on the little patches of
ground which came down to them from their fathers.
To-day their descendants are mere agricultural labourers
at a fixed wage, or, what is worse, have drifted away into
the towns, where at least they find that amusement and
companionship which is not to be found in working for a
landlord at 16s. a week.

We are beginning to realize, in consequence of the war,
the effect of this land policy in regard to our food supply.
The total food bill of the nation is about 450 millionis
sterling, of which less than half is grown in the United
Kingdom ; but if we leave out certain luxuries and deal
only with the staple product of the people's food, wheat, it
will be found that four-fifths of this comes to us from
foreign countries or our own Colonies.

Many of us in years past, and above all my friend.
Captain Charles Bathurst, M.P. — now, I am glad to say,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Controller — warned our
countrymen of the effect which this policy would have in
time of war. Little did we realize how soon our words were
to come true, and how near the country would be to bread
rations.

If we go back to the beginning of the Victorian period,
when the population of the United Kingdom was about
27 millions, it will be found that nearly all of them were
fed with home-grown wheat ; but, with a population of
now 45 millions, we are feeding only one-tenth of that
number with wheat which we grow ; and the extraordinary

THE LAND QUESTION 187

point is that with all the improvements of science, with the
development of mechanical traction on farms, with the
invention and increase of so many fertilizers, the area under
wheat has diminished even in the last forty years by more
than 50 per cent.

It is idle to speculate as to the causes of this decline, or
to tinker with remedies, without going to the root cause of
all and considering whether the whole fiscal and land policies
of our country have not been, during this period, grossly at
fault.

Remember also that it is not as if the land which had
gone out of arable cultivation had been laid down in good
grass, and had fed an increasing number of cattle. Every
one who has read Sir Rider Haggard's " Rural England,"
or who has even himself studied the condition of our farm-
lands, knows perfectly well that land has not been properly
sown with grass seed, but has tumbled back into a collection
of couch and weeds, providing no real food for cattle. It
is admitted indeed that there are 1 2 million acres of poor
grass land which, if properly cultivated, would produce
enormous supplies either of wheat or of beef.

Whatever date or average of dates you like to take, it
will be found that there has been no increase in cattle and
sheep commensurate with the decrease in the production of
wheat.

A greater loss than that of cattle and wheat is that of
men engaged in agriculture. In 1842, out of a population
of 1 6 millions in England and Wales, there were over
7.\ millions engaged in agriculture ; but, prior to the war,
out of a population of 35 millions there were less than one
million so engaged ; and if you look at the numbers
similarly engaged in any other country of Europe you will
find that, while in Austria the proportion runs as high as
31 per cent, and in France 21, in England it is down to less
than 6 per cent., who are engaged in providing food for the
people.

It is this exodus from the land which is really the fatal
blot on our agriculture, and we have not got to consider
homilies as to the benefit of agricultural labour, but in the
truest interests of our country we must take the steps,
whatever they may be, to bring back this drain from the
towns into the healthier life of the counties.

It is true that in many parts of England prior to the war
agricultural wages had, owing to the drain into the towns,

1 88 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

risen to 18s. and 20s. per week ; but my own view is that
even if this were raised to 30s. it would not stem the steady-
influx to the towns, with their garish but at the same time
vital existence.

What then is to be the remedy? You cannot make the
life of the agricultural labourer otherwise than dull and
dreary. You cannot provide him with social enjoyments or
with the amenities of the dweller in towns ; and so long1 as
the man has no roots driven deep into the soil he will
gradually, and still more will his sons, go where life and
light are to be found.

Consider, on the other hand, the possibility of making
him the owner of the soil. There you get what Lord North -
cliffe's soldiers have seen in France — the intense patriotic
love of the piece of land which is a man's very own. It was
so in the England of the Middle Ages. It is so in France,
Canada, and the United States to-day ; and I am never
going to be convinced that the ingrained desire of posses-
sion, which is suchi a dominating factor in the life of these
countries, is not going to have the same effect here, given
only a trial of it in sufficient numbers.

Mere tenancies will not do — there is some magic in owner-
ship, and the smaller the owner the greater the magic. Of
course Land Banks with Government support will be part of
the new movement — banks which will enable the purchase
to be effected ; but beyond the initial loan on a fixed basis
I would make all mortgages of farms or holdings of less
than qo acres invalid.

When, however, I speak of land purchase, I do not mean
the mere provision of squatter -like small-holdings here and
there ; I mean the possibility of doing in England what the
TJnionist Party has done in Ireland. There we have, during
the last few years, put un at the public expense 43,000
labourers' cottages and let them at an uneconomical rent.
There we have pledged the credit of our country to the tune
of about 120 millions sterling in order to enable 400,000
Irish farmers to purchase about 1 1 million acres of Irish'
land. If this is right for Ireland, surely it must be equally
right for England and Scotland ? If we are prepared to pay
this for Ireland, surely we can pay it for our own country ?
But you may say to me : " What right has the State to
compel Lord This or That to sell anything out of his
20,000 acres ? " My answer, and the war has already proved
it, is that the State is more than the individual.

THE LAND QUESTION 189

Gone, and gone for good, are all the old individualistic
ideas of the rights of property. When you tax an
individual's income to the extent, as we are doing to-day, of
well-nigh 10s. in the pound, and tax it, remember, without
any revolt on the part of the taxpayer, simply because fhe
State demands it in the interest of its existence, I say the
State is equally entitled to demand that these big properties
should be cut up in order that life may once more flow in
the veins which have too long been choked in the country
districts.

Before the war, it was admitted that if agriculture was
really to prosper, at least a hundred thousand cottages
needed building by the State : that was Mr. Lloyd George's
policy. Are the Tory Party now going tOj say that this is
a policy with which they will have nothing to do ? If this is
so, they will find a rude awakening when the men come back
from the front. Do you think that after the war the men
who have saved the situation for us will be content that
13 millions of their fellow -men should live in an over-
crowded condition ?

All this has got to be put straight, probably by a national
ministry at the conclusion of the war, and I do implore my
Tory friends not to shy off reforms on the ground that they
are socialistic : why, the whole of the war is socialistic ;
every controlled establishment making munitions is social-
istic ; every railway is socialistic ; the way in which food
laws are fastened upon us is socialistic ; and the threats, very
likely in a few months to be brought into operation, of com-
pulsion to divert land from grass to tillage is socialistic.

On the other hand, let not the landlord and the farmer
forget that the period of the low price of corn has gone for
at least two generations. During the twenty years prior to
the war wheat was never above 35s., and in 1894 it fell as
low as 23s. per quarter. Now the new President of the
Board of Agriculture offers a fixed price of 60s.

Everybody knows that after the war there must be a
radical change in our fiscal policy. No longer— and this I
say not as a Tariff Reformer but merely as an Englishman-
no longer shall we submit to be the dumping-ground for
German manufactures. Whether by a tariff or by direct
prohibition, these will be kept out for many years to come ;
and it is perfectly clear that a tariff on machinery, for
instance, which is part of the raw material of agriculture,
ought in common fairness to be counter -balanced either by

190 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

a tariff on agricultural products or by a bounty on farm
produce. It looks as if the latter course would be the one
more likely of adoption.

I do not say that wheat will remain at 60s. per quarter,
but I do say that for many years to come it must not go
below 45s., and that it will be desirable to fix a minimum at
that figure, which would encourage the recultivation of
thousands of acres of derelict land.

We are more and more producing as a by-product
sulphate of ammonia, one of the best of artificial manures.
Let us then keep this in our own country instead of sending
it abroad in exchange for food, which could be better grown
here ; but, above all, let us realize that " when the boys
come home " they will come with an appetite for open-air
life, with a dislike of the cramping and confinement of the
office stool, and they will obtain that open-air life by the
ownership of land here, or else in a wholesale exodus to
other countries, which will receive them with open arms,
and the last state of our own land will be worse even than
it was prior to the war.

PS. — The above article was written before Mr. Lloyd
George's speech fixing a minimum wage of 25s. a week
and guaranteeing to the farmer a minimum price of 45s.
for wheat. Out of this will, I hope, grow the full policy
I have outlined above. — W. J.-H.

CHAPTER XII

The Position of Women in Economic Life

By MRS. FAWCETT

ENGLAND is often reproached for being a wasteful, extra-
vagant nation. It is said that a really thrifty people could
live and thrive on what we throw away. There may be
an element of exaggeration in the statement, but there is
an element of truth in it also, and my desire in the present
chapter is to bring before its readers a great, and indeed
a gross, example of our national sin of wastefulness.

We have not made in the past, and though the war has
taught us much we are still not making, anything like the
use we ought to make of the professional and industrial
capabilities of women. The Vice -Chancellor of Liverpool
University has recently expressed this thought in a vigorous
sentence: "As long as a State uses only one -half of its
citizens for social, economic, and public service, it is weak
where it ought to be strong and poor where it ought to be
rich." The discovery of the immense reservoir of unused, or
only partially used, productive power which this country pos-
sesses in its women is one of the economic events of the war.
But surely, it may be objected, the great mass of women
of the industrial class have always been employed, and
this class being probably fifteen or sixteen times more
numerous than all other classes put together, the waste
referred to is minimized in importance because it only
affects a .small minority of the population. It is true that
the great mass of our countrywomen always have worked
for their living ; whether as wage -earners or as home-
keepers, and sometimes as both, they have probably put
in as hard a day's work in each recurring twenty -four
hours as any other part of the population. I should indeed
be prepared to argue that the married working woman,

192 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

while her children are coming, is the hardest worked mortal
in existence. It is one of the little jokes of the Census
Department to describe her, officially, as " unoccupied." No
one is " occupied " within the meaning of the Census
Department unless she is earning wages. To work hard
from morning to night, and sometimes during the night,
cooking, cleaning, making, mending, washing, and generally
"doing for" a husband and five or six children, not in-
frequently to have to tend a baby during the night, or
in the mining districts to prepare a bath or food for son
or husband working on an eight -hour shift, is the Census
Department's notion of being " unoccupied " because this
work is unpaid. Its national importance is more and more
appreciated, and a day seems coming when the average
married working woman will be recognized for the heroine
she very often is. It is not of these women that I am
thinking when I say that England has allowed the indus-
trial and professional capabilities of women to fust in them
unused, but of a very large proportion of the industrial
women working for wages and also of the women of the
professional classes who are either altogether unoccupied
or are engaged on work vastly below their natural capacity.1
Lord Revelstoke has lately expressed his opinion that the
astonishing financial stability displayed by England during
the war has been in part due to the " use of the great
reservoir of labour previously untouched here : women and
men who did no work before having taken the places of
the men who have gone to the trenches." 2

Let the case of the industrial women wage -earners be
considered first. They are by far more numerous than
professional women. According to the census of 191 1,
there were then 5,854,036 girls and women in England
and Wales from ten years old and upwards working for
wages. " More than half the entire female population of
these islands between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five
is thus at work for hire. In fact, the great majority of
British women are wage -earners during some part of their
lives ; at the most employed age 70 per cent, are
employed." If the numbers of female workers for wages

1 Defoe called attention to this in bis Essay on Projects. He spoke of the
youth of women being used to teach them to "stitch and sew and make
baubles," and he added, " What is a man, a gentleman, I mean, good for that
is taught no more ? "
* The Times, June 27, 1916

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 193

in Scotland and Ireland are added and allowance made for
the increase of population since 191 1, the total number
must have risen by 1 9 1 5 (apart from the special stimulus
given to women's employment by the war) to at least
seven millions. According to a table prepared by Mr. Sidney
Webb for the Fabian Women's group, the average earnings
per adult employed manual working man in 19 12 were
£1 5s. 9d. per week ; per adult manual working woman it
was less than half this — being only 10s. io^d. per week.1
That this is not an under estimate is corroborated from
another source. When the Queen's Work for Women Fund
was inaugurated, at the beginning of the war, to deal with
the expected general distress among the wage -earners, the
rule was laid down in the emergency workshops then opened
for women that the wages to be paid were in no case to
exceed the bare subsistence sum of 10s. a week ; for
otherwise these workshops would have attracted women from
ordinary employment. The interim report issued by the
committee stated that " many working women are normally
in receipt of wages below subsistence level." Now such
a state of things reveals a social and economic evil the
seriousness of which can hardly be exaggerated. Miss
B. L. Hutchins, in her book " Women in Modern Industry,"
quotes Miss Anna Tracey, Factory Inspector, as having
said (191 3), "Sometimes one feels that one dare not con-
template too closely the life of our working women, it isJ
such a grave reproach." And the facts just quoted fully
bear out the feeling which Miss Tracey has expressed.

I know the usual things which are said in mitigation
of the serfdom and misery which the miserable wages of
women reveal ; such, for instance, that many women have
homes provided for them by their parents and are conse-
quently willing to work for mere pocket-money wages, and
so forth. There may be here and there a few young women
who are working under these conditions, but it is not true
of the mass, who have to subsist on what they earn and
in very many cases have others dependent upon them.
I quote again from the valuable researches made by the
Fabian Women's group.2 A recent analysis of 2,410 cases
showed that

432 were contributing to the upkeep of their own

• Fabian Tract, No. 178, " The War, Women and Unemployment," by the
Fabian Women's group.

2 " Wage Earning Women and their Dependents " (Fabian Women's Tract)

194 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

and other homes over and above the cost of their
own board and lodging.

607 were supporting themselves and partially sup-
porting 610 adults and 284 children.

366 were supporting themselves and entirely sup-
porting 277 adults and 338 children, and were
contributing to the support of 46 adults and 22
children .
The results of outside investigations are incorporated in
the report, and the conclusion is drawn that two -thirds of
the wage -earning women are not only entirely self-
supporting, but have others to maintain besides themselves.
The extraordinarily low level of women's wages before
the war cannot therefore be explained either on the
" pocket-money " theory or by the fiction that they have
no one dependent upon them. Just as little could " Charlie
Chaplin's" £162,000 a year be explained by attributing
to him an extraordinarily numerous family. We must look
further and deeper if we wish to find the causes of the
enormous disparity between sacrifice and reward of sacrifice
in the case of the women wage -earners.

In the Report on Women's Employment which was drawn
up for the British Association, 1 9 1 5,1 it was pointed out
that the great want in British industrial conditions was the
very small proportion of skilled labour in proportion to
unskilled, and that this disproportion, large everywhere, was
exceptionally large among women. It was argued that
there was never in pre-war conditions any lack of un-
skilled workers, but that the amount of unskilled labour
which can be employed depends upon the proportion of
skilled labour which can be obtained to lead and guide
it. " In the case of men the lack of training and experi-
ence is all too general ; amongst women it is, with rare
exceptions, the universal rule'" (p. j) . The tract by the
Fabian Women already quoted emphasizes the same point.
It is urged that the provision of technical education for girls
all over the country is extremely inadequate : " outside!
London trade schools for girls hardly exist" (p. 9).
Technical classes, paid for by the ratepayers land subsi-
dized by Treasury grants, are not open to women, although
both as ratepayers and taxpayers they take their share in
paying for them. The reason for this is that up to the
present time it has been the considered policy of Trade
* Draft Interim Report of the Conference on Outlets for Labour after the War.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 195

Unions to keep up wages by restricting as far as possible
the number of people entering the skilled trades. With
their enormous and well -organized political power they
have been able to command the support of both political
parties for this policy. When the seven or eight hundred
women who were working linotype and monotype machines
in Edinburgh were doomed to industrial extinction as the
result of the Typographical Society's strike in Edinburgh
in 1910, not a syllable of dissent or disapproval was heard
from either of the political parties, although the work was
extremely suitable for women and they were acknowledged
to be experts in it. Numbers of Members of Parliament
are ready at all times to make eloquent speeches in support
of liberty and personal independence (" as far away as
Paris is "), but not one was found ready to champion the
liberty of the voteless against the tyranny of the serried
ranks of the Trade Union vote. A much respected ex-
Member of Parliament has recently said as the result of
his experience of politicians : " Their views are frequently
actually modified by their incurable cowardice as regards
public opinion. The fear of the voter becomes a part of
the very marrow of their bones." >

To say that the action of Trade Unions in keeping women
out of the skilled industries has had a prejudicial effect
upon women's wages and industrial status generally is not
to make any attack upon the general usefulness of Trade
Unions. The Trade Unionists have but acted in the same
spirit as doctors, lawyers, actuaries, members of the Civil
Service, and probably every other profession. That Trade
Unions are not only desirable but absolutely necessary can,
I believe, be proved to demonstration, and if any one
doubts it let him compare the position of nearly all classes
of industrial workers, with and without the protection of
a union.

When the Holt Committee on the wages and conditions
of employment in the Post Office reported, just before the
war, increased wages for postal employees were recom-
mended which would amount ultimately to nearly
£2,000,000. This was concentrated entirely on the
male employees ; nothing was done for the women . A
few Members of Parliament remonstrated, but entirely with-
out effect.2 Even now in war-time, with all the breaking

1 Journal of Royal Statistical Society, March 19 16, p. 147.
* Parliamentary debates, Thursday, April 30, 1914.

196 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

down of old customs and old barriers to employment, and
the high wages many women can earn in munition work,
some Government Departments are still (June 191 6) offer-
ing beggarly wages to women clerks and typists ; and
I hear of cutlery girls in Sheffield earning only 6s., 7s.,
8s., up to 12s. a week for grinding knives, 14 inches
long — work that is usually classed as " men's work." To
give another illustration, taken from another class of worker,
I quote from a letter to The Times, signed by Dr. Mary
Scharlieb, in which she cites the case of educated women,
well known to herself as patients, now acting as inspectors
of munition workers. Two women divide the twenty -four
hours of each day between them. The one on the night
shift is on duty from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. "The circum-
stances of her work do not tend to make it easier. . . .
There is no food, no rest-room, no sheltered seat. She
has to walk continually along galleries, furnished with roofs
and floors, but no walls. The exposure to wind and rain
is trying, but not so trying as the absence of any seats
and the impossibility of a hot meal " {The Times,
April 11, 19 1 6). No one can doubt that the girl knife-
grinders of Sheffield and the women inspectors of munition
workers would benefit greatly in bargaining with their
employers if they ceased to be isolated individuals and
became members of well -organized Trade Unions.

Over and above such specific instances as these, the
long fight which Trade Unions have made for good wages
on which a family can be maintained in reasonable comfort
and with something that deserves to be called civilization
represents not merely an advantage for a particular class,
but a real national asset. The strain of war has made
this clearer than ever before. How have men stood the
tremendous physical and moral strain of the long months
of trench warfare ? They have been continually short of
rest, perpetually under fire, wounded once, twice, and even
three times, but return again and again to the front line.
It would have been absolutely impossible for men to stand
this tremendous strain unless their pre-war conditions had
been such as to make them isound and robust, physically
and mentally. One of the things we are learning from
the war is that national welfare depends on the health of the
people, and that good health cannot be expected without good
conditions ; it is for these good conditions that the Trade
Unions have made so gallant and so self-sacrificing a fight.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 197

While recognizing this to the full, it is, however, felt
that especially in the matter of women's labour the Trade
Unions have, as a whole, pursued a mistaken policy, and
one that has had a terribly depressing effect on women's
wages. " Female labour is not at present a crying evil
in our trade, and we must see to it that it does not become
one," said a Trade Union report. That is the spirit which
women have had to contend with and overcome. We
have to convince the men Trade Unionists that their right
line of policy is not to keep the women out, but to help
the women in, to welcome their entry to well-paid work, to
give them the benefit of their own larger knowledge and
wider experience, and either to enrol them into their own
Trade Unions or to help them to form Trade Unions of
their own.

The risk of losing the undoubted gains that have been
won for wage -earning men by the activities of their unions
is greatly increased as long as there is such huge differ-
ences in the general wages of men and women. The
policy of Trade Unions should now be directed to equalizing
wages. The larger the difference in the rate of remunera-
tion between men and women, the greater is the temptation
to employers to cease to employ men and take women in
their place. We have to root out of people's minds the
notion which largely prevails that about 15s. a week is
a sort of "natural" wage for women. Miss Adelaide
Anderson, the Chief Lady Inspector of Factories, quotes
in her report for 1914 the remark of a foreman about
piece-work : " What can one do when a girl is earning
as much as 15s. a week but lower the piece rate?"
(p. 49).' Many Trade Unionists who have won a
deservedly high place in the councils of their movement
see that their right policy now is to improve the whole
industrial status of women. They realize that women can-
not be kept out of industry, that they have come to stay ;

1 Miss Clara Collet, M.A., in a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society
in May 1916, on " The Cost of Food for an Adult Woman," gave the sum as
9s. 6d. per week in 1912 and (even when reduced by war economies, such as
substituting margarine for butter, etc.) as 12s. gd. at the war prices of 1916.
This, in her view, represented the lowest sum necessary for efficiency. When it
is reflected that a woman, besides food, needs clothing, housing, fuel, some
expenditure on locomotion, besides an occasional holiday, the calculation forces
the conclusion that considerable numbers of working women are forced to live,
even during the boom in women's work caused by the war, under the standard
necessary for health and efficiency.

198 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

that to resist the inevitable would be to repeat the miseries
and futilities that were associated with the resistance to
the introduction of machinery and with a like hopeless
result. But it is the experience gained during the second
year of the war that has destroyed the fiction that women
were incapable of skilled work. It is interesting and in-
structive to find that so recently as September 191 5 the
report, already referred to, published under the auspices
of the British Association,1 assumed in some passages,
though not in all, that women were not in the skilled
trades because they were unable to do skilled work. In
one passage the fact is referred to that in many of the
textile trades men and women work the same machines
but receive very different rates of pay, and the reason
alleged for this is that the work really is unequal because
the women can only in rare instances " tune " or " set "
their machines ; the assistance of a male tackier is re-
quired, and thus time is lost and extra expense incurred.
These facts are indisputable, but in connection with them
another fact should be remembered — namely that stringent
Trade Union rules prevented women from being taught to
" set " and " tune " their machines. They do not do it,
because they are not allowed to learn how to do it. Now
the notion that women were unable to do skilled work has
been shattered by experience, one imagines that those who
were its priests and prophets had never seen or heard
such artists as Miss Marie Hall play the violin or Miss
Fanny Davies the piano. They can hardly even have seen
a woman dancing on the tight -rope, or the numerous suc-
cessors of Mrs. Vincent Crummies standing on their heads
" on the top of a long pole, surrounded by blazing fire-
works." Let any one who imagines that this needs no
skill try it.

With every disposition to recognize — nay, warmly to
appreciate — the absolutely indispensable services of Trade
Unions, their admirers must face the fact that in the matter
of their attitude to women's labour they have taken the
wrong turning and have been responsible for a great deal
of the misery and degradation of the sweated woman.
They have been wrong, and the wrong is all the greater
because it has been against the principles of the creed
they have professed. The elevation of the status of labour
has been a religion to many |of them, but in this matter of
1 See pp. 7, 11, 12, 15.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 199

women's labour they have " denied their faith to make
their faith prevail." To forcibly prevent half the nation
from undertaking, or learning to undertake, skilled work
is a hideous tyranny, which has kept huge masses of indus-
trial women in a sort of serfage, from which before the
war escape seemed impossible. Now the wisest and most
experienced of the Trade Unionists know that the women
have come to stay. Mr. J. H. Thomas, M.P., General
Secretary of the National Union of Railway Men, has taken
a leading part from an early date, after the new conditions
caused by war became apparent, in urging that women
should receive men's pay where they are doing men's .
work.1 His union was the first, after the beginning of
the war, to enrol women as members. As early as June
191 5, addressing the annual conference of the Railway
Men's Union, he urged the members to recognize that the
women had come to stay, and that by every means in their
power the men should insist upon the women receiving the
same pay as men for the same work. " If the Concilia-
tion Board agreement says that a certain rate of wages
must be paid for a certain grade, it does not say that that
rate is for men only and not for women."2 In November
of the same year he addressed a mass meeting of railway
workers at Middlesbrough, and urged the same policy.
Speaking of the great effort, financial, industrial, and
military, that would be needed to bring about a satisfactory
end to the war, he said : "I do not suggest that more
ought not to be done, because evidence I have received
from France and Germany convinces me that women are
not fully utilized to-day. . . . We recognize that women
ought to be employed, but we refuse to allow them to
be employed at sweated wages with the view solely of
keeping down the wages of our own labour. We do
not object to the employment of women simply because
they are women. What we object to is that women's labour
should be exploited by any employer for his own personal
ends." 3 In a later speech, delivered to the same organiza-

1 Up to July 1916, the following unions had also admitted women : The
Railway Clerks Association, The Gas Workers and General Labourers Union,
The Steel Smelters Union, and certain smaller unions such as the Amalgamated
Engine and Crane Drivers Union, and the National Union of Packing-case
Makers.

2 Manchester Guardian, June 21, 1915.

3 Daily News, November 1, 191 5.

200 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

tion at Bath in June 191 6, he grappled with the industrial
problems that would arise after the war, and said : " Was
there any sensible man who believed that if the war ended
to-morrow the women were going to be driven out of
industry ? If any did so believe, he was living in a fools'
paradise. Viewed from the moral standpoint, would any
man contemplate with any degree of satisfaction an inten-
tion of throwing out of the industrial arena one and three-
quarter millions of women? He said 'No.' They had
no right to set up a sex war, but they had a right to say
that no employer should be allowed in future to take
advantage of women's labour as a means of reducing the
value of men's labour. There was only one way, and
that was to insist that wherever women were doing the
work of men they should be paid the same rates as men." '

Mr. Thomas's speeches have been characterized through-
out by the spirit indicated in the phrase, " Viewed from the
moral standpoint, would any man contemplate with any
degree of satisfaction an intention of throwing out of the
industrial arena one and three-quarter millions of women? "
The appeal is a moral appeal, and is representative of the
close and intimate connection between the Labour move-
ment in this country and the religious spirit and religious
ideals to which an article in the Round Table for June
191 6 drew attention. This, in the opinion of the writer
in that review, represents the greatest point of difference
between the British and continental Labour movements.
It is certain that all through Josephine Butler's campaign
against the infamous, and now utterly discredited, CD.
Acts, when the whole of the great world in science,
religion, and politics was against her, she relied with a
certainty that was never disappointed on the moral sense
of working men and women.

It will be observed that Mr. Thomas puts the estimated
number of women newly engaged in industry, in conse-
quence of the war, at one and three-quarter millions. The
Women's Labour League's estimate is as high as two and
a half millions. Mr. Mallin, of the Anti-Sweating League,
considers this a gross, indeed a grotesque, over-estimate.
Exact figures are obviously very difficult to arrive at because
of the obstacles in the way of distinguishing between those
newly engaged in industrial work and those who have
simply transferred their labour from one employment to

1 Daily News, June 19, 1916.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 201

another. We have, however, to remember that by the
beginning of May 191 6 more than five million men, by
voluntary enlistment alone, had joined the Army and Navy ;
it would be a safe estimate to reckon that nine -tenths of
these were from the industrial classes. Of course, it is
quite obvious that there is great shortage of labour every-
where ; but it is also obvious that in a very large number
of trades the work formerly done by men is now being
done by women.1 Without hazarding any guess as to
exact numbers, we all know that the number of women
newly employed in industry is very large ; the best judges
believe that it will be permanent ; and that to safeguard
the interests of labour generally the strongest possible effort
should be made to secure the principle of equal pay for
equal work. The representatives of the Government when
they were employed in gaining the consent of the Trade
Unions to the entrance of women into occupations from
which they had formerly been excluded definitely and
specifically accepted this principle. Captain Williams,
speaking on behalf of the Board of Trade at a large
meeting, which was also addressed by Lord Derby, in
the Town Hall, Manchester, in June 191 5, said definitely :
" Let me say at once the underlying principle is that women
should get equal pay with men for equal results. The
intention is not to engage a cheap substitute for men's
labour."

Nevertheless, the movement of women into industries
formerly closed to them has, at this moment, and prob-
ably will have for a long time to come, to cope with
constant efforts to cut down their rate of pay. The
Government is very far from setting a good example in
this respect. For clerical work the pay allowed by the
Treasury for women is substantially lower than that for
men. When in 19 16 the great rise in prices called for

J The very satisfactory trade returns for the month of June 1916 show that
our principal exports are not being starved for want of labour. Part of the
increase was no doubt apparent only, and must be attributed to higher prices ;
but the total advance in British exports in June 1916 was 422 per cent, above the
exports for June 1915 ; and a large part of this was due to increased output,
especially in the trades where women are in a majority. Thus cotton piece
goods showed an advance of 76 million yards ; linen piece goods of nearly
3 million yards ; carpets, 244,000 square yards. Women were always in the
majority iin the textile trades, but they are now admitted to many processes
which were formerly reserved for men. The growth in exports can fairly be
attributed in a large degree to women's harder work and longer hours.

202 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

a bonus in the wages of the clerical staff in Government
Departments an extra 4s. a week was given to all the
men from eighteen years old and upwards, but only 2s.
a week to women. The old story of the men having
dependents and the women having none was of course
the excuse, but it is not probable that many boys of
eighteen have families dependent upon them. When the
question of war bonus for their employees came before;
the Liverpool City Council the more logical course was
adopted of dividing them into two groups, irrespective of
sex, those with dependents and those without dependents,
and the rate of the war bonus was regulated accordingly.

In munition factories the promise of the Government
given in July 1 9 1 5 that every woman over eighteen should
be paid a minimum of £1 a week is still (January
191 7) unfulfilled in tens of thousands of cases. In many
munition w.orks, subsequent to July 191 5, women's wages
have ranged from 12s. to 15s. a week, and in oxy-
acetylene welding, work hitherto done by skilled men paid
at the rate of 42s. a week, women in many cases were?
only receiving 18s. to £1.

A pamphlet, published in the spring of 191 6 by the
Manchester Women's War Interests Committee, states that
there were then many instances in the locality of adult
women in munition works who had passed through the
training stage, but were earning no more than 9s. to 14s.
a week time wage. Many shops pay 15s. as a time wage
for women, while between 12s. and 15s. is an average.1

In a letter to the Press, published in June 19 16 over
the signatures of Mrs. Creighton, Miss Violet Markham,
Mrs. Sidney Webb, and others, it was stated that in many
instances women, doing Government work, were being
given wages insufficient at war prices to maintain them
in full efficiency of body and mind. They quote a case
where "in a recent formal arbitration under the Munitions
Act the arbitrator actually fixed 2fd. an hour as the wages
of adult women, many of them employed on Government
work. For a sixty -hour week this is only 13s. 1 id. a
week, equal to no more than 9s. or 10s. a week two
years ago." 2

A new Government order was issued in June 1916,

1 " Women in the Labour Market (Manchester and District) during the War."
Price id. William Morris Press, 42 Albert Street, Manchester.
* "The Common Cause," June 30, 1916.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 203

and another in December of the same year, with the
avowed object of remedying this state of things and of
securing to women in munition work, whether they are
doing men's work or women's work, at least £1 a week.
Neither is accepted by the women's representatives as really
satisfactory. Miss Mary MacArthur wrote to the Press in
January 191 7 to the effect that "at the very lowest calcu-
lation there are over 100,000 women working on munitions
of various kinds who are not yet granted a living wage."
She quoted specific instances in Sheffield and in Southamp-
ton in support of this statement.1 The fact seems to be
that these repeated orders show the object aimed at by
the Government has not yet been attained. The effect
of the orders has been to improve the position of many
of the women employed in munitions, but that the improve-
ment has not reached many thousands of women working in
" controlled " establishments, who are still receiving less
than a living wage and who are precluded by the terms
of the original Munitions Act from changing their employ-
ment and transferring their labour to shops which give
better conditions. The workers and their representatives
argue very justly that the Government should either give
the women freedom to change their employers or should
vigorously enforce the various statutory orders in all
munition works.

It has often been suggested that women should join
the men's Trade Unions. This is not quite so easy as
it sounds. Many of the men's Trade Unions refuse
membership to women. The constitution of the Amalga-
mated Society of Engineers is so drawn that women cannot
be admitted without enabling legislation. The A.S.E.
made no agreement with the employers as to women's
wages and conditions of work when women were admitted
into the shops : in the Manchester district 10,000 women
are employed, and not more than 1,000 or 1,200 are
organized. The writer of the pamphlet just quoted says :
' The first attitude of the majority of unions threatened with
this innovation [the introduction of female labour ] was that
of uncompromising refusal to work with women. When
this proved untenable, the more far-sighted Trade Union
leaders saw the danger of allowing a double standard of
payment for the same work. It is now possible to attempt
some estimate of how far the Trade Union world has
1 The Times, January 6, 1917.

204 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

been driven to overcome its prejudices against a woman
receiving the same pay as a man, in order to safeguard
its own hardly won rates" (p. 18). On reading the
pages which follow it is not possible to form an opinion
that the Trade Union world has been driven very far in
this desirable direction. Still, a beginning has been made.
The Railway Men's Union, as already mentioned, led the
way ; the situation is modified in the direction of improve-
ment from week to week, and it is satisfactory to learn
that " hostility to women's labour, as such, has almost
disappeared among Trade Unionists" (p. 21).

Still, the difficulties are great, and are likely to continue
so. On the one hand the old Trade Union prejudices
against a woman receiving the same pay as a man,
and on the other the constant pressure of employers who
naturally take advantage of this prejudice in order to get
cheap labour. The women acetylene -welders have had some
experience of this. The London Society for Women's
Suffrage, among their many beneficent activities during the
war, have been training women as acetylene -welders. They
have been able with ease to place all their trained workers
in aircraft factories, where they have received wages of
8d. an hour, and in some cases 9d. or 9^d. At one of
the factories the girls asked for a rise from 8d. to gd.,
and it was refused. The employers then tried to make
them sign an agreement to work at a flat rate of 8d. an
hour to the end of the war, no matter what work they
were doing. They refused and formed a union, one of
the rules of which was that the initial wage should be
8d. an hour. The men employed in the same factory
were having iod., is., and is. 2d. an hour ; the women
doing in most cases absolutely identical work. Now if
this is allowed to go on, and if there is no real justifica-
tion for the inferior rate of pay of women, it is obvious
that it must end in the women monopolizing the trade
and the men being turned out of it or coming down to
the women's rate of wages. Therefore the interests of the
men and women now employed are absolutely identical,
and they should stand together and help each other.

Before the war the ready explanation of the inferior
wages of women would have been the alleged inferiority
of women's work ; but this can hardly be urged now.
For there is abundance of evidence that the allegation
of the inferior productive results of women's work is with-

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 205

out foundation. We have not only general expressions
to prove this from such men as Mr. Runciman, Lord Derby,
and others, but definite specific statements from experi-
enced employers such as Sir William Beardmore, Presi-
dent of the Iron and Steel Institute. A few quotations
from both sources may not be superfluous. Mr. Runciman,
in the spring of 191 6 spoke, as President of the Board of
Trade, of (women doing "amazingly good work "); he
referred to the numbers, then reaching over 365,000, in
which women in engineering had been put to do
work formerly done by men. He said: "In one firm
they are making electric motors, in another they are doing
all the work in manufacturing 2 -inch howitzer bombs, in-
cluding testing. And they are doing many other kinds
of work requiring the employment of machinery and
calling for the greatest skill." The Round Table (March
19 1 6) writes of the employment of women in all kinds
of trades from which they were formerly excluded, and
says " they have shown an adaptability and capacity which
has upset many cherished beliefs and undoubtedly made
a deep impression on the public mind."

These opinions, however interesting, are general in
character, and they should be supplemented by specific
facts drawn from practical experience. These may be
found in the account in the Press of a visit to a munitions
factory in February 1 9 1 6, in which the employment of
women and the absence of any attempt to use the women
to undercut the men had had the effect of quintupling
the output. Here we have the story of the former char-
woman doing gun -breech work, boring a hole ^-inch in
diameter dead true through nearly 1 2 inches of steel . The
test of success is the tally of broken tools, and " this
woman has as yet a clean sheet." Another case was of
a woman who had become " surprisingly proficient in slot-
drilling1, a process in which thousandths of an inch matter.
Like the rest of the women in the shop, she received
25s. a week for a fortnight for sitting beside a skilled
male hand watching him work the machine. Eventually
she was allowed to try her hand at the work, then took
it over under supervision, and now runs the machine un-
aided during the day for the man to take it over for the
night shift." »

Sir William Beardmore in his presidential address to the

1 Manchester Guardian, February 2. 1916.

206 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Iron and Steel Institute, in May 191 6, told the experience
of his own firm as to the formerly unused reservoir of
productive capacity which women were able to supply. He
complained of the resistance of the workers under pre-war
conditions to utilize to the best advantage improved methods
of manufacture evolved by experimental research, and
added : " Early in the war it was found at Parkhead
forge that the output from the respective machines was not
so great as what the machines were designed for, and one
of the workers was induced to do his best to obtain the
most out of a machine. He very greatly increased his
output, notwithstanding his predilection for Trade Union
restrictions. When it was found that the demands of the
Government for a greatly accelerated production of shells
required the employment of girls in the projectile factory
owing to the scarcity of skilled workers, these girls in all
cases produced more than doable that by thoroughly trained
mechanics — members of Trade Unions — working the same
machines under the same conditions. In the turning of
the shell body the actual output by girls, with the same
machines and working under exactly the same conditions
and for an equal number of hours, was quite double that
by trained mechanics. In the boring of shells the output
was also quite double, and in the curving, waving, and
finishing of shell -cases quite 120 per cent, more than that
of experienced mechanics." '

Now these facts, the importance of which cannot be
minimized or explained away, reveal a defect in our whole
industrial organization. Masses of men, for the most part
clear-headed, public-spirited and honest, conceive it to be
an essential part of their duty to their class artificially to
restrict output and thus render their labour vastly less pro-
ductive than it might easily become. They know that
millions of their fellow working men and women live
habitually on the poverty line, and often below it ; they
know that the total remuneration of capital and labour
can come but from one source — the product of their joint
activities — and yet they sedulously set themselves to reduce
this product and believe they are serving the cause of
Labour by doing so. Until this blot in industrial organiza-
tion is removed the outlook for the future remains dark
and threatening. It is not my part in this chapter to
endeavour to suggest how the difficulty should be tackled.

1 Mancliester Guardian, May 16, 1916. The italics are mine. — M. G. F.

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 207

I am now concerned with its influence on the industrial
position of women ; and I can only say that the exclusion
of women from the skilled trades which was a part of
the Trade Union policy up to 1 9 1 5 has reduced a great
mass of industrial women to a position of virtual serfdom,
forcing them out of the ranks of skilled industry for which
they are well fitted into the already overcrowded ranks of
the unskilled and unorganized. Women in skilled employ-
ments have been turned out of them by the pressure of
Trade Unions, and the freeing of women from these shackles
has only been accomplished at the price of a world war
on an unprecedented scale. It may well be said, " At a
great price bought I this freedom." There has been
nothing like it in industrial history since the Black Death
in the fourteenth century broke down villeinage and serfage.

Let it be remembered that we can no more afford to
have under -efficiency and under-production after the war
than during the war. We shall be a vastly poorer nation.
The whole energies of the country are being rightly con-
centrated during the war to bring it to a satisfactory
conclusion, but it must be remembered that this is the
same thing as saying that our national energies are now
mainly devoted to destruction. To repair the loss will be
the task of the years that immediately follow the war.
Every man and woman will have to work harder and live
simpler than in the pre-war era. Our national habit of
not using to anything like their full extent the industrial
and professional capacities of women must be abandoned
and recognized for what it is, a gross waste of national
resources .

But this is not the only defect in our industrial system
which has been brought to light by the war. Another
has been exposed in the waste involved in systematic under-
payment and overwork. The higher wages earned by
women during the war, notwithstanding the great strain
of long hours and (in many cases) a seven days' week,
have been accompanied by an actual diminution in the
cost of sick leave in the women's insurance societies. The
published returns show that while this was 2' 60 pence
per week in 19 14 it fell to 2*04 pence per week in 191 5.
This has been attributed to the better food that the
workers have been able to enjoy in consequence of their
better wages.1 The unexpectedly high sick leave in
r Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for the year 1915.

2o8 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

women's insurance societies before the war may therefore
be reasonably believed to be due to malnutrition. I can
contribute a fact bearing on this point from the history of
women in the Savings Bank. When Mr. Fawcett was
Postmaster -General he induced the Treasury to advance
the initial wage paid to women in the Savings Bank from
£40 to £65 a year. Lord Frederick Cavendish, who then
represented the Treasury, told him this was the highest
proportionate advance which had ever been sanctioned by
the Department. After it had been in operation a few
months Mr. Fawcett inquired of the lady at the head of
the women's side of the Savings Bank what had been its
general result. She replied, " They dine more frequently."
It is evident to most of us that " dining frequently," at
least as frequently as once a day, is an important element
in the preservation of health. A rise of wages from 15s.
to 25s. a week enabling women to enjoy this indulgence
must make for good health and consequent productive
capacity.

Experience gained during the war has also revealed the
bad economy of long hours and the advantage, from the
mere economic point of view, of the Sunday rest. The Chief
Inspector of Factories reports that fresh demands for per-
mission to work on Sundays are now rarely received, and are
confined to cases where sudden and unexpected emergency
arises. The undesirability of Sunday work is also insisted
upon by the Health of Munition Workers Committee. The
shortening of the hours of work has not infrequently been
accompanied by an actual increase of output, and it has
been proved that over-fatigue on the part of the workers
greatly adds to the liability to accidents. The provision
of canteens, messroom accommodation, ambulance -rooms,
with qualified nurses in attendance, rest-rooms for girls and
women have proved extremely useful, and are likely " to
leave behind," according to the Chief Inspector of Factories,
"a permanent improvement in factory life." The Chief
Lady Inspector emphasizes these points. She urges that
more should be done to shorten the hours of women who
are still in many cases working a twelve-hour day, and
she cites one instance of the illegal employment of girls
of thirteen and fourteen for fourteen and fifteen hours a
day. Her report states that a prosecution followed, and
overtime was in the Yorkshire textile factories very
material! v diminished. Miss Anderson adds : " As im-

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 209

proved organization to meet war pressure has proceeded,
and a supply of women's reserve labour is being brought
forth sufficient for the great industrial demands, all excuse
for the essentially wasteful expedient of overtime and night
employment of young girl labour vanishes, except for the
most extraordinarily sudden emergencies." Miss Anderson
points out that as early in the war as 191 5 at least two
hundred thousand women were being employed in engineer-
ing work and other allied trades, and had set a " fashion
in attracting large supplies of women of a good type not
hitherto employed industrially." Mr. Kellaway, M.P. for
Bedford, parliamentary secretary to Dr. Addison (of the
Ministry of Munitions), speaking in July 191 6, said that
in 19 1 4 there were 184,000 women engaged in war indus-
tries. "-To-day there were 666,000. . . . The labour
situation had been to a considerable extent saved by our
women. . . . The women of France were doing wonders
in munition making, but our women munition workers beat
the world." ' This is the reservoir of women's labour to
which Lord Revelstoke referred as one of the mainstays
of England's financial stability. It is strange, as the Chief
Lady Inspector of Factories points out, that the continuous
demand which factory inspectors have made for many years
for an increase in the number of women inspectors, and
also for the provision of rest-rooms, canteens, ambulances,
nurses, means of personal cleanliness, etc., should have
passed unheeded in the time of peace, and that the nation's
eyes should only have been opened to their necessity by
the conflagration caused by a great war.

Turning now to the position of the professional women
and how it has been affected by the war, no such startling
changes can be recorded as have been wrought in the
position of industrial women. It is true that in the medical
profession the value of women's services has received more
public recognition than ever before. The then Prime
Minister, together with an ex-Prime Minister and a former
Governor-General of India, in a letter to the Press com-
mended the claim of the London School of Medicine for
Women to the support of the public. Women can raise
the several thousands which they need for the extension
of their school or for the erection of a new hospital almost
as easily as the Chancellor of the Exchequer can get
millions by adding ^d. to the sugar duty or is. to the

■ Manchester Guardian, July 8, 19 16.

210 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

income-tax. One of the least creditable manifestations of
the Trade Union spirit in the medical profession has been
the way in which before the war medical women, graduates
as well as students, have been debarred from clinical experi-
ence in the great hospitals, and in none more rigidly than
in the hospitals for women and children. In London they
had only their own small hospital in the Euston Road and
the Royal Free Hospital, entrance to which their prede-
cessors had bought for them by annual payments. Now
an arrangement has been concluded between the London
School of Medicine for Women and the Governors of St.
Mary's Hospital for receiving women students ; and, under
the pressure of war conditions, opportunities for clinical
experience for women in other hospitals are being granted,
Charing Cross Hospital and King's College Hospital being
among the earliest to make satisfactory arrangements for
teaching women. The long boycott of women medical
students in Edinburgh University has been brought to an
end. Almost directly after the appointment of Sir James
Ewing as the new Principal, early in July 191 6, it was
agreed by a large majority at a meeting of the Senate to
recommend to the University Court that women should be
admitted to the University classes, provided suitable
arrangements could be made. The Court agreed to this
on July 10th, and a committee was appointed to make
recommendations for carrying it into effect. To break down,
whether in London or Edinburgh, the exclusion of women
students from clinical training, except within a very limited
range, ought to be followed by excellent results. While
it was maintained it acted as an unfair handicap on the
women .

The story of the relations between the British Red Cross
and medical women's organizations has in it almost farcical
elements. In the first few months of the war the British
Red Cross refused all recognition to hospitals officered by
medical women for foreign service, and the Army medical
department also refused offers of help from highly qualified
medical women. The reason alleged was the supposed
reluctance of the British soldier to be medically or surgically
treated by women. Why women nurses should be wel-
comed and women doctors disapproved was not explained.
Our Allies had no such prejudices, and therefore in the
first months of the war British women doctors, anxious to
serve the wounded, had no choice but to place themselves i

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 211.

under the French or Belgian Red Cross. The hospital
opened in Paris in September 1914 by Dr. Louisa Ander-
son and Dr. Flora Murray was consequently under the
French Red Cross. It was splendidly organized, and was
one of the show hospitals in Paris, second to none in
efficiency and in popularity among our wounded men. Dr.
Alice Hutchison had a typhoid hospital in Calais in 19 14,
so well run that she had the lowest death-rate of any similar
hospital at the same time and place. The highest praise
was earned, and well earned, by English women doctors
who had hospitals in Antwerp at the time of its fall. Their
courage under fire and their devotion and that of the nurses
to their wounded men were fully appreciated by the Press
and by the public all over the civilized world. Still, the
British Red Cross and the British Army medical authori-
ties could not bring themselves to recognize British medical
women. The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies
was sending out their Scottish women's hospitals for foreign
service in the autumn of 19 14. Their first hospital at
Royaumont, near Creil, had to be under the French Red
Cross, and their second hospital at Troyes was under the
French Army Medical Department ; not that they would
not have preferred working under their own national
organizations, but that was not possible at the time.

The first British official recognition of the value of the
woman doctor in war-time was in February 19 1 5, when
Surgeon -General Sir Alfred Keogh placed Dr. Louisa
Anderson and Dr. Flora Murray at the head of a military
hospital of 520 beds in London, not giving them com-
missions, but allowing them the rank and ratings of majors
in the Army and treating them in all respects as well as
if they had been men. He spoke in public of the work
of women doctors at the front as being beyond all praise ;
it was an example, he said, of how such work ought to
be done (The Times, February 19, 191 5). No British
women had, however, at that time been authorized by British
authority to give their services as doctors or surgeons to
their own countrymen abroad.

In May 191 5 Lord Methuen, as Governor of Malta,
stopped a ship conveying one of the N.U.W.S.S. hospital
units, then on its way to Serbia, and bade them come to
the help of British wounded men who were pouring in
from the Dardanelles. This of course they did with great
zeal an* efficiency. When they left Lord Methuen sent

212 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

a letter of thanks, in which he said : " They leave here
blessed by myself, surgeons, nurses, and patients alike, for
they have proved themselves most capable and untiring
workers." Their heroic work in Serbia in coping with
and stamping out the typhus epidemic in the spring of
1 9 1 5 is well known . Their courage in the black hour
of Serbia's devastation in the autumn of the same year
is also now an old story ; how some did the marvellous trek
of three hundred miles across the snow-bound mountains till
they reached the Adriatic, while others, under Dr. Elsie
Ingles and Dr. Alice Hutchison, stayed on at their posts,
working to the last until they became prisoners in the hands
of Germany, the way they kept up their courage and good
spirits through every insult (not from Austrians) and hard-
ship— all this is well known, but it did not cause any
relaxation in the determination of the British Red Cross
not to recognize women doctors. A kind of ostrich policy
seems to have been adopted, for the word must have gone
forth to pretend that medical women were not doctors,
but nurses : so paragraphs duly appeared in the Press,
" Return of Nurses from Serbia," and with no mention at
all ot the gallant women who had led them. The good
offices of the British Red Cross were, however, extended
to the medical units, officered entirely by women, sent to
Russia by the National Union of Women's Suffrage
Societies, and very valuable aid was extended to them in
the matter of identification certificates and in the forward-
ing of equipment, with the advantage and protection of
the Red Cross labels. After declaring in May that nothing
would induce them to send medical women abroad for
Army service at the beginning of July 191 6, the R.A.M.C.
asked for the services of forty women doctors for foreign
service, and would have liked eighty if they could have been
spared from their work at home. The whole story is an
illustration of the prejudices which women still have to
overcome, of the Trades Union spirit among the men in
the medical profession, of the gradual influence of war
conditions in breaking it down, and of the gain to the
nation of utilizing the capabilities of women and the corre-
sponding waste of not doing so. Dr. Weinberg, Chef de
Laboratoire in the Pasteur Institute, Paris, was lecturing
to the medical profession in Glasgow in February 191 6
on gas gangrene. In the course of his remarks he paid
a remarkable tribute to the N.U.W.S.S. hospital at Royau-

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 213

mont. "He had," he said, "seen hundreds and hundreds
of military hospitals, but none the organization and direc-
tion of which won his admiration so completely. Every
duty in the hospital from those of the chief surgeon to
the chauffeur of the motor -ambulances was performed by
women. He was impelled to express his admiration of
the manner in which cases were treated. . . ." About the
bacteriological department, which was arranged by Dr.
Elizabeth Butler, Dr. Weinberg was equally enthusiastic.
He was struck by the most perfect order which prevailed,
notwithstanding the apparent entire absence of anything
in the form of rigid disciplinary measures. He attri-
buted this ". . .to the soldiers' natural recognition of
the excellent services and attention given by the whole
staff, and particularly by the chief surgeon, Miss Ivens,
who was ably assisted by numerous colleagues, all inspired
by the same devotion." '

Fifty or sixty years ago all this capacity for service
would have lain dormant, because it could have had no
outlet ; the training for it would have been absolutely
inaccessible :

Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse.
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused.

The women who have shown themselves capable of this
great work would have been condemned to the sort of
life described in the first volume of Florence Nightingale's
Life, a round of trivialities, a sort of cage-bird life. But,
as her biographer remarks, " Thousands of women to-day
are born free " ; but it was at a great price that the
pioneers had to buy their freedom.

And to-day their freedom is by no means complete.
They have won their way into one great and splendid pro-
fession ; but nearly every other profession is still closed
to them in this country. Important educational posts are

1 On Saturday, July 22, 1916. the Figaro had a long article expressing the
warmest admiration of the National Union of Women Suffrage Societies'
Hospitals in France. After speaking of the general work of the Suffragists
in their own country, the paper goes on to describe the hospitals which they
have organized in France, which, it says, " are marvellous from all points of
view." The article concludes, ' These women are putting their whole soul
into the work without anv thought of recompense, without vainglorv, without
any motive but the desire to alleviate pain."

214 NATIONAL EFFICIENCY

open to them ; they have themselves created a new pro-
fession in nursing.1 But both branches of the law are
banged, barred, and bolted against them. No woman can
become a chartered accountant, or take Holy Orders, nor
is there any authorized channel by which women can enter
upon the higher posts of responsibility in the Civil Service.
The Civil Service Commission, which reported in 19 14,
some months before the war, recommended " that specially
qualified women should be eligible for appointment to par-
ticular administrative situations in such departments as . . .
the Board of Education, the Local Government Board, the
Labour Department of the Board of Trade, the National
Health Insurance Commission, and the Home Department."
Nothing was done to carry out this recommendation . It
may be thought that the outbreak of war was a sufficient
excuse for doing nothing. On the other hand, the exigen-
cies of the war, the great need of men to create the new
armies, provided an additional reason for taking steps
quickly to introduce qualified women into the Civil Service,
so as to set free more and more men for military service.
It has been pointed out that if action had been taken
quickly on the lines recommended by the Royal Commis-
sion the task would have been considerably simplified, and
a fairly large group of women would long before the
third year of the war have received sufficient training to
enable them to do the work now being done by men.
Since the war began a few women have been introduced
here and there into higher posts in the Civil Service, but
there has apparently been no settled plan and little or no
co-ordination between the various governmental departments
— one department appearing hardly to know what another
department was doing. An instance has been discreetly
brought to light in which two women were appointed by
two departments — unknown to each other — to carry out much
the same job. However, the women appointed with much
good sense met together and arranged a reasonable division
of the work between them.

1 The low level from which Florence Nightingale and her successors have
lifted nursing is well illustrated by a letter written in 1856 quoted in the " Life of
Lord Granville " (vol. i. p. 136) : " Lady Pam thinks the Nightingale Fund [for
training^nurses] great humbug. The nurses are very good now ; perhaps they
do drink a little, but so do ladies' monthly nurses, and nothing can be better
than them (sic). Poor people, it must be so tiresome sitting up at night, and if
they do drink a little too much they are turned away and others got."

POSITION OF WOMEN IN ECONOMIC LIFE 215

Eloquent and powerful appeals have been made by
political leaders to Trade Unionists in the name of
patriotism and national danger to give up their Trade
Union restrictions on the labour of women ; and, on the
whole, the Trade Unionists have responded generously to
these appeals ; but the professional classes have not
followed suit. The workmen have given up their exclu-
siveness, but the members of the Civil Service, the
lawyers and members of the other professions show no
sign of giving up theirs. When will they begin to
practise themselves what they have recommended to
others ?

We have made a beginning towards repairing the waste
of which we have been guilty in not using the powers
and capabilities of women ; but there is much still to do ;
in many respects other countries in this matter are far
ahead of us. The commercial position of women in France
is extremely good. In England women can hardly be said
to have any commercial position at all. In nearly all
European countries, as well as in America and in several
of the overseas Dominions of Great Britain, women become
lawyers, and practise their profession with distinction. Why
should England be half a century behind them? There
is no waste so great as the waste of the powers and gifts
of the human beings who make up the nation. Let us
resolve to make an end of it.

Ill

SOCIAL REFORM

CHAPTER XIII

The Rehabilitation of Rural Life

By THE BISHOP OF EXETER

It is hard to over-estimate the value to the country of
having a numerous and prosperous rural population. Even
before the war we thought it important. We realized that
the country-bred children are healthier than even those
raised in the healthiest quarters of our large towns, and the
toll that is paid in child -life by the big city alone recom-
mended every measure that encouraged the increase of the
rural population. And when we added to this fact that a
rural population is generally contented and happy, even in
spite of wages being low, we brought into the balance two
considerations of the greatest importance. For, after all,
the happiness and health of the population should be the
great object of government ; and though money and wealth
are as a rule necessary to promote these objects, it is
possible to over-estimate the importance of money and to
forget that it is, after all, only a means to an end, and that
a happy and healthy population is what every statesman
should strive to create. Besides, a rural population is
naturally sane, sane because it is healthy and happy. A
friend once pointed out to me how far more sane were the
politics of rural than urban France. I think that a similar
thesis could be maintained in England. A countryman may
be less educated, but he has a far better judgment than the
townsman. We realized all this in peace time, and we there-
fore deeply regretted the flow of the country population to
the towns.

But the war has revealed two other facts, which from their
importance throw everything else into the shade, and make
the formation of a large and prosperous rural population
one of the first objects of sound statecraft. First, we have

219

220 SOCIAL REFORM

realized how important the countryman is as a soldier. Not
only does he make a finer soldier than his town brother,
but he is not addicted to the celibate life or to any
Malthusian plan which diminishes the increase of popula-
tion. The countryman as a rule marries and has a large
family, and therefore as long as the rural population is large
we may hope to have a numerous army to defend our Island.
Secondly, the increase of production of food in our own
country is a matter of prime importance. Many have been
shocked at the vast amount of land that lies fallow in
England. They will be surprised to learn how much of that
land was cultivated at one time. We are told that three and
a half million acres have gone out of cultivation and been
turned from arable to grass land since 1872. One has only
to travel by train and note the number of pasture fields that
have once been under the plough to realize how serious has
been the movement towards diminishing the production of
food in England. Yet the production of food is of vital
importance to us in case of a war, and it can never be
accomplished without two things : a better system of agri-
culture, and, what must be associated with that system, a
more numerous and a. more efficient rural population.
Without a large and efficient rural population more ex-
tensive cultivation is an impossibility. All the newer ideas
involve not only more labour, but what I am afraid the
farmers of England do not realize, more science and
more knowledge of machinery — in fact a more educated
labourer.

One hears constant complaints against farmers and land-
lords for not breaking up pastures during* the present war.
But it must be remembered that it takes much' labour to
break up pasture, and labour is the one thing we have not
got at the present time. And until the land has been cul-
tivated for a year or two the returns are very disappointing1.
Much of the land before it could be touched would need
draining, which is of course out of the question. The
increase of the cultivated area must be a question of
development and labour. It can be gradually extended if
we have a large and efficient population living on the land.
Therefore the increase of our food supplies furnishes us
with another important argument for the rehabilitation of
rural life.

THE REHABILITATION OF RURAL LIFE 22 1

I. Causes of Depopulation.

The first and principal cause of depopulation is the one
to which we have referred, the conversion of arable into
pasture. To appreciate the importance of this factor one
must remember that arable requires eight times as much
labour as pasture. In the agricultural depressions land went
out of cultivation and became grass land. Land " tumbled
back " into grass. Sometimes it has gone farther and
become waste land, and the thorn -tree and the rush occupy
land that should be producing food and giving work for a
rural population. The chief reason for this most regrettable
development has been the low prices of the eighties and
nineties. We all remember the ruin of the high farmer. It
began with the bad years '78, '79, and was gradually com-
pleted through the next fifteen years. Ths disaster which
fell upon those who had done their best to improve the
cultivation of the land at that time, and the little sympathy
that was extended to them by the State, frightened all classes.
The landlord ceased to put capital into his land, many of
the farmers' sons sought other means of livelihood, the now
to Canada became rapid, while all the best boys in the
village school went to the town or anywhere but on the farm ;
wages failed to rise with the general rise all over the country,
and in many districts it was only the residuum of the
countryside who remained. The subsequent rise in the price
of wheat, which has now reached such an extraordinary
height, never really remedies the condition. For no one
is willing to put capital into the land without some pledge
that prices shall be maintained, and without capital you
cannot increase the cultivated area. All who remember the
crash of the eighties ask themselves whether, when the war
is over, they may not be left with great responsibilities and
low prices. If it were possible by a sliding scale to fix a
minimum figure for wheat, the tendency would be the other
way. But without this the re -population of rural England
must be a matter of considerable difficulty. The future
development of either Canada or Argentina may again
lower the price of wheat and spread ruin among our own
agricultural community. Subject to this first and vital
consideration there are several other important causes of
depopulation.

222 SOCIAL REFORM

II. Big Estates versus Small Owners.

Undoubtedly in the past the big estate has been most
beneficial to English agriculture. The energy and go which
many great landowners showed in the beginning of the last
century has been the means of bringing much land under
cultivation. They took the lead in great works of arterial
drainage, in the promotion of railways, in the development
of scientific agriculture, and the debt that England owes
to their energy and vigour, though rarely acknowledged, is
very great. Such a work as " Young's Surveys " shows how
much landowners did in the Napoleonic wars to promote the
food production of the country. And at that time game-
keeping and foxhunting were really beneficial, for they kept
a class of intelligent resident capitalists interested in the
country's welfare, and if the farmers grumbled at the damage
done by the game it was when they forgot that the lowness
of their rents was because the game rights were not let with
the land. But now all this has changed and is changing.
The large landowner tends to live less and less on his
property. He goes to London, Monte Carlo, Switzerland,
and a hundred other resorts. When he does come down for
his big shoot the last thing he wants is trouble. Besides
which, he does not look on the ownership of land as a
business matter, and he as little thinks of making money
out of his land as he does out of his wife's diamond tiara or
his own motor-car. The result is that a great deal of the
land is under-rented, and this more or less suits the temper of
mind of many of the farmers. As a class farmers have little
ambition and share the dislike of their landlords to trouble
and activity. With the low rent the landlord requires, the
farmer has no need to bring more land under the plough
or in any way to improve the condition of his holding. In
fact, he not uncommonly lets land drift into almost uncul-
tivateable conditions. All this reacts on the agricultural
labourer. The demand for labour is in normal peace times
very small, and what is equally regrettable is that the
standard required by the farmer is low. He does not want
intelligent people, he thoroughly despises any scientific
development that would need intelligence, he mistrusts even
those agricultural implements that his Canadian son has
used these twenty years. What he wants is a submissive sort
of man who is willing to work for the miserable pittance

THE REHABILITATION OF RURAL LIFE 223

that he is justified in giving in view of the limited production
of his farm. The farmer does not believe in high wages
and plenty of labour justified by a proportionately large
increase of farm produce. If the land was an ordinary com-
modity no doubt the evil would cure itself. The landowner,
in view of the poor return the land was giving, would be
glad to sell, the sleepy farmer would be hustled out of the
way, the demand for a higher class of agricultural labourer
would be brisk, and in response to that demand wages would
steadily rise. And no doubt after the war the present
tendency of landowners to sell their land may produce such
a development. Even if landowners are unwilling to do
so, there will be a growing necessity, owing to higher
taxation, to make land produce more money, and it would
be well if those who are in possession of extensive estates
would consider that what England wants is not so much
economy as greater production. To make good the losses
of the war we want every man and every acre of land to
give their maximum production. This increase of pro-
duction will be hampered, no doubt, by want of capital ;
but, on the other hand, a great deal might be accomplished
by more education in agricultural matters and owners taking
more trouble to understand its problems. One would like
to see a knowledge of agriculture included in the normal
curriculum of all educational establishments for landowners'
sons. The Eton boy should be taught to milk the college
cow and to clean out the byre, and the Christ Church under-
graduate to plough the college farm, just as their sailor
brothers have to learn to splice a cable, or their cousins
in the engineering works to use the lathe and the fitters'
tools. Under these conditions agriculture might receive
a great impetus. The big estate might regain the important
position it once occupied and become a large business
concern. The tenant farmer would disappear, and his place
would be taken by highly educated specialists. Just as in
the industrial concern there are managers of various depart-
ments, buyers and travellers, so it would be on the big
estate. For as these methods tend to economy and efficiency
in the industrial world, so they would in the agricultural
world. The late Lord Salisbury farmed a large portion of
his Hatfield estate twenty years ago and introduced electricity
as the motive power for agricultural operations. The plan
was still in the experimental stage when his return to office
compelled him to put aside all such interesting pursuits.

224 SOCIAL REFORM

With the development of electricity one might well expect
to see large estates farmed by electrical power. Such a
development would economically require a bigger unit than
the ordinary farm. The present system of agriculture is
composed of units too small to profit by the advances in
engineering and chemistry. But even if the tenant farmer
were preserved — and many of us are fond of him as a class
— he would be much assisted and inspired by the influence
of his landlord. The landowner would take the lead in
the various co-operative undertakings. His experimental
farm would test and prove the value of the new machine or
the scientific discovery. His personal influence would com-
bat the economic and scientific heresies to which the agri-
cultural mind is prone, such as low wages being an economy,
and that a practical man needs no knowledge of the theory
of agricultural science. But, above all, he might improve
the conditions of the agricultural labourer. One would
like, for instance, to see some of the landowners inserting a
wages clause in their new agreements. Better wages are
necessary if we are to induce men to return to the land after
the war. Better wages for a better class of man, who is
capable of intelligently working all the newer plans for
increasing the yield of the land.

III. Small-owners and Small-holders.

Many look to a development in the opposite direction
to improve the conditions of country life. They plead for
the small -holder against the big farmer. One cannot under-
stand how a small -holding can be a permanent success,
though under the present inflated condition of agriculture
every form of cultivation of land may succeed. The small-
holder labours under so many disadvantages. The rent, if
economic, must be high. It is obviously cheaper to build
one cow-house for two hundred cows than fifty for four cows
each. How can a man who can only buy by the hundred-
weight compete with men who buy by the ton ? Again, he
is handicapped by being unable to use machines. The
people who talk about the co-operation of small -holders in
the matter of machinery forget the uncertainty of our
English climate. Supposing there is a fine week in hay
time and one small -holder has the reaping-machine, he
will cut his crop, make it, and prosper. The next holder
will fall on a 'wet period, lose his crop, and be ruined. How

THE REHABILITATION OF RURAL LIFE 225

is it possible that such a system can work ? Both of them
subscribe towards the machine. One has all the benefit
and the other none. If there is to be any co-operation at
all it must be complete co-operation. The small-holders
must be formed into a company with a manager at their
head, and at the end of the year they must share equally
the profits of their holding. Any other form of co-operation
is an impossibility, owing to the irregularity of the climate
and the uncertainty of the conditions of agriculture. Besides,
small -holdings have been constantly tried in England, and
the universal experience has been that with normal agri-
cultural conditions the small-holder cannot survive bad
times. The only exceptions are where the nature of the
culture is such as to require a great deal of personal
attention and the minimum use of machinery.

There is a great deal more to be said for the small -
owner. The small -owner has this great advantage over
the small -holder that he is not burdened by a rent which
must necessarily be heavy. His gains may not be great, but
they are less uncertain than those of the tenant farmer.
Under the ordinary system of English agriculture the pro-
duce of the land may be divided into three funds. First,
the land has to pay for the labour expended on it. Secondly,
the land has to pay rent. Then what is left goes to the
tenant farmer. As the first two funds are fixed, all variation
in the production of the farm is felt by the third, so the
gains and losses of the tenant farmer are great in proportion
to the capital involved. Now with a small-owner all
these funds are united. He is labourer, landlord, and farmer
in one. In bad years as farmer he may make nothing, but
he still receives the return as labourer and owner. In very
bad years he may get neither farmer's nor landlord's profit,
but the land will probably produce enough to pay his wages,
and, although poor, he will not be ruined. On the other
hand, in good years he will get not only labourer's wages
and landlord's profit, but he will also get such a large
farmer's profit as to enable him to save money, and he will
probably invest the saved money in his own land. A French
peasant proprietor explained to me that this was the way
the system worked in France ; it is fair to add that in France
the peasant proprietor has no rates to pay. Whether the
English mind could resist the temptation of wasting the
money in the good years, is the doubt that naturally crosses
the mind ; but one must always remember the desire to spend

226 SOCIAL REFORM

money on land that one owns is very great, and the small-
owner might be able to resist the temptation to extravagance
in good years and spend the money he saved on fruit -plant-
ing, stock, or in any other way likely to ensure a good
return. The difficulty of creating a class of peasant pro-
prietors is that of inducing working-men to save enough
money to buy themselves plots of land, and also to secure
that there should be a sufficient number of such plots in
the market. The efforts of Mr. Jesse Collings are in this
direction worthy of all praise, and should secure support
from both sides of the House. Such a scheme might espe-
cially succeed in the fruit districts of England. At any
rate, why should not a system which is working successfully
in Ireland and producing a class of peasant proprietors
be tried also in England ?

IV. Village Industries.

One of the results of encouraging the sale of land in small
plots would be to promote village industries. Obviously
no one would invest their money in an industry unless they
had some security that they would not be turned out. There-
fore a population of small freeholders tends to promote such
industries ; besides which, the founding of industries is often
the result of an almost imperceptible development. Take
the example of a man, or rather his wife, who succeeds with
two or three hens kept in the back garden. Instead of
killing her chickens one year she determines to increase her
stock. For that purpose she must find a quarter of an acre
of ground to let in a suitable situation. When she has hired
the. land she finds she must spend ten to fifteen pounds to
enable her to take full advantage of it. They may have
saved the amount, but they will be unwilling to invest it till
they can get some security that they will not be turned out.
And here it is that the Department of Agriculture might
help ; it might give them security and allow them some
years during which they could buy that land by easy instal-
ments. If the poultry business turned out a success they
would be able to buy the land ; if it failed, they would only
lose their outlay on coops and runs. But a man must have
two things to encourage his effort — first, a suitable piece of
land easy to get and from which he is in no danger of being
turned out ; secondly, he must not himself be liable to be
moved — for village industries are often in origin secondary

THE REHABILITATION OF, RURAL LIFE 227,

employment, so that the growing migratory conditions of the
rural population tend to prevent such developments.
Industries such as fruit-growing, bee-keeping, market -
gardening, rabbit -keeping, all require a stationary popu-
lation. More, indeed, might be done than is done at present
to educate people as to the advantages of these industries,
but without land and a stationary population they will never
succeed. I well remember an old woman who made a
living chiefly oft" some black currant bushes. These bushes
had been planted and cultivated by herself, and as long as
she lived she protected her crop against the birds and
gathered it and sold it in her neighbouring town. Her
cottage was not let with the farm, and she had, therefore,
a security of tenure, and with her cottage went a quarter
of an acre of land. But one must add that a lonely cottage,
even if it has a large bit of land attached to it, rarely
attracts tenants, and the tendency to scatter cottages to
oblige the farmers is one of the many reasons why country
life is disliked.

V. Disadvantages of Isolated Cottages.

To the town dweller those lonely cottages standing far
from any other human habitation seem ideal abodes for
working folk ; he probably sees them in the spring and
summer, and they blend in with the verdant landscape and
seem part of a life of poetry. The sweet honeysuckle clam-
bering over the porch, the garden gay with its roses, hide
by their beauty all the very real disadvantages — yes, hard-
ships— of those lonely habitations. Even if they were held
independently of the farmer — which is becoming rarer and
rarer — they would be disliked by working folk, for isolation,
unless you have some means of conveyance, means discom-
fort and even hardships. Visit those same cottages on a
wet, winter day, when the flowers are all gone and the leaves
fallen from the trees are resolving themselves into black
and greasy mud, then those houses will seem little better
than purgatory. The children are coming back from school,
soaked and tired, for they have been wet pretty well the
whole day, and tea is not ready for them because the baker
has not called ; it is perhaps a mile's walk to his shop, and
so, as the mother must stop at home to mind the baby, the
poor child has to turn back in the early winter night and
struggle again through the mud to get the necessary bread.

228 SOCIAL REFORM

The mother dreads the result of the long wetting, for she has
known better days once ; perhaps she was a servant in a
smart house, and the contrast between her former comfort
and her present want embitters her. Now she can only
moan about the bad condition of their boots ; those boots
were new a short time ago, but the daily wear to and
from school has reduced them to a mere fiction — in fact
they are only now worn for respectability's sake, as the
water flows in and out with the greatest ease ; and how can
she get new boots on the miserable pittance her husband
earns ? Why, she will explain to you at length, she finds it
difficult to keep him in boots. When the child returns with
the bread it is no wonder that she looks ill ; she had a bad
cold this morning, but she would go to school because she
is trying to get the silver watch the County Council gives
for five years' constant attendance. She can scarcely carry
the bread in, and the cold has obviously taken a turn for
the worse. When the father comes home from work the
parents agree that the doctor ought to see the child, but
how impossible it is to get hold of him. Father is tired
out and the nearest doctor is three miles away, and it is not
unlikely that even when the father reaches the doctor he
will refuse to come out on such a night and only send a
bottle of medicine ; and so they agree to wait till the morn-
ing. But the sickness will not wait, and as the night goes
on the child gets worse and worse. Ah, my town dweller,
especially if you are in a good position, how little do you
realize these moments of anguish. You have only got to
touch your telephone and the doctor is at your door ; it is
not so in the country, for though the child seems dying, the
father still hesitates about starting to fetch the doctor.
Some doctors will not come unless a conveyance is provided
for them ; many treat the disturber of their slumbers with
scant courtesy and little sympathy. But at last the father
walks the three miles, and comes back with the bottle of
medicine and a promise that the doctor will call to-morrow.
Yes, they won't be surprised if he doesn't call for two or
three days ; and one can scarcely blame him, he has been: up
himself a night or two ; and one must admit that the calls of
the poor are not infrequently very unnecessary. Oh, many
is the tragedy which one could tell of the isolated cottage,
which have as their result a constant tendency to induce
migration to the towns, especially among the young. Some-
times, indeed, one is astonished that the older people do not

THE REHABILITATION OF RURAL LIFE 229

move into the village when one realizes the inconvenience
of isolation ; but, however lonely the house, the labourer
cannot give notice — he is bound to the house, for if he
changes his house he changes his work.

VI. Tied Houses.

The lonely cottage has always been a difficulty for the
country folk, but of late years a serious grievance has been
created by the introduction of a new system of tenure,
developed, I believe, from the system in Scotland. There
the " hinds " are hired for a year and a cottage provided
for them. This system may have its advantages, for a man
knows exactly where he is ; he is there for a year. But the
new English system works out most unfairly, for a man is
hired by the week and is liable to be ejected from his house
at a month's notice. Clearly a working-man cannot afford
to move often, therefore once he is in his cottage he must
remain there whatever the conditions of his employment.
His master may be just and generous, but he may be the
reverse, and even if he be an ideal master it would be hardly
safe for the working-man to spend much money on his
garden ; and so the modern cottage tends to be destitute of
fruit-trees, an industry which might well be developed all
through the country if only the cottager had security of
tenure. In the old houses which do not go with the farm
there stand one or two queer-shaped apple -trees, planted
perhaps generations ago, defended every year against the
depredations of the boys with the greatest difficulty, needing
all the vituperation that the mother of the house can put
into her shrill voice to save it from being looted by the
urchin. It was possible to plant that old apple-tree because
the house never went with any farm and was let to the same
family, father and son, for fifty, perhaps a hundred years ;
now the new cottages will never have an old apple-tree in
their garden, for who cares to plant a tree when in another
month they might be turned out. Besides, the insecurity of
tenure naturally makes people migratory. Many, realizing
their insecurity, prefer to leave at a moment advantageous
to themselves rather than be turned out when it would
involve family disaster. The family is growing' up ; the
sons, and especially the daughters, must soon be started in
life. There are always few opportunities in the countryside ;
what few there are are not attractive enough to those who

•230 SOCIAL REFORM

may at any moment be turned out of their houses. The
daughter might be a pupil-teacher at the village school — a
post of some dignity and importance in village life — but if
the farmer turns the family out, what will happen ? The
son may succeed the father, and if the father was certain of
stopping mother would persuade him to do so, in spite of
the bad pay and the quiet life ; but if the father's tenure is
uncertain, the son had better begin life in the town. So the
family had better move now at once to the factory town,
to one of those grimy, monotonous houses in a street of
dreary aspect, with a grand -sounding name. It is true that
neither mother nor father will be as happy there as they
would in the open country, but no one will turn them out of
their house as long as they pay their rent, and their children
will not have to be separated from them, and the doctor will
be close at hand, and there will be a wealth of butchers and
grocers to choose from ; and, besides, the children will like
all the joys of the cinema, the street talk, yes, and the girls
will like that which father does not like — the sixpenny
dances.

VII. Joys of the Old Village Life.

Years ago the village held its own against the charms of
town life. The men and women bred in the village found
their living there, and only went to town occasionally ; they
were frightened by its noise and shocked by its wickedness.
The village might be dull sometimes in the winter, but it
was a sort of family establishment — everybody was related
to one another and loved the place, except, perhaps, the
new-comer, and as he came in only fifteen years ago he
could scarcely in such a short time have learned to appre-
ciate all the advantages of the village. The doctor lived
at one end of the village, so that if he was wanted to give a
bottle of medicine which cured equally all the ills to which
man is heir, or to pronounce the death sentence on the sick
— which seems for some reason to please the countryman's
heart — or to give advice in a hundred small matters on which
his wise counsel was sought, he was always at hand. Besides
the doctor there would be all the other characters of the
village. The clergyman lived near the church, neither beloved
as the good story-book tells you, nor hated as the radical
pamphlet avers, but just part of the village and treated as
such. So the family would go to church half an hour before
the service — people in the country villages do not cut thing's

THE REHABILITATION OF RURAL LIFE '231

fine — and after church they would exchange greetings and
discuss the weather and the crops. Again, on the weekday
the school would be near at hand so that the children could
get back for their dinners, and there would be no wading
back amidst mud on a winter's evening. The old village,
in fact, had many charms, but the farmers did not like it.
They would explain to you that it made the men independent,
so that if the price of labour was rising the men would
demand their share. A man could give a week's notice if
he thought he was badly treated ; if he had been a good,
steady man it mattered little when he left his employment,
for one of the other farmers would gladly take him on, or
he would find work at the brickfield, or at the squire's house ;
so if the farmer were overbearing he could speak to him as
one man to another — his family were not hostages to the
farmer as they are in those tied houses.

VIIL The Ideal Village.

I should like to see some village built on the old lines,
with its church and its school in the centre and a great open
space where all can meet and gossip in the summer evenings,
and where the children could play. The village should
stand off the main road, not where the motors come rushing
through so that children are in danger. There might be
a maypole, and a flag hauled up on days of festival. These
things all make life sweeter. Round the green should
cluster cottages : do not let us have them too monotonously
built, and we need not have the initials of the owner built
into them, but let each house have its individuality. Could
it not also be arranged through some building society that
some of these houses should be owned by the men who live
in them? Behind the row of cottages, roughly and irregu-
larly arranged, should be the yeomen's freehold plots of
land. Trees should be planted round the village, to shelter
it from the wind and make its lanes look pretty when the
spring sun comes through the early opening leaves and
young men and maidens wander down those lanes hand in
hand, or sit in silent and mutual adoration for hour's
together. The farmers will like the scheme in the end :
it is true they will dislike it at first ; they will find men will
be much more independent and self-respecting, but they
will get a better class of labourer. The chief advantage

232 SOCIAL REFORM

will be that England will be provided with a virile and
happy rural population, able to enjoy its happiness in peace
time and to defend it in the terrible hour of war.

It is little use to organize navies and armies if you have
not men bold and skilful enough to fill them.

It is the personal factor that tells in the end. Help1 the
countryman to raise a large and healthy family, and England
will be safe. Allow the rural population to be diminished,
and we shall soon be at the mercy of our bitterest foes.

N.B. — This article was written before I came into the
west country ; still I have seen nothing here to induce
me to modify my views. Perhaps, indeed, they have been
strengthened as regards the importance of agricultural
education.

CHAPTER XIV

Housing after the War

By HENRY R. ALDRIDGE,
Secretary of the National Housing and Town Planning Council

Before stating in close detail the main features of the
housing problem which will present itself for solution at
the close of the war, it will be of service to give a short
summary of the housing problem as it presented itself to
reformers at the opening of the war.

As a (heritage from the past we were then burdened with
many " survivals of the unfit " in the shape of large
numbers of insanitary houses unfit for human habitation,
and in these houses from 5 to 10 per cent, of our poorer
working-class population were housed.

Overlapping with this problem of unfit housing accom-
modation we had, according to the 191 1 Census, 10 per
cent, of our urban population (nearly three million persons)
living under conditions of overcrowding — i.e. with an
average of more than two persons to each room. In two
counties of England, viz. Durham and Northumberland,
the proportion of overcrowded persons to the total popula-
tion reached nearly 30 per cent.

Added to these problems of insanitary houses and over-
crowding we had a growing shortage of small houses — a
shortage due to the fact that in the five years preceding
the war the supply was far short of the normal demand.

There has been much controversy as to the causes of this

diminution in the supply of small houses, but it is clear that

the constructive action of builders and investors has been

adversely affected by the provisions of the Finance (1909-

10) Act, 19 10. A leading authority amongst the estate

agents of the kingdom, Mr. A. W. Shelton, F.A.I., has col-

233

234 SOCIAL REFORM

lected the figures of cottage building in seventy towns (with
an aggregate population of 1 3,000,000) for two periods,
1906-10 and 191 1 -1 5. These figures show that in the five
years preceding the passing of the Finance Act 169,896
small houses were built, and in the five following years
89,654 — a falling off of 80,242. The value of the figures
is lessened by the fact that the last period of five years
includes a full war year, but there Can be no doubt that the
builders have cause for complaint. This is placed beyond
question by the fact that the Government in 1913, and
again in 19 14, admitted the existence of a grievance. In
March 19 14 the Parliamentary Secretary of the Treasury
pledged the Government to introduce legislation in relief
of builders, and but for the outbreak of war this legislation
would without doubt have been passed.

This admitted decline in building activity greatly in-
creased the difficulties of the general shortage of small houses
which had been felt for a long period in certain areas — more
especially in mining districts and in rural villages — and
it will not be an overstatement of the housing shortage
problem, as it presented itself in July 19 14, to state that
400,000 new houses were needed and that the provision
of these would have left unremedied, for the greater
part, the insanitary houses and overcrowding referred to
above. i

The Housing Problem during the War.

In the first month of the war the housing problem occu-
pied the attention of Parliament, and a wise step was
taken by the Government in making provision for the
lending of £4,000,000 on special terms to local authorities
and public utility societies to be expended in housing
schemes. One of the main factors in the decision of
Parliament to pass the Act embodying this provision (the
Housing, No. 2, Act, 19 14) was the fear that there
might be a great amount of unemployment in the building
trade. ' ' !

But as time passed the fear of unemployment was dis-
pelled and the application of locall authorities and public
utility societies for loans under this Act were not
granted . \ I \

In the first two years of the war the shortage of houses
has been further increased by the cessation, of cottage]

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR '235

building activity in most centres — a cessation due in part
to the unwillingness of those controlling capital to lend
it for cottage building, but more especially due to the
high cost of building materials and the lack of labour.

It is interesting to note the fact that although millions
of men are now serving with the colours the shortage of
cottage accommodation is nevertheless acute. In the early
months of the war period it was quite commonly sug-
gested that with the calling up of great numbers of men
to serve, the pressure of demand for cottage houses would
diminish and a great number of houses would be left
untenanted. Those who made this forecast failed to take
into account the determination of soldiers' wives to keep
their homes intact and ready for their husbands' return at
the close of the war. Many wives were urged by well-
meaning philanthropic advisers to give up their homes and
crowd in with their parents, but the great majority of
them had the good sense to maintain their homes and to
regard the payment of the rent as the first charge on a
separation allowance, which, for the first time in the
history of European wars, has been sufficient to enable
our soldiers' wives to maintain their homes without charit-
able aid. ' ''III1

But whatever may be the reasons for the continued
pressure of demand for the tenancy of cottage houses,
there can be no doubt that, except in certain areas, it is
as great now as it was in the year preceding the war.
In many of the great cities of the kingdom this shortage
has, moreover, assumed the character of a house famine.
This is especially true of the great munition areas.

The usual consequence of a house famine — a steady rise
in rents — began to appear in the summer of 191 5, and
in October of 191 5 it became apparent that unless strong
action was taken by the Government grave disputes between
landlords and tenants would be engendered — with embittered
rent strikes as a result. In fairness to houseowners it
should be made clear that the majority of them were
willing to place aside the opportunity, given by the
shortage, to charge higher rents. Another factor, how-
ever, came into play — viz. the general rise in the rate of
interest and the consequent endeavour of those who
had lent money on mortgage on cottage property to
secure the payment of higher rates of interest on these
mortgages.

236 SOCIAL REFORM

Two factors contributing towards a demand for the
payment of higher rents were thus operative— viz . :

(a) The desire of those who had lent money on
mortgage for the purchase or erection of small houses
to secure the same rate of interest as that which they
could secure by investing money in War Loan Stock,
and, consequently, the natural attempt of property
owners to transfer this burden to their tenants .

(b) The desire of those letting house property to
secure the higher rents which the shortage of houses
enabled them to demand.

Of these two forces the first was by far the more serious.
Within a short time of the issue of the War Loan at 5 per
cent, many of those controlling mortgage investments issued
notices, intimating to those to whom money had been lent
on the security of cottage property that in future an increase
of ^ per cent, or 1 per cent, interest must be paid.

As the addition of 1 per cent, to the interest charge
in the case of a loan pf £200 on the security of a small
house involved an additional payment of £2 per year (or
about 9d. per week on the rent of the cottage), the nominal
owner of the mortgaged house had, in the great majority
of cases, no choice — except the loss of livelihood — but to
transfer the added interest charge in the form of weekly
rent. As a result notices demanding an increase in rent
were served throughout the whole country, and many bitter
controversies arose.

It then became clear that legislative action must be taken,
and, acting on the advice of housing reformers, the Govern-
ment introduced into Parliament and placed on the Statute
Book an Act providing that for the period of the war and
for six months after the close of the war :

(a) Rents should not be raised ;

(b) The rates of interest on mortgages should not
be raised ; and

(These provisions apply only to houses let at less than
certain rentals stated in the Act.)

In regard to this Act it is interesting to note the fact
that its provisions have been accepted loyally, and that as
a result of its operations peace from rent disputes has been
secured throughout the land.

Another aspect of the housing question occupied the

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 237

attention of Parliament in the early part of 1 9 1 6, when the
announcement that married men, attested under the Derby
scheme, would be called up, rendered necessary the giving
of attention to the grave problem which confronted married
men in regard to the maintenance of their homes.

There was not a little danger that the moratorium
method (adopted in France and other countries) would be
adopted here also, but as the result of a strong appeal to
members of the Government, and to members of both
Houses of Parliament, the proposal to pass a Moratorium
Act was rejected and a promise made by the Government
that action should be taken on well-considered lines to
maintain free from debt the homes of married men called
up to serve. Finally, it was decided to appoint a number
of Commissioners acting for the Military Service (Civil
Liabilities) Committee — these Commissioners to receive
applications and make recommendations as to special grants.
Grants up to a total of £104 per year may be made by
the Committee in regard to obligations in respect of rent ;
interest and instalments payable in respect of loans, in-
cluding mortgages ; instalments payable under agreements
for the purchase of business premises, a dwelling-house,
furniture, and the like ; rates and taxes, insurance
premiums; and school fees. Up to December 31, 191 6,
the local Commissioners had received 155,882 applications,
and they had made recommendations in 130,000 cases The
Committee had at the same date decided 119,500 applica-
tions, and had awarded grants in 86,000 cases, representing
an annual payment of £1,654,000.

The Housing Question in the Period immediately
following the close of the war.

That the need for constructive housing action will be
greater at the close of the war than at the commencelment
of the war is beyond question. But quite apart from this
persistence of the pre-war need for housing activity, those
responsible for the guidance of the housing reform move-
ment have been compelled to give their earnest thought
and care to a constructive problem of great magnitude
and first-class national importance — viz. the preparation for
the home-coming of the quarter of a million men in the
building trade who have responded to the call of their
country and are now serving in the Army and Navy.

238 SOCIAL REFORM

The gravity of the problem will be realized from the
following facts and figures :

The building industry is the third greatest industry in
the kingdom, and no less than 905,202 workmen are
employed in it. Since the war started quite 270,000 of
these have joined the Army. Probably about 50,000 more
have temporarily changed their occupation and are work-
ing in the production of munitions. Of the 600,000
building -trade workmen remaining at home the greater
part are engaged in war -building work — the construction
of factories, aerodromes, etc. — and day by day the pro-
portion of the men thus employed rises.

It is clear, therefore, that with the coming of peace a
colossal crisis of unemployment may arise in the building
trade unless wise measures are taken to avert it. The
general features of this problem have been so admirably
stated by Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree that, with his kind
permission, the following paragraph may be quoted from
an article appearing in the Contemporary Review for
October 191 5 :

Directly peace is signed, demobilization of the greater part of our Army will
begin, and the bulk of its members will be thrown upon the labour market.
Theoretically, demobilization should only take place gradually, as the labour
market is able to absorb the men demobilized, but fact in this case can hardly be
expected to conform to theory. A great proportion of the men definitely joined
the Army for the duration of the war only, and were promised reinstatement in
their old jobs at its close. We do not know exactly what the proportion of these
men is, but it must be very large, and it is highly improbable that they will
agree to stay with the colours for months after hostilities cease. The great
majority of them will return straightway to their previous employment, throwing
out of work those who have occupied their places during their absence. No
doubt there will be exceptions : some will remain with the colours : some will
emigrate : a few will seek fresh occupations, less monotonous or more lucrative ;
but their proportion is not likely to be relatively very great. Even men whose
situations have not been kept open for them will probably, as a rule, be disin-
clined to remain in the Army after peace is signed. In this connection it may be
noted that after the Civil War in America the authorities sought to avoid rapid
demobilization, but the men insisted upon it. They preferred to take their
chance of finding work, and a similar experience will most likely be ours. Thus,
making full allowance for all possible exceptions, and likewise for those —
university students, for instance — whose return will not affect labour, I believe
we shall be well within the mark in assuming that considerably over a million
men will be thrown on the labour market within three months of the termination
of the war, and that work will have to be found either for them or for the
individuals whom they will displace. Moreover, the labour market at the time
will be singularly unqualified to absorb this additional labour. Vast numbers of
workers to-day are engaged in manufacturing goods, the demand for which has

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 239

been created directly or indirectly by the war. When peace is signed the great
bulk of this demand will cease, and consequently there will be very serious
dislocation of industry apart from that caused by the demobilization of the
Army.

This dislocation is likely to be more considerable than in August 1914, for
although at that time much unemployment was certainly caused by panic and
the sudden stoppage of our export trade, men were enlisting, and so being taken
off the labour market, at a very rapid rate, and enormous demands were instantly
forthcoming for the manufacture of all kinds of war materials. No doubt the
return of peace will create a spirit of confidence among manufacturers, who will
begin at once to prepare for active trade. Moreover, we must bear in mind that
our soldiers will not return with entirely empty pockets. Still, I doubt whether
those factors, during the first few months, will operate so powerfully in the
reduction of unemployment as did the enlistment and demand for war materials
of last August (1914).

The same problem has been stated in general terms and
as affecting the industries of the country by the Chairman
of the Birmingham Trades Union Congress (19 16), Mr.
H. Gosling, L.C.C., in his opening address :

When the Government on the resumption of peace suddenly lessens its
gigantic pay-roll, the biggest that the world has ever seen, and stops its colossal
orders for every conceivable commodity — when millions of soldiers are dis-
banded at approximately the same time that two or three million munition
workers are discharged — when something like a third of the whole wage-
earning population of this country will be simultaneously losing their jobs —
there is bound to be almost a flood of men and women seeking new situations.
. . . This will be a moment of the gravest industrial peril. . . . The nation
has a right to ask that the Government, which knows that peace will come one
day, and which must realize that it will be the Government itself that will
deliberately give the signal for the dismissal of six or seven million men and
women from their present employment, should take all the necessary steps in
advance by properly organizing the extensive public works of all kinds that
must necessarily be undertaken to prevent the occurrence of any widespread or
lasting unemployment.

Now it is clear that in some " key " industries — mining,
shipbuilding, and, in a measure, engineering — all the skilled
men available can be usefully absorbed as and when they
return from the Army. But it will be unwise to deduce
from forecasts of the probable condition of employment
in special " key " industries any forecast as to general
industrial activity at the close of the war. Each industry
should be made the subject of separate and careful
investigation, and when this wise course is followed it
becomes evident that in the building industry great diffi-

240 SOCIAL REFORM

culties will present themselves in the year following the
close of the war and that three factors will operate to
produce unemployment :

(a) There will be difficulty in securing capital
to finance building operations. There can be no
doubt that the demand for capital for short invest-
ment loans will be very great and that the supply
of capital for long -period investments (such as
building operations) will be directly affected.

(b) The rate of interest will be high. It is clear
that 5 per cent, will be the minimum rate at which
capital will be available in the open market for
Government loans, and this will certainly be the
minimum rate for all private operations.

(c) The prices of building materials will continue
to be high . At the present time the average cost of the
materials for building a small house is between 30 and
50 per cent, greater than in the months immediately
preceding the war. With the return of skilled workmen
the cost of production of home-made materials — e.g.
bricks — will diminish and prices will fall, but it is
certain that for many months following the war the
price of timber will continue to be abnormally
high.

All these factors will operate in the direction of dis-
couraging activity in the building trade in the period
following the declaration of peace. The tendency will be
to delay or postpone the construction of new buildings
(as distinct from the completion of buildings already com-
menced) until the time when capital will be obtainable at
lower rates and when the prices of building materials have
been reduced.

It will clearly be an impossible task to persuade those
private persons who have the power to finance private
building contracts that in the face of discouraging factors
they should decide to act. Their capital will flow into
more encouraging fields of action, and there is only too
much reason to fear that the close of the war will mark
the commencement of a great crisis of unemployment in
the building industry — that is to say, a crisis in an industry
which has, in the past, as a result of such crises of un-
employment, suffered more demoralization than any other
great national industry.

But it will be urged that the period following the close

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 241

of the war will be the time when the unemployed insurance
legislation as applied to the building trade will prove to
be of special service. A little reflection will, however,
show that there are two grave reasons why another solu-
tion should be found. The first of the reasons is that
public opinion will not permit the adoption of a method
which will mean the flooding of our towns with unemployed
workmen returning from the danger of the battle -line and
receiving sums in unemployment benefit which, even when
supplemented by Trade Union savings, will be admittedly
inadequate to maintain a proper standard of comfort in
their homes.

The second reason is that the usage of unemployment
insurance funds for the purpose of relieving unemploy-
ment in the building trade due to the war cannot be
justified, except on the ground that other forms of remedial
action are impossible. These funds have been accumu-
lated for the purpose of mitigating ordinary trade unemploy-
ment, and they should be strictly conserved for the purposes
for which they have been created.

It may, however, be suggested that the difficulties can
be surmounted by the adoption of the policy of slow
demobilization. This proposal is much favoured by those
who only "think one thought deep." But quite apart
from the inevitable discontent of men who will desire to
return to their homes and daily occupations as early as
possible, a policy of slow demobilization of men in the
building trade, adopted not for military reasons, but to
guard against unemployment, will be prodigally wasteful
and unwise in the interests of national economy. Every
man kept with the colours in accordance with a policy
of slow demobilization will cost the nation at least £3
per week for Army pay, maintenance, and separation
allowance .

It is true that we may be compelled, through lack |of
sufficient care in devising other more useful and less costly
means of dealing with unemployment, to adopt this policy
in regard to many industries, but in the building industry
a better way has been clearly outlined and a definite policy
has been placed before the Government for consideration.
This policy may be described as that of preparing plans
and outlining schemes to secure— mainly through the agency
of the local authorities of the kingdom— that work of real
[Service to the community shall be provided for the men in

.16

242 SOCIAL REFORM

the building trade, as and when the need arises at the close
of the war.

There is good reason to hope that the Government will
adopt this line of policy and will encourage local authori-
ties to concentrate their attention during the period which
will elapse before the close of the war on the task of
preparing and holding ready plans and schemes for
building, such schemes to be carried into effect " as and
when the need arises."

Principal amongst the items of building work of real
service to the country may be placed that of providing
houses to meet the admittedly great housing shortage, and
for this reason the policy outlined above commends itself
to housing reformers. It received warm support at a
National Congress on " Home Problems after the War,"
held in April last in London, and attended by four hundred
representatives, who between them represented practically
the whole of those interested in the building industry, as
well as local authorities and great workmen's associations
in the kingdom.

The Congress unanimously passed the following
resolution :

That this Congress urgently directs the attention of the Government to the
critical need for the provision of additional housing for the working classes,
and in respect of the national interest and responsibility in the matter urges
upon the Government to set aside no less than £20,000,000 to make such
advances to Local Authorities and other agencies as will enable them to provide
houses at reasonable rentals having regard to all necessary and equitable
circumstances and conditions.

This resolution was submitted to the Government by
means of a deputation received by Mr. Walter Long, as
President of the Local Government Board, on September 20,
19 1 6. In his reply Mr. Long stated that he had already
submitted to his colleagues in the Government " a com-
prehensive and practical scheme," and that, together with
the Secretary of State for Scotland (who presides over
the Local Government Board for Scotland), " he would
lose neither time nor opportunity in pressing upon his J
colleagues in the Government the acceptance of the pro-
posals they had made or were prepared to make." In
regard to the particular sum asked for, Mr. Long said
that it would be premature for him to make any announce-
ment— he was not in a position to> do so, and " he was

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 243

not at all sure that the £20,000,000 named was even an
index of what might be required if this work was to be
properly carried out."

In regard to the terms on which the money should be
lent by the Government the members of the deputation
made the definite suggestion that the terms granted should
be similar to those given by the Treasury in the case of
housing schemes for munition workers.

The following paragraphs from the Memorandum sub-
mitted by them are of special importance :

In regard to the conditions under which the capital sum asked for
(£20,000,000) should be lent, the members of the Deputation feel that they
should urge most strongly the necessity for giving an assurance to Local
Authorities and other agencies that the whole of the capital sum will be avail-
able and will be advanced on the terms determined on by His Majesty's
Government, until it is all applied for, and, further, that in view of the special
difficulties which will be present at the close of the war, His Majesty's Govern-
ment, in making loans from this capital sum, should give a substantial contri-
bution in the form of grants in aid — or in other forms. In doing so His
Majesty's Government will be following the precedent already set in the
framing of the terms for lending the £4,000,000 provided under the Housing
(No. 2) Act, 1914, and will be continuing the practice of the Treasury in regard
to loans for the provision of houses for munition workers.

How essential it is that such aid should be given will be clear from the
following tables showing :

(a) The annual and weekly rent which a Local Authority required to charge
in 1913 for a cottage costing £235 (including roads and lands), the money being
lent by the Public Works Loan Commissioners at 3 J per cent. ; and

(6) The rent which the same Local Authority will need to charge for a
cottage costing the same amount, the loan being granted by the Public Works
Loan Commissioners at the rate of interest fixed under the Treasury Minute of
November 1915, viz. 5 per cent.

TABLE A.

Per year. Per week.

■C s. d. s. d.

ol ' «

Interest on £235 at 3J per cent 846

Estimated repayment of principal on loans for different

periods (roads, building and land), 10s. per cent. ... 136
Rates assumed at 8s. in the £, and taken on an assumed

assessment of £11 4 8

Water rate — 10 per cent, on £11 1 2

Fire insurance on £215 at is. 6d. per cent. o 3

Repairs and maintenance — say, 10 per cent, on gross

rental 1 16 of l x&

Management and collection — say, 5 per cent, on gross

rental ... c

£17 15 6 6 11

244 SOCIAL REFORM

TABLE B.

Interest on £235 at 5 per cent

Estimated repayment of principal on loans for different

periods (roads, building and land), 8s. per cent.
Rates assumed at 8s. in the £, and taken on an assumed

assessment of ^13

Water rate — 10 per cent, on £13

Fire insurance on £215 at is. 6d. per cent.

Repairs and maintenance — say, 10 per cent, on gross

rental ... ...

Management and collection — say, 5 per cent, on gross

rental

Per year.

Per week.

£ a. d.

s. d.

11 15 0

4 6i

10 0

0 54

540

1 6 0

2 6

0 3 6v

£22 17 6 8 11

(In Table B the assessment has been taken at £13 instead of ^11.)

It will be seen from these tables that the rise in the rate of interest alone
will involve an increased rent of 2s. per week. This is quite independent of
the advance in the cost of building materials, and if the cost of building
materials does not decline at the close of the war an even more serious advance
in the rents of new houses will be inevitable. The difficulties of Local
Authorities and other agencies in dealing with the problem will be thus in-
creased and the case for giving substantial help will be made even more clear.

For the purpose of housing munition workers the Treasury have made free
grants of from 25 per cent, to 30 iper cent, of the total cost. The case for
giving similar treatment to Local Authorities and other agencies undertaking
building schemes during the period of industrial dislocation which will follow
the war is even more striking, and it is felt that at least the same proportion of
free grant should be given in aid of housing schemes to be carried into effect
during the critical and difficult period which will follow the close of the war.

It may further be pointed out that if the same proportion of free grant is
given as in the case of housing schemes for munition workers, the amount of
the subsidy given will not be greater than one day's cost of the war. The
^20,000,000 lent will enable nearly 100,000 houses to be built.

If the Government decide to adopt this policy, and it
is difficult to see how they can do otherwise — and if local
authorities are encouraged and stimulated to prepare useful
schemes — then two results of national importance will be
achieved :

1 . The workmen in the building trade may at the
close of the war be set free from military service
without fear of the coming of a crisis of unemploy-
ment ; and

2. The energies of those building -trade workmen
who will not be absorbed by the demands of the

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 245

ordinary labour market in the building industry will

be wisely used in the construction of small houses of

real service to the community, and these small houses

will be provided at a time when they will be in special

demand.

That the period will be one of special demand for new

houses — unless the loss of life amongst our soldiers is much

more terrible than we anticipate — will be made clear by

the following figures of marriages in England and Wales :

Marriages in England and Wales.

1913. March 60,964

June 65,792

September 83,582

December ... ... ... ... 76,032

>,370

1914. March 51,016

June 81,096

September 82,024

December 79,951

1915. March 55,406

June 97,038

September ... ... ... ... 102,567

December ... ... 105,015

294,087

360,026

It will be seen from these figures that in the war year
of 1 9 1 5 the number of marriages in England and Wales
(and not including Scotland) exceeded those in the pre-
war year of 191 3 by 73,656.

The new homes demanded by those who have thus con-
tracted war marriages and who have postponed the estab-
lishment of their homes until the coming of peace will
make an appreciable difference to the demand for cottages
at the close of the war, even although — alas ! — many of them
will have made " the supreme sacrifice," and the number
will be diminished to this extent.

Before leaving the subject of the need for making
definite preparation to deal with the housing problems which
will present themselves for solution at the close of the
war, a word may be added as to the desirability of passing,
before the close of the war, legislation to amend the Finance
Act of 1909-10 in such a way as to remove completely
the grievance under which builders suffer.

In his reply to the deputation already referred to, Mr.

246 SOCIAL REFORM

Walter Long distinctly stated that he regards the Govern-
ment as pledged to carry a measure of reform. The
importance of fulfilling the pledge given in March 1914 by
the Secretary of the Treasury cannot be too strongly urged.
Every year in normal times at least 100,000 new cottages
are needed to meet the growth of the population and to
enable unfit houses to be closed without the production of a
house famine. Hitherto 95 per cent, of the houses con-
structed have been supplied by private enterprise, and if
for any reason the private investor neglects this field
a problem of great magnitude will present itself for
solution.

Housing in the Years following the War.

When the first year following the close of the war has
been passed through, the housing movement will enter upon
a period of great difficulty, as will be seen from the
following notes :

1 . It is clear from the figures given earlier in this
chapter that the hope of the cheap cottage must be placed
aside for at least a generation. With capital bearing
interest at 5 per cent, (at least) it is difficult to see how
it will be possible to let a cottage, costing £250 for build-
ing construction, roads, and land, at a rent less than from
9s. to 9s. 6d. per week. The rent can hardly be put
lower than this even in those districts where the cost of
building is relatively low. In the London area it will
probably be £350 per cottage, with a rent corresponding
to this.

2. With the expiration of the Increase of Rent and
Mortgage Interest Act those lending money on exist-
ing property will, in many cases, take the opportunity of
demanding higher rates of interest on their mortgages, and
the houseowners paying these higher rates of interest will
have no choice but to increase their rents. To the extent
to which the rents are substantially raised there will be
much dissatisfaction, and rent disputes will trouble public
peace.

In this relation it will be of service to emphasize the
point that workmen and employers must in dealing with
wage disputes in the years following the war calculate
on a much larger expenditure in house rent. This will at
once be admitted by those who are familiar with housing

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 247

conditions in rural England. No hope can be entertained
for the building of cottages and letting them at economic
rents if the old pre-war standards of rural wages are con-
tinued. This is also true of the wages of the great mass
of poorly paid labourers in the town.

3. In the five years preceding the war two of the great
parties in the State had developed distinct housing policies,
and, assuming that these policies will hold good at the
close of the war, they may be thus summarized :

The Unionist housing policy is one of aid to local
authorities to house the poorest members of the com-
munity at a loss and to imeet the deficit in the finance
of housing schemes by State grants.

The Liberal housing policy, whilst providing for
the giving of general grants in aid of housing efforts
by local authorities, has as its central feature the
raising of wages in order to secure that all classes
of the community shall be enabled to have decent
housing accommodation.
The members of the Labour Party, with that close and
intimate knowledge which they possess of all social ques-
tions, have adopted a line of policy which combines both
these policies.

The war has taught us the value of unity in a fight to
safeguard the future of democracy and liberty. It will
be well if the war can also teach us the value of national
unity in working to secure national health. It should not,
therefore, be too much to hope that all parties will be
brought into harmonious relation and that, by common
agreement, all useful methods of attack on bad housing
will be adopted.

That housing reformers are ready to support such an
agreed policy is seen from the fact that at the National
Congress, already referred to, the following resolution was
passed :

This Congress urges all parties in the State to take combined action to
secure that every family shall be housed under proper conditions, and in order
to secure this end, which is of vital and national importance, urges that legisla-
tion should be introduced :

(a) to set up machinery in all industries to require employers to pay
wages sufficient to ensure decent housing accommodation for the workers
in these industries ; and

(b) to secure that, where such raising of wages can only be achieved
by stages, the Local Authority shall recognize and fulfil the duty of
providing decent housing accommodation for those unable meanwhile

248 SOCIAL REFORM

to pay an economic rent, and that the whole country shall bear the
difference in the cost between the rent of the decent dwelling and the rent
which the tenants can afford to pay.

It is an interesting commentary on our former lack of
earnestness in dealing with the housing problem to state
that which will be recognized to be true by all who are
in touch with members of the great political parties— viz.
that the coming of the Great War has brought the achieve-
ment of the task of housing reformers appreciably nearer
to accomplishment.

A great war is now in progress, and a colossal expendi-
ture is being cheerfully borne on the ground that the
national honour is involved. This expenditure is now esti-
mated to exceed £5,000,000 per day, or £140,000,000
every four weeks. The latter amount would suffice to
provide absolutely new homes, with ample accommodation,
for the whole of the working-class population living at
present under unfit conditions. In other words, an expen-
diture equal to that of four weeks' cost of the war would
remove absolutely the reproach of bad housing conditions
from the national honour.

It may be urged that at the end of the war we shall be
so poor that as a nation we cannot afford to deal with this
problem. But after thirty months of unparalleled expendi-
ture on the war almost every place of amusement is iopen
and great crowds pay, in the aggregate, huge sums to be
amused. That after the war is over we shall still be rich
enough to pay to be amused is beyond question, and it
should not be too much to hope that we shall be sufficiently
mindful of the debt we owe to the poorest members of the
community of securing for them good conditions of home
life. Every thoughtful citizen will agree with Mr. Walter
Long in the view he takes of the national duty to the
returning soldier :

It would indeed be a crime — a black crime— if, reading as we do the
wonderful accounts of the sufferings which our heroes have to undergo in
the trenches (I do not mean the sufferings which are the inevitable accompani-
ment of war in the shape of wounds and death, but the physical sufferings
from the horrible discomforts attendant on trench warfare as it is now carried
on) we sat still now and did nothing by way of preparation to ensure that when
these men come home they shall be provided for with as little delay as
possible. To let them come from the horrible water-logged trenches to
something little better than a pigsty here would be indeed criminal on the
part of ourselves and would be a negation of all we have said during this war
that we can never repay these men for what they have done for us.

HOUSING AFTER THE WAR 249

4 . Housing reformers of all shades of opinion are rapidly
coming into agreement as to the need for making the
preparation of Town Planning schemes under the Act of
1909 obligatory on all local authorities, urban and rural.
To suggest that Town Planning schemes should be prepared
for purely rural areas seems on the face of it absurd ;
but a little reflection will show that Rural Planning
schemes, if prepared with care and good judgment, will
be just as useful as Urban Planning schemes. The advent
of heavy motor traffic on 15 -feet country lanes, the danger
that when the 100,000 cottages which are needed in rural
districts are provided they may prove to be ugly duplicates
of urban cottages built in dreary rows, the need for securing
that all new villages should possess some aesthetic charm —
are all considerations which will operate powerfully in the
direction of securing that rural planning shall be made
obligatory.

In the towns the opportunity furnished by the Town
Planning clauses of the Act of 1909 in enabling local
authorities to fix a maximum to the number of houses
per acre, and in providing that each new housing area
shall be developed on well-planned lines, will provide
housing reformers with an abundance of arguments in
favour of making it obligatory on every urban local
authority to take Town Planning action within a reasonable
time.

5 . The possible shortage in the supply of capital at
the disposal of private enterprise in the years following
the war may render imperative the development of a
municipal housing policy, with several alternative or sup-
plementary lines of action. Up to the present the housing
action of local authorities has been mainly confined to
the building and letting of houses to municipal tenants.
But there is no reason why other lines of action
should not be adopted, and housing reformers are now
giving their earnest consideration to a series of interesting
proposals framed by Councillor Shawcross — the Chairman
of the National Housing and Town Planning Council —
who proposes that local authorities should be given powers
to acquire estates, and after laying out the sites on Town
Planning lines to lease these sites and advance public
money, under well-defined conditions, to all who may desire
to build houses for the working classes. He further pro-
poses that local authorities should be empowered to form

250 SOCIAL REFORM

public utility societies under municipal auspices and to lend
money to public utility societies for the housing of the
working classes.

It is not possible within the limits of this chapter to
develop the case in favour of these proposals, but it may
be added that there is good ground for the belief that
public opinion in support of them will ripen quickly in
the period following the war.

It will be in keeping with the general spirit of the book
of which this chapter forms a part to urge, in conclusion,
that, in the years following the war, a sense of national
duty should compel us to spare no pains in making the
nation efficient. To be efficient we must, however, amongst
many other things, take steps to secure that the condi-
tions within each home, and the surrounding of each home,
shall be of such a character as to give the members of
each family reason for pride in their British nationality.

Time will show whether we have learned, as a nation,
the lesson of these months and years of national stress and
strain : in other words, whether those whose homes and
lives have been defended have sufficient gratitude for, and
remembrance of, services rendered, and will pay their debts
of honour to those who have served them so well, or,
whether, with the passing away of danger the old pre-war
selfishness and neglect of social conditions will reappear.

CHAPTER XV

National Health

By JAMES KERR, M.A., M.D., D.P.H.

" If people were shot, drowned, burnt, or poisoned by
strychnine, their deaths would not be more unnatural than
the deaths wrought clandestinely by disease in excess of
the quota of natural deaths ; that is, in excess of ij
deaths per thousand living." So wrote Dr. Farr in one
of his illuminating reports many years ago. The death-
rate of England and Wales now runs below the figure
which he named, and this reduction seems due to public
sanitary provision. Greater advance in national health is
possible, as preventable losses in health and life are
quite evident in the community, and there is much
sickness not fatal, yet materially contributing to loss of
efficiency.

The war has brought out two doctrines with clearness ;
the first is the necessity for physical and mental efficiency
in every citizen, and the second that there must be unity
and solidarity in the nation. From these it follows by
implication that, however the individual may be expected
to strive for health, it is to the interest of the State
to maintain each one at the highest point of physical
perfection ; to neglect no means, whether by legislative
or financial effort, to achieve this, whilst repressing
all conditions which hinder or are in conflict with its
attainment.

Apart from the fundamental needs of space to live in,
air to breathe, and food, the first requisites for health in

251

252 SOCIAL REFORM

a settled community are good water supplies and the
removal of refuse. The necessity for extensive provision
of pure water, and the inoffensive removal of refuse, has
not been evident always. Disease and death, however,
in the form of epidemics, especially plague and typhus,
have been the great masters whose teaching brought about
reforms in the second half of last century which gave this
country a 'sanitary lead among other lands.

Water and Drainage. — In times of drought newspapers
sometimes help the realization of the astonishing wonder
of how water has been provided for most of the country
by public effort and at but slight cost to each user. The
hills are drained, underground lakes tapped, valleys con-
verted into reservoirs, conduits stretch across moors and
through valleys, and great basins receive the water to settle
and purify, giving an abundant supply for every want and
to every person at a cost impossible otherwise except to
dwellers by lake or riverside.

Enteric fever, which lurks latent in all communities, is
an indicator of water impurity. Individual carriers of the
germs who themselves may exhibit no illness exist in such
numbers, that wherever for considerable time concourses of
people are collected, or armies take the field, under in-
adequate sanitary conditions, the disease is likely to show
itself actively and to spread. In the present war it has
only been kept under through artificial immunity conferred
by inoculation. In a similar way cholera or plague is
expected, and often appears, among the pilgrims of the
East.

The number of deaths from enteric fever in England
has steadily decreased, and this decline has generally
coincided with the introduction of supplies of pure water
and in removal of excreta and wastes by drainage which
does not contaminate the water. Whilst the typhoid death-
rates for London are about half of those for the rest of
the country, yet many outlying parts of the Empire suffer
much from this disease — for instance, Canada, Australia,
and South Africa. During and after the Boer War an
outbreak was almost to be expected by the return to this
country of numbers of active or latent cases in the Army.
The upward move of mortality occurred as foreseen, but
did not long persist, and furnished an unexpected but suffi-
cient testimony to the general excellence of existing water
and drainage arrangements.

NATIONAL HEALTH

253

The Registrar-General in his seventy-second Report states
of typhoid fever : " Continuous decline in mortality has
been the prevailing rule in the more progressive countries
of Europe, and the interruption in the line of descent . . .
finds no place in the curves of their mortality."

In matters so important to the health of the community
as water supply it is evident that the provision is not one
which should be allowed as a monopoly of individuals.
All the necessities for health must be protected by public
provision. The example set by the Canadian Government
in making water power a common possession of the
community incapable of private ownership is an example
to be followed.

Light and warmth are also necessities. The mere

tyO '75 1880 '5

■ ■ • 1 ■ * * '

3...iv....y..7i.

•

Death-rates from Typhoid Fever per Million Living, from
1869 to 1914.

maintenance of the standard of haemoglobin in the blood
depends on sufficient exposure to the light of day, and
streets and courts and houses where sunlight never comes
are unhealthy places to live in. With artificial light ample
provision must be secured among machinery to protect
from accident, and for fine work to protect from fatigue
and strain, properly distributed to prevent the pain of
glare or the degenerating effect of myopia noticeable in
immature eyes. Means of measuring illumination and
standardizing light are so good that effective supplies
can be defined and secured by the necessary legislative
action.

* The return from the Boer War.

254 SOCIAL REFORM

Formerly, as still in remote country districts, the person
who ventured forth on a moonless night had to carry his
own lantern, or a torch-bearer had to light the way, and
in some of the older residential districts the street
extinguishers remain of the generations who with their
torches have passed for ever. Gas laid in mains, or
electricity, furnishes the lighting of streets and houses. No
individual effort could so cheaply or easily have afforded
the means of extending working hours, or ensuring the
safety of the roads, which has been done by this distribu-
tion of lighting from a common centre.

As with water, the amounts of light and heat necessary
for health should be available for every one. Unfortu-
nately collective action to secure the benefit of these com-
modities for the community, and others such as transport,
fuel, milk, and many other necessities, was not recognized
early enough, and a community wishing to provide for itself
now finds opposition and friction. Claims and interests
may end in water becoming an item costly beyond any,
expense of collecting, storing, purifying, or distributing,
and the price of gas or electricity exceed any reasonable
cost of production.

Town and Country. — Hitherto the healthy country dis-
tricts have recruited the towns, but now urbanization has
gone so far that about four -fifths of the population is
crowded on a two -hundredth of the land surface of the
country. Town life usually seems to offer many advan-
tages by comparison with rural life ; there is good water,
efficient sewage removal, prevention of nuisances, provision
of supplies of fuel and fresh food, ready communication
between individuals, help in the accidents and emergencies
of life or disease. These advantages are, however, dis-
counted to many by their inaccessibility. The crowding
on the land in enormous barracks or in tiny houses may
mean that water is only a ,tap at the bottom of many stairs,
or the conveniences are so far removed from living-rooms
that cleanliness is almost impossible with reasonable effort.
Lack of space may prevent exercise, or noise preclude
proper rest. The result of environment shows up in the
mortality rates. From the Registrar -General's seventy-
seventh Report death-rates for various districts can be
obtained, and the table below contrasts the chief county
boroughs with rural districts and their death-rates for
various age groups :

NATIONAL HEALTH

255

DEATH-RATES, ENGLAND AND WALES, 1914.

Age
Group
o —

5—

10 —

15—

20 —

25—

30—

35—

40—

45—

50—

55—

60—

65-

75—

80—

85-

All Ages total

County

Rural

Boroughs

Districts

• 44-i

24-5

4.0

2-4

2-6

4'3

3-8

5-5

4-5

. y6

5-2

10-4

6-6

• 13-8

8-3

• I9-4

121

. 266

16-9

• 39-8

253

. 52-8

38-7

• 87-3

64-0

. 129-2

998

• 179-8

155-6

• 274-3

263-7

. 16-1

10-7

It may be interesting, too, to contrast an industrial town
with a purely country town. Oldham and Oxford stand
next to each other in the lists. For brevity, taking male
deaths only, the rates at various ages can be obtained for
the years 1911-14 as follows :

DEATH-RATES FOR MALES, 1911-1914.

Age Groups

All Ages

0 —

5 —

••

10 —

15—

20 —

25—

35—

45—

55—

65-

75—

85 and

upw

ards

Oldham

Oxford

187

134

55-6

26-8

5-8

2-2

i-3

3'4

2-5

4-2

5-4

5-2

10-7

22'9

13-0

44'7

263

92-9

54-8

I94-4

1330

238-4

259-3

From these figures the improvement possible can be
judged if Oldham were only brought up to the standard
of Oxford ; so Liverpool, one of the most difficult places

256 SOCIAL REFORM

in England with heavy mortality rates, might be com-
pared to Bristol, healthiest of ports, showing that the con-
ditions of town life are very variable, and therefore in
many cases capable of improvement, and that rural existence,
in spite of drawbacks, is free from many hurtful influences
on the span of life.

The conditions immediately suggesting themselves as
needed are sufficiency of space, of light, of comparatively
clean fresh air, dilution of germ life, so that infections
are in minimal instead of massive doses. There is also
desirable opportunity for physiological nervous and bodily
repair, which is aided by restfulness and a sense of privacy,
and prevented by the constant strain of noise and bustle.
The diminution of noise, of hurry, wear and tear, and
avoidance of causes of chronic fatigue — all these are the
immediate future requirements for healthy lives in large
towns. Sound-proof rooms in towns may be as helpful
to long lives as a pure milk supply, and occasional and
accessible means of resting are almost as necessary as
parks or open spaces.

General Requirements for Healthy Lives. — These require-
ments work out as good housing, a low maximum building
height of two or three stories at the most for dwelling-
houses, the maximum number of residents on the acre
being legally restricted, and for all new buildings the
preservation of an unbuilt portion of the site at least equal
to that covered by building.

Separation and distribution of population thus secured
over wide areas further requires cheap and rapid transport
as a necessity. The daily scrimmage and cost of car or
rail is a serious item in both nervous and pecuniary ex-
penditure to workers. Very cheap or even free transport,
regardless of distance, in the town should be guaranteed
by every urban community if younger members are not
to suffer in health from their efforts to avoid the cost
of travel. i i

Other conditions in which the contrast is not so marked
in town and country, but which affect large sections, are
the long hours of labour, entailing want of opportunity for
complete recreation and healthful exercise, freedom from
worry about to-morrow, reasonable security for regular
income in health or disease. These constitute conditions
for national health easily to be afforded by the wealth of
this country, and should now be definitely resolved upon.

NATIONAL HEALTH

2 57,

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■*

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258 SOCIAL REFORM

Testing Progress and Comparing Conditions of Health. —
Many reports of medical officers of health seem to base
their chief considerations on the general death-rates of their
districts, and year by year the same trite and unimportant
observations are made on mortality. Death-rates thus used
are but poor indicators of health conditions, and might
not only give misleading impressions but even conceal
disease .

The Registrar -General recently pointed out that the crude
death-rate of Lancashire, with all its factories and labour,
was lower by 7' 8 per cent, than that of quiet, restful
agricultural Cardiganshire. Allowing, however, for the age
and sex distribution of the population, the corrected death-
rate is 29/ 4 per cent, in excess. Lancashire, which uses
up its people in its manufacturing, has an abnormally small
proportion of persons at the more advanced ages at which
mortality is high, whilst Cardiganshire contains an abnor-
mally large proportion of old people. In Lancashire less
than 3^ per cent, exceed sixty-five years of age, whilst
m Cardiganshire it is about 9 per cent.

If instead of simply taking death-rates as a vitality
measure of the population these are analysed into their
different age groups, the alteration in recent years may be
judged. Whilst among women and young persons the
improvement has been steady, it is wanting among mature
men, and the premature attrition of these men goes on
with unabated vigour.

When these mortality rates of populations are synthe-
sized by the actuarial process of constructing a life table,
an exact measuring scale is got of what would happen
to 100,000 infants born, if they lived under the condi-
tions existing at the time and place considered. By such
means the vitalities of populations for which life tables
have been made become exactly comparable in terms of
deaths and survivals. Few medical officers of health have
prepared life tables for their separate localities, not having
appreciated that the considerable trouble is well repaid by
their immense value as a measure of local conditions.
Fortunately those in charge of the national statistics fully
understand this. Life tables for Scottish towns, based on
the 1 9 1 1 Census, have appeared, and later similar ones
for England are to be expected, and will be a powerful
stimulus to increase interest and regard for the national
health.

NATIONAL HEALTH

259

Taking various periodic life tables published for England
and Wales, there has been an increase in the expectation
of life at birth.

Expectation of Life at Birth.

1838-1854

1871-80

1881-90

1891-00

39'9i

41-35

43-66

44-I3

41-85

44-62

47-18

47 '77

If now the age of fifty is considered, instead of a gain an
actual loss has been taking place.

Expectation of Life at Fifty.

1838-1854

1871-80

1881-90

1891-00

I9-54

18-93

18-82

18-90

20-75

20-68

20-56

20-64

The Registrar -General pointed out in 1909 that when
the national mortality figures are examined the English
mortality experience between ten and thirty -five is very
favourable compared with other countries, but at older
ages equally unfavourable, especially for the male sex.
Spain and Scotland alone have higher mortality ; indeed,
at fifty-five to sixty-five for males Scotland has the highest
mortality of all.

Whilst the death-rates at school ages by the end of the
century had been reduced to one -third of what they were
sixty years before, that of men over forty -five was actually
in excess, and it is only in the last decennium that a
promise of a turn in the tide shows. " There is a marked
correspondence between the ages at which mortality in
towns is highest, as compared with the country, and the
ages at which England exceeds other countries. Great
Britain can scarcely accept as inevitable a death-rate
among men of forty-five to fifty-five, exceeded only by
two countries, and for men of fifty-five to sixty-five, ex-
ceeded only by Spain, whilst its general death-rate is so
low. This is a preventable mortality, the causes of which

260 SOCIAL REFORM

should be sought out and publicly remedied." Although
only hinted at officially, there is little doubt that this is
the tax in life which England has to pay for her industrial
fortunes .

The Industrial Tax on Health. — The introduction of
machinery scarcely benefited the individual worker. Indeed,
whole classes were displaced, because one man by machinery
might do the work previously managed by ten ; but it was
the owner of the machinery who made the gain, and the
other nine men went without compensation for the work
from which they were displaced. Long hours, monotonous
work, often under depressing and insanitary conditions, have
been but slowly modified by legislation, the protection of
which is only maintained by continual inspection and
penalties. A national ideal and sanitary conscience has
yet to be built up. No man has a right to control any
other without respect to the community. " Every society
is judged and survives," said Mr. Asquith, "according
to the material and moral minimum which it prescribes
for its members." When the Prussian peril has been
destroyed the touchstone of existence for the British Empire
will be National Health, as thus defined years ago by the
Premier.

Factory legislation is a gradual prescription of minimal
health conditions for the workers. Like public sanitation,
it also emerged from the results of typhus epidemics re-
current in manufacturing towns. Dr. Percival, one of the
founders of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, started the
agitation which resulted at the beginning of last century
in the " Health and Morals of Apprentices Act." In the
next generation Oastler, whose statue stands in the centre of
Bradford, stirred up a newspaper agitation for a ten hours'
day, which achieved success seventeen years later. Red
herrings are always trailed across the path, results are not
reached in a day. The factory inspector, whose appear-
ance was almost accidental, was opposed as interfering with
the liberty of the subject ; women's rights were supposed
to be invaded by legislation regarding dangerous occupa-
tions for women and children, and parents' rights are still
often urged to be too sacred to permit public interference
for the health of the child — but war should have shown
by now that in protecting its members the community has
greater rights than any parent.

After another quarter of a century the agitation began

NATIONAL HEALTH 261

for less hours of labour in order that the workers might
share in rest and leisure the gains conferred by the powers
of machinery. Two inspectors, Dr. Bridges and Mr.
Holmes, reported in 1873 that pressure on the workers
was steadily increasing, more machines to each, and work-
ing at higher speeds. " A separate machine for each
minute step in the manufacture entails upon the person
in charge a constant repetition of the same action, un-
relieved by any interest in the thing itself, or calling for
any exercise of the mind, and yet needing unremitting
attention." This is descriptive of the substance of factory
work a generation ago, and not of modern American drive.
Legislation now develops sanitation as an aim in regard
to some of the grosser infractions, but the minima secured
are invariably too low. There are industries which do
not provide the means of existence, but sweat more out
of the workers than the wages paid, and after their health
is exhausted by toil these workers are thrown through
no fault of their own on the social rubbish -heap. These
" sweated industries," as Sidney Webb has so well
described, are parasitic on the community and constitute
a standing drain upon the vitality of the nation. Legisla-
tion must go on until it secures in all occupations, not a
living wage, but a healthy minimum, providing not merely
time to eat and sleep, but time for recreation, as a set-off
equal to full recovery from the fatigue of working hours,
and any further efficiency methods must not mean further
sweating of the worker, but secure to him the increased
profits. The recent railway troubles have shown that wages
should not be reckoned in sterling, but in reference to
health, by their purchasing power being regulated by an
index depending on the cost of the means of nutrition, thus
setting a health standard instead of a monetary standard.

The already quoted statistics of the Registrar-General
show this condemnation of many industrial conditions not
too drastic, for whilst the death-rate of children is one-
third that of sixty years ago, yet the average man or
woman of fifty has a shorter life before them than their
grandparents had at the same age. So much for present
industrial efficiency in relation to health.

The public health must concern itself with all that affects
the health or wealth of the citizens, their completeness in
body and mind.

Healthy Infancy .—The birth of the child under good

•262' SOCIAL' REFORM

conditions means protection and care of the mother. The
enormous reduction in infant mortality, practically initiated
by Alderman Broadbent, when Mayor of Huddersfield, has
pointed out the way by study of conditions, by education,
and by improvement in the environment, not only to
improve the health of infants, but also of other ages.

The reduction of the birth-rate goes on very steadily ;
it is mainly due to artificial restriction, and is of serious
import to national welfare. Women who under present
social conditions must often work do all they can to avoid
maternity, as is also the frequent case with the parasitic
class of woman. The wide use of notoriously dangerous
materials shows the risks women run to avoid this. Every
mother should be placed under secure conditions ; the
bearing of a child should not be penalized but made fully
worth her while. Marriage is often made a bar to occupa-
tion, but the excluding of any woman from her post on
this account ought to be illegal. Provision to keep the
mother's income steady at her average for the six months
before and the six months after childbirth is a wise invest-
ment on the part of the State. A starving mother pro-
duces offspring already handicapped at birth by a physique
defective in growth and weight. The health and weight
of the baby is the chief circumstance of national import-
ance in maternity. The suckling at once enters on a
career beset with dangers. The ophthalmia of the new-
born till lately produced much blindness, but is now being
regulated. Nourishment by the mother should be so
encouraged that the mother who failed should be regarded
as unnatural. Probably the natural feeding of the child
is more fully accomplished than is usually supposed, but
the popular idea that many women are incapable of this
function is as untrue as it is insulting to the women. In
spite of bad habit and condoning custom, at least 95 per
cent, could nurse their children to advantage. The
dangers of artificial feeding can only be minimized by
education. Milk infected with massive doses of tubercle
probably accounts for much baby mortality, and may
seriously contribute to the bone and joint diseases of early
years. Minimal doses of tubercle may actually immunize
against later infection, so that in this respect the question
of raw or sterilized milk is not yet settled, and but for
the private peddling of milk would never arise. The
necessity of clean milk for young children is so great

NATIONAL HEALTH 263

that the whole milk control and distribution should be
a public service, no other milk provision being permitted.
The present war price of milk, even if justified, means a
later crop of unhealthy and therefore costly individuals
for the public funds.

Every kind of illness, even the most trivial, must be
avoided in the determining period of rapid growth. For
instance, during these first two years any malnutrition,
febrile illness, or rickets may cause the permanent teeth to
be laid down so badly that they only appear, to decay
fast, and later, through dental sepsis and gastric trouble,
may predispose to tuberculosis or other kinds of invalidism
and inefficiency. To any one with years of clinical experi-
ence among hospital out-patients this sequence is most
noteworthy, obvious, and common. The zymotic or germ-
caused fevers are heaviest in their incidence on earliest
childhood. Cleanliness, fresh air, abundant food, and
opportunity for much free and spontaneous exercise, both
before and after school entry, are elements for growth and
healthy life later.

The Conscription of Children. — A conscription of all
children to attend for at least five years in the public
elementary schools, so that every child of whatever social
origin should be tested and classified as a future citizen,
would be the readiest way to attain healthy conditions.
Every objection urged to this proposition if honestly
examined will be found an argument for insisting upon
its validity.

It has been demonstrated that there are in later life
crops of children varying in physique according to their
average early environment, as shown by the infantile
mortality in their birth years.

Lichens do not grow in the neighbourhood of our cities ;
the city gardener has to be careful of what and how he
plants if he wishes to see a flourishing growth. The
environmental conditions of warmth, light, and air so neces-
sary to the vegetable also influence human growth, and
the plastic children are the most affected. Anasmic, rickety
children are produced by conditions that save the rates.
These good nutritional conditions are not only required
for children, but for all individuals. If the body cells are
not kept fit by good supplies, and by the prompt removal
of waste products, through the blood and lymph stream,
they are in a debilitated, fatigued condition. Chronic

264 SOCIAL REFORM

fatigue is relative, in the heavily worked artisan or equally
in the unexercised lady of leisure, due to want of sufficient
removal of poisonous cell products by active circulation
and gland activity. These are the individuals easily caught
by germs causing disease, such as catarrhal attacks,
pneumonia, or tuberculosis.

Sufficient intermittent exercise is needed to maintain good
action of heart and lungs, and through them movement of
the tissue fluids ; and sufficient rest for repair. Especially
are these needed in the growing child. Food in abundance,
space for active play, and intervals of restful sleep are
necessities, sufficiency of which are wanting for most town
children. One-third of the elementary school children are
officially reported as in need of medical treatment. That
is why it is insisted that all children for five years of
their life must attend the public schools, to share and
suffer the common lot, and to have it raised to a proper
standard of health and life.

Quite probably such records will be quoted with horror
half a century hence as showing the condition of English
children at the time of the Great War.

Catarrhal Conditions a Public Evil. — The children who
do not get opportunities of free play and open-air exer-
cise whilst otherwise looked after are often well grown
in bulk, but flabby, wanting in immunity and poorly re-
sistant to disease, frequently flatfooted, and also subject
to cold hands and chilblains, may indeed become actively
tuberculous, in spite of good food, sufficient clothes, and
warmed rooms.

The sum total of all these trivial catarrhal diseases in
childhood is greater in debilitating effect and physical
deterioration than any single disease of early years, and
yet they are almost wholly neglected as regards prophy-
laxis, and scarcely ever mentioned in medical reports on
schools or children's institutions. The existence of enlarged
tonsils or adenoids as a public health problem is in no
way satisfactorily treated by selecting large numbers for
surgical operations, as is now done in many school services.
When perhaps a quarter of the children in some schools
present conditions which indicate severe struggle against
the factors of ill -health, the causes hitherto almost un-
touched through school services must be sought out and
remedied. As already stated, the germs which cause
catarrhs and all their subsequent secondary results cause

NATIONAL HEALTH 265

perhaps more total inefficiency than any other single factor,
and ought to be controlled by the provision of good
hygiene.

Slow improvement has fortunately been going forward.
The standard of physique of the present generation shows
a considerable advance as measured in English public
schools and in the recruits of many European countries,
and is probably due to improved conditions in infancy
aiding health and growth. On the other hand, the native-
born children in Australian schools contrast well with
English -born children of the same race in absence of
rickets, the product of industrialism, and in the healthy
condition of their permanent teeth.

Good teeth form the best insurance towards healthy adult
life ; they are insisted on as a sine qua non in the Navy.
Healthy birth and infancy, again, are the chief cause of
good teeth, but the free provision of regular dental care
for every school child would be the expenditure for which
the least cost would give the greatest return in public
health. The child, from the condition of what Mrs.
Leslie Mackenzie well describes as '•' the toddler " going
on its own feet, up till its admission to school has at present
no public provision for its care. It often suffers, as the
results of repeated or almost continual trivial catarrhal
attacks, in both nutrition and growth. Morning vomiting
and fainting from nervous debility are little known but
quite common incidents among the younger elementary
school children. Public clinics should be open freely for
those before school age as well as for the school child.
And healthy and pleasant civic creches should be provided,
and done well, free from all taint of the Poor Law or
charity. It is in this age especially that so much per-
manent or crippling damage and fatalities so easily occur,
and it is to the interest of the State that every one should
be guarded against such attacks . There must be no jdemand
for payments for such clinic's services. Every child so
long as it is dependent should be freely provided for in
illness or disease ; only on such a basis can economical and
readily accessible provision be made for the public health.

Public Immunity to Infections.— There is an immunity
obtained separately for each infectious disease, in which
one attack protects against later attacks. Each child has
to acquire from its mother, or gain for itself, immunity
against the ordinary risks of infection. The majority inherit

266 SOCIAL REFORM

this for scarlatina, and less so for diphtheria. It is
artificially conferred against smallpox by vaccination ;
most have to acquire it by actual experience of measles
or whooping-cough. These zymotic diseases of childhood
appear to become milder with improved sanitation. Catas-
trophic attacks either from measles or complicated infec-
tions, or from debility and want of resistance in the
individual, seem to be rarer.

Measles and whooping-cough, however, mainly through
house and street infection, are still scourges of childhood,
and especially dangerous before school ages. Reports of
medical officers of health often repeat the parrot cry that
" no one need have the measles," but no town dweller's
physiological education is complete without, and practically
all have to suffer to gain the power of resisting future
attacks. Every effort, however, should be made to post-
pone the attack till the seventh or eighth year of life. The
separation of the immunizing material of measles and its
preparation for protective use could probably be deter-
mined in a twelvemonth if one -tenth of the cost of a
battleship were spent on the inquiry, of greater importance
to humanity than a hundred battleships.

In diphtheria the antitoxin now prepared, and useful for
no other purpose than protection against this disease, should
be freely supplied at public cost whenever needed. Tuber-
culosis in its crippling forms nearly always appears in the
first half-dozen years of life, and the diseases of pre-
school age are not due, as a rule, to any individual fault,
but to general environmental conditions, almost invariably
the result of defective social arrangements . Pereunt et
imputantur . Disease at this period should be regarded
as a condemnation registered against the whole national
efficiency. The good nourishment of the Jew, with his
oily diet, carries his young children scatheless through many
dangers to eyes, ears, and skin before which so many of
their Gentile contemporaries go down.

School hygiene is of great importance as a separate
although scarcely developed branch of public health. With
entrance to school the child comes under observation, but
the school medical system is organized so that it does
little for prophylaxis and concerns itself chiefly with
recording and ameliorating defects which have arisen.
Definite standards of mental attainment and physique should
be laid down for all who enter the elementary school, and

NATIONAL HEALTH 267

necessarily special provision made to level up if possible
all who fall short. The universal conscription of children
already suggested, and their classification according to
merits and abilities when called up, is the most urgent
problem at present for future social solidarity and the
mental and physical health of the nation.

From such attendance of every child in school would
follow all the improvements in environment now so often
neglected. Again, no child should work for a wage under
fourteen years of age, and none should be industrially
employed more than four hours daily below the age of
sixteen. Congenial occupations and a good deal of time
for the organization of thought and mere games and
slacking is quite a healthy need at these transitional ages.

Adolescence . — Passing beyond school life puberty is left
behind, and here a considerable change of interest
develops. Much greater latitude is required for personal
expression. Sex is becoming more urgent, and at present
remains almost without provision, except in hidden, secret
ways. The veil on things, sexual must be lifted. They
are the ordinary things of life, and there should be a
general accessibility and diffusion of knowledge, not purely
on sex, but on health, social wants, and the avoidance of
disease. This should be so common and so open that at
any age each individual could pick up correctly what is
wanted, from word or book, without special effort, mystery
or curiosity, and without undue stimulation of possibly
morbid feelings.

Nature, or the God of nature, has provided a function
to be exercised, and added powerful inducements to this
end. The mere preaching of continence to whole sections
of the population is quite futile, and the assertion of its
benefits an ostrich -like proceeding. It is known definitely
that restriction in the third decennium of life leads to
narrowed or selfish interests, a mental hyp eras sthesia or
morbid ideas towards sex, hysteria, and frequently nervous
breakdown in neurasthenia. The question of normal
physiological life must be faced, and not shirked in
moralizings. The man or woman of twenty-five without
a baby should be without a vote. Social machinery must
provide for natural processes at the ages when they are
most effective and most needed. It is only by such means
that any real impression will be made on prostitution, serious
to the national health on account of the venereal diseases,

268 SOCIAL REFORM

of which it is the main source ; that traffic must be made
not worth while.

Venereal Disease . — The control of venereal disease, owing
to religious and also social taboo, has hitherto been shirked.
Gonorrhoea and syphilis are the two diseases of import-
ance ; the first of these permanently damages a consider-
able proportion of women of every class, and the second
is responsible for an enormous mass of mental and
physical degeneration, and premature death, not only in
this but in the next generation.

Dr. Kerr Love, of Glasgow, writing of the I per cent,
of children he sees with syphilitic deafness well illustrates
this point :

" Every syphilitic deaf child will lead the clinical observer
to a family which has been or is being ruined by a con-
stitutional disease. The family picture thus got is a large
number of conceptions, a large proportion of still births,
a large percentage of deaths in the first two years of
life, chiefly from syphilitic meningitis, and the association
with the deafness of blindness due to syphilitic disease
of the eye. Syphilis is thus the most disastrous disease
among us, from the point of view of the individual child,
the family, and as a consequence the nation. When it
occurs in the child syphilis should be notifiable like any
other infectious disease, and the whole family put under
treatment."

A table in Appendix XVIII of the recent Report of the
Royal Commission shows that of 4,134 German officers
infected with syphilis there died 523, or an eighth of
all, with nervous degeneration in the way of general
paralysis of the insane, locomotor ataxy, cerebrospinal
syphilis or insanity ; 17 died of the hopeless aortic
aneurism ; 147 of tuberculosis ; and 10 1 of muscular
diseases . Of these 119 had the disease in their system
less than ten years, 1 1 5 from ten to twenty years, and the
others longer still.

They are infectious diseases, and should be treated
exactly as such, the knowledge for prophylaxis being made
so common that every one can be protected against them.
Once the standpoint of hypocrisy is abandoned, the evil
results of sexual suppression will be prevented causing
a mass of inefficiency and ill -health probably as great as
that due to drink or tubercle. The proposals at present
being developed will relieve some of the damage, but are

NATIONAL HEALTH 269

rather like locking the stable door after the horse has
gone. It is prevention of these diseases, not amelioration,
that is needed.

It is only possible here to indicate by a few examples
the general principles for prophylaxis of disease. The
Insurance Acts represent a possibility of beginning the
public discovery of the existence of much disabling disease
which is non -fatal and preventable.

Each age has its own risks and dangers. The early
ages, being most important, have been dealt with rather
fully. The period between childhood and the climacteric
has great vitality and offers much resistance, if not to
damaging, at least to fatal disease.

Tuberculosis. — The next cause of disease and deaths, and
in the returns made the greatest numerically, becomes
evident in early adult life as phthisis, consumption or tuber-
culosis of the lungs. It is the most apparent of invaliding
diseases, and the chief single cause of disablement among
workers. Although as a fatal disease it has been diminish-
ing for a couple of generations, this is probably due more
to what the politician would call Free Trade, with its good
food and improved conditions of life, than to any direct
attack on the disease. In value of lives and hard cash
the disease must cost many millions annually. A few years
ago when £14,000,000 was being spent on poor relief,
it was estimated that one -eleventh of this pauperism was
due to tubercle.

The battle with tubercle has to be gone through by
each one in the first decade of life.1 In a thickly popu-
lated community the keeping up of a high average of
the public health actually depends on the maintenance of
some floating infection in minimal doses by the causes
of disease. Those affected need never suffer even
malaise, but they acquire and maintain the amount of
immunity need to prevent epidemics. Absurd as it may
seem, the diphtheritic cat and the tuberculous cow may not
be without some advantage to the public health. Tubercle
in England is ubiquitous, and although practically every
one is infected but few become diseased. Of the majority
who have been touched by tubercle not more than three

1 Metchnikoff found tubercle rare in the Central Asian Steppes. Of sixteen
young Kalmuks who came to Astrakhan in 191 1, he only found half reacted to
tuberculin tests, but of thirty-seven who had been a year in the town only one
failed to react.

27 o SOCIAL REFORM

in a thousand elementary school children are found with
phthisis. Searching the families of adults suffering from
tubercle, children are found coming from such an environ-
ment who themselves are affected seriously. Only long
observation can determine whether the relatively important
factors of this graver variety of the disease are heredity,
debilitated physique, or direct infection.

A calculation showed that the amount actually spent in
London in the first decennium of the present century on
the education of those dying of tubercle before twenty
years of age was nearly a third of a million (£327,185),
and about five times as much as (£62,966) that spent on
those who died of zymotic diseases at the same time.

An infected home is particularly dangerous to the
children ; they may be assumed to have, if anything, a
hereditary tendency and want of immunity, and even if
normal they are almost continually exposed to risks of
infection and frequently to more massive doses than the
average risk. The maintenance of robust health is neces-
sary in such surroundings if infection is to be resisted.
Adult men, from fatigue and possibly from dust encountered
in their work, are the most liable to infection ; with many,
too, the chronic alcoholism associated with worker's chronic
fatigue accentuates the risk, for the public -house itself is
a grand centre of tubercle — of which, indeed, most
publicans die.

When the breadwinner is affected, as is so commonly
the case, the invariable rule is a slow sinking of the family
into poverty. It is the duty of the community to come
to the aid of the sufferers, whether diseased or in danger
of disease, as tubercle is an infection from other persons
in the community, predisposed to by conditions such as
the debility of overwork, the want of vitality from bad
housing, and especially the ill -nutrition associated with low
wages and drink — all conditions largely within control of
the community, with whom must rest the responsibility
for their existence.

This is a disease in which for the worst cases among
the poorer classes, who are most subject to it, treatment
of symptoms for a few months in a sanatorium is pouring
out money almost uselessly, and prolonging wasted lives
to be the cause of further misery and infection. The
tubercular patient, in an infectious condition, should be
removed from the community and all his social relations

NATIONAL HEALTH

271

fulfilled until he has ceased to be a possible source of
infection and is again able to undertake his responsibilities.
The tubercular child should be aided in its natural
tendencies to recovery, not by merely home visiting, but by
a change of environment. The chief aid is nutritional,
by abundant and freely supplied food, and by the stimula-

Age1 A?1 ' 'Jo' ■ '5"o' " l7b' '

Phthisis Death-rates per Million Living at Each Age in 1914. For
Males and Females, in London and Rural Districts.

tion of fresh air. These children are often of fine nervous
texture and likely to make valuable citizens later. Free-
dom must be procured from continual infection, and from
the care and worry which affects even the children in a
struggling and sinking family. A year or more in the
country is almost necessary, in a residential convalescent

272; SOCIAL REFORM

school or camp. Heredity may not be controllable in the
present, but the other conditions of debility, notably the
depressing factors, want of food, chronic fatigue, alcohol,
and the irritating factor of dusty work, and actual infection,
are all within immediate control if the price is paid — and
this is necessary. The tuberculosis tax must be met in
money or lives.

Alcoholism. — Another great cause of inefficiency and
death is alcoholism. When a custom is as universal as
drinking there should be something to be said for it ; there
must be some advantages, but in the case of alcohol these
advantages are outweighed a thousand times from the point
of national health by its disadvantages.

Advance in knowledge in this century has shown the
influence of hidden emotions existing in the mind.
Emotions cannot be suppressed or restrained without find-
ing expression in some other direction. The industrial
worker is described as often employed for many hours
daily in "a constant repetition of the same action, un-
relieved by any interest in the thing itself, or calling for
any exercise of the mind, and yet needing unremitting
attention " (p. 261). He has scant leisure except for eating
and sleeping. There are areas of brain almost unexercised,
and crying out, as it were, for function. They require regular
exercise and flushing with blood, or they pass into an un-
healthy state which becomes the physical basis of hysteria
and emotionalism. Those functions which are least easily
suppressed are the long established and more ancient con-
cerned with the cruder forms ,of emotional expression. With
the young this formerly came out in riotous behaviour and
hooliganism. Now the excitement of watching a fight or
a football match or the kinema largely supplies the want.
Betting, gambling, and all kinds of cheaply obtained but
violent crises of a subjective kind, not calling for further
muscular fatigue, are the mental emotions demanded. They
are not evidences of evil or slackness, but the physiological
reaction to want of sufficient mental life. Time and oppor-
tunity, with provision for varied and readily accessible
recreation, cheaply or freely provided, are urgent public
necessities. Recreation as a hygienic necessity has not
yet been properly recognized ; its civilizing, humanizing,
and sanitary effects appear scarcely appreciated. Alcoholism
through paralysing emotions gives considerable relief and
satisfies temporarily the want of mental life. It could be

NATIONAL HEALTH 273

replaced by supplying this in a way far better by com-
petitive games, or conditions in which constant improve-
ment can be attempted— e.g. marksmanship, and where
self-respect and contented minds are developed to the gain
of both the individual and society.

Another cause of chronic drinking is due to its
anaesthetic effects on the tired worker. It gives relief from
chronic fatigue, and he misinterprets this as added strength,
so that laborious workers are usually chronic drinkers.

The manual worker, too, often travels long distances on
foot, and passes non-working intervals in a condition of
irritable fatigue in which sensible recreation is almost
impossible, and from which respite is only felt during
sleep, or by temporary stimulation with alcohol.

The effects of alcohol on the individual may be roughly
classed as those due to excessive and those to chronic
drinking .

An occasional indulgence in alcoholic drinks, even
to drunken excess, does not necessarily involve serious
changes leading to ill-health or disease. The habitual
and frequent use of such drinks as a means of stimulation
during working hours, although actual drunkenness may
never be approached, leads, however, to serious nervous
and digestive changes, with all the secondary results which
make up the picture of the chronic alcoholic.

The lack of control leads to much crime. The majority
of homicides are alcoholic. It is the cause of many suicides
and a large proportion of sexual crimes. Its disastrous
physical effects show in returns of recurrent illnesses from
bronchitis, gastric and hepatic troubles, and in deaths from
cardiac failure, circulatory disorders, apoplexy and soften-
ing of the brain. The alcoholic, too, suffers from
diminishing powers of resistance in the second half of
life, so that death may come quickly from bacterial invasion
by pneumonia, carbuncle or septic poisoning, or less quickly
from tuberculosis.

Drink, then, is largely the result on one hand of
emotionally drab lives, wanting in opportunity for exercise
and recreation, or on the other of chronic feelings of
exhaustion from monotonous work for long periods.

The effects of drink on national efficiency during the
war, the way its provision has used up valuable materials,
choked transport and freightage, and demanded the energies
of thousands of workers, have shown that there is here another

274 SOCIAL REFORM

example of need for communal action. The prevention of
such a leakage ought not to await the overthrow of the
Prussian. Restricted opportunities for drinking have been
demonstrated advantageous. The trade should be curtailed
and managed by the State so that it would not be to any
one's advantage to make potable alcohol, and none should
push the sale or encourage any individual use of drink.
The benefits of such a course pf action to the public health
would be indescribably great.

Apart from drink, there are many occupations which in
themselves entail high mortality. The Cornish miner, for
instance, who goes out to the Transvaal is soon used up,
and generally comes home to die of miner's phthisis. All
stone dusty workers run risks of lung disease. Dr. Barwise
thinks the siliceous deposits of Derbyshire could be mapped
out by the prevalence of fibroid phthisis in various districts
there. Till recent years matchmakers and phosphorus
workers were much affected by the yellow phosphorus
allowed in their trades. Alkali workers, workers in arsenic,
antimony, mercury, and still, too, lead workers, frequently
suffer in health.

Strangely, in these dangerous trades people often work
very long hours for miserable wages, and in this respect
are truly sweated. Their working hours should be much
shortened and their wages correspondingly raised to meet
the sacrifice in health and years of life risked ; by
restricting such employment much damage might be
prevented. Such points the managers of the National
Health Insurance will have to take into close considera-
tion, as they now not only affect individual health, but
also the national finance. The life tables quoted earlier
leave no doubt that the majority of workers have lives
prematurely shortened for others' gain. The rules of many
Trade Unions restricting output are framed in self-defence,
but they are inadequate as sanitary measures in that, whilst
they shorten output, they do not increase the amenities of
life by securing further opportunities for leisure, rest, and
recreation.

The workers who themselves own the famous Zeiss
optical factories in Jena determined experimentally years
ago that they could not turn out an equally good amount of
work if employed more than eight hours daily, and before
the war a rule was in force that no one should be on the
premises more than eight hours out of twenty -four.

NATIONAL HEALTH 275

The improvement should come in shortened hours, not
in shortened output. An eight -hours' day when adopted
could by improved working and the study of efficiency
methods be reduced in time probably to six hours daily,
without reducing the work done or wages paid, and the
time gained would really be added to the healthy life of
the workers who had earned it. No social means of im-
proving the public health can afford to neglect a con-
siderable proportion, probably a tenth, of the population
who are below the intellectual plane necessary for whole-
some life under civilized conditions, and they are only
sustained at the expense of their fellows. This parasitic
section under the protected conditions existing is recruiting
itself at a greater rate than the normal population. Drastic
regulation to prevent such procreation is the only remedy,
and can be obtained by collective action, but much
education as to existing and prospective facts is necessary.

Suppressed Information in Returns.— When mortality
returns are examined certain diseases make themselves
evident — e.g. infantile diarrhoea, rickets, tuberculosis ;
whilst others, such as syphilis or alcoholism, are only
to be deduced indirectly from the prevalence of their effects,
as shown above in the list of officers' deaths from
syphilis. i

Certification of death in each case should be in dupli-
cate, one certificate being made out for the relatives, useful
for all civil purposes, and the other confidential and officially
registered by the medical attendant solely in the interests
of national health. No one who has not acted in private
practice, or who has not had to handle mortality returns,
can appreciate the enormous importance of such a change
as this, if truly valuable evidence is not to be continually
suppressed. It is, however, not only the private prac-
titioner who has to be protected ; the official often has not
the liberty to report fully and completely without bias, lest
he should give offence. The medical officer of health,
as a rule, is worse paid than other corresponding officials.
He has to conform to many restraints on his professional
work, and time after time may see the fruits of his labours
modified by others, who fail to appreciate its drift or
value. The routine in which he is plunged comparatively
early in life restricts and narrows his views. There is,
therefore, all the more reason that attempt should be made
to secure able workers by raising the standard through

276 SOCIAL REFORM

security of tenure, and continuity of official life in any
transfers or promotions which may occur from time to
time. This does not mean that the idea of the medical
officer of health as a kind of professional Uehermensch,
now being exploited in certain circles, could be otherwise
than repugnant to those with actual clinical experience of
medical practice, in which the mental factor plays so great
a part. Beyond officials themselves this idea of a general
State service of medicine finds little professional support.
The medical officer of health developed his field when
public health was general and impersonal. Now that it
is becoming individual and personal the treating doctor
alone must take the whole responsibility, and not be tied
down in practising his art to the best of his ability. The
medical officer of health rarely has either the knowledge
or experience of other than his own narrow field. And
this general State service, if ever introduced, would have
a sterilizing and deadening effect, in which schedules would
soon be likely to be more thought of than patients. The
true function of a State Department in science or medicine
is to collate knowledge and distribute advice. Where more
than this has been done the attempt to definitely regulate
details of medical work has usually crystallized it, and
slowed down or arrested progress, or, as the electrician
would say, reduced the whole to a low potential. Exist-
ing services inspire little confidence, or may even serve
as warnings rather than models for future administrators.
Their methods if widely extended would probably seriously
harm rather than improve national health.

Conclusion. — The burden of this chapter is that there
yet remains great possibilities of improved national health,
and actual gain in years and happiness to almost every
individual among us, if the conditions are squarely faced
and dealt with on an honest and just basis.

Much effort at present is a tinkering with superficial
symptoms, whilst the deeply placed basal causes require
wide social adjustments. For example, there is the
" recruitment of man power " — more births are needed,
hence no mother must be penalized in any way who con-
tributes a citizen to the country. All obstacles in the
way of maternity must be removed. In this regard the
woman with a child is always to be respected, and
the chief national concern is healthy maternity and good
nursing ; for the health and weight of the baby in its

NATIONAL HEALTH 277

earliest years is the all-important object towards which
every other concern here is subsidiary.

The conscription of children is necessary to secure a
minimum of good treatment for all. It is a sound basis,
and experience suggests the only basis, for a high standard
ultimately in both education and national health.

Early adult life requires provision for, not suppression
of, its needs. The religious and social taboos must be
influenced and put to one side, as they tend to drive sexual
life underground in early adult life, and are the main
causes sustaining prostitution and its dissemination of
venereal disease.

Tuberculosis in its pulmonary form, essentially the
disease of the worker, requires the patient to be relieved
and sustained, his family responsibilities being wholly
undertaken until he can resume them without danger.

Drink, which will be sought as long as the present indus-
trial conditions exist, must be so controlled by the State
that it will be to no man's interest to make another drink.

The main causes of these failures in national health is
the employment of individuals as hands without due regard
to other emotional and mental needs, which results in long
working hours, without sufficient time for varied exercise,
recreation, and sleep.

Bad housing arrangements, the enclosure of lands, game
laws, deprivation of the amenities of life, are all contributing
to the wearing out of the average English citizen, whose
prospects of life in middle age are less than that of those
of other countries, or indeed of his immediate forerunners.

Lastly, it is self-evident that all services and commodi-
ties necessary for public health should be completely
controlled by the community in its own interests and for
the benefit of all its members.

CHAPTER XVI

The Care of Child Life

By MARGARET McMILLAN

A GREAT many schemes for helping the children of this
country now and after the war are already afoot. Some of
these may have the germs of great constructive work that
will go far to redeem and exalt our nation out of nearly all
its present-day child misery. The part that must be played
by the elementary schools and nursery schools has not yet
been well defined, but it is clear that these may be prime
agents in bringing about hitherto undreamed-of results.
I venture, therefore, to make the following observations and
proposals, all of which are inspired, not in leisured calm,
but in the field of actual daily work among children.

To begin, then, we are to deal not with a section of all
the children in the nation, but with the child nation itself.
There will have to be a good deal of classifying done by
and by, but for all that, in our aims and work we must
think of our seven or eight millions of children, of their
conditions of life, and life as a whole, and, gathering up< the
varied factors that go to make up the nurture and lot of
the vast majority, think and work out schemes that will meet
their needs. In short, we must differentiate, but not at
the outset of our survey.

It appears that for the majority of children some degree

of medical help and oversight is needed from the beginning.

The oft -repeated statement that nearly all children are born

healthy needs, perhaps, a little revision. In one nursery or

baby camp, 87 babies under three years old, and 70 under

eighteen months old, were admitted in one year. Of these,

only six children were in a satisfactory state of health.

Twenty-two suffered from two distinct ailments, and nine

from three. Practically all the children suffered from

278

THE CARE OF. CHILD LIFE 279

" debility." Tonsilitis, rickets, rhinitis, dental caries, and
bronchitis were common. "It is a hospital ! " cried the
matron. No, it was not a hospital ; it was and is a nursery,
and its aims are preventive and educational. But it is well
to know from the outset that for the first decade at least a
great proportion of all the children in the country must be
under medical care. One cannot neglect preventive work,
as we have done in the past, and expect to escape from the
need of wholesale hospital methods. In any case, it seems
likely that for one or two decades our national system of
primary education and child -care must be a combination
of clinic and school method. Side by side with medical
works we have to develop preventive work as an integral
part of our whole system of education and home training.
To indicate how this may be done is the aim of this
chapter.

Keeping in view, then, the need for curative work, and
also for preventive work, we have to bring into being
agencies that will give effective help to mothers and young
children up to and under the age of seven (for we have
it as part of our programme that the age of entrance
into primary schools will be raised to seven). A great fact
meets us on the threshold of the inquiry. We cannot
separate mother and child in the first two years of life,
pre-natal and infant, without risk and injury to one or both.
Too often schemes for dealing with mothers leave out of
account her higher nature, her possible dreams, hopes,
aspirations, and ambitions in prospect of motherhood, and
fasten themselves merely on her physical needs. The
English mother does not, perhaps, dream as did the Jewess
of giving birth to a World Saviour. But has she no dreams ?
The public -house, the hoardings, the places of amusement
near mean streets, the small, dark, bathless house, the rate of
wages — all these things have to be thought of in relation to
the women whose impressions and daily inner life make up
the warp and woof of to-morrow's thinkers and doers. And
one of the functions of the nurseries we hope to see brought
into existence will be the opening up of new sources of
help, inspiration, and sympathy for the expectant and nursing
mother, so often confined now within the depressing walls
of a very poor home.

For children over a twelvemonth old nurseries are
needed, and for exactly the same reason that they are wanted
in the homes of the well-to-do. A toddler cannot be kept

28o SOCIAL REFORM

" good " in a chair or in a little room crowded with furni-
ture. He learns by moving, touching, and exercising his
lungs and larynx. He is a great trouble to a busy or
languid mother, and even in the homes of the rich it is
found necessary to give him a room and a playing space
for his own use. From the poor and crowded home he
escapes of course when he can. He makes his way into the
street, where we now see him in thousands, exposed to
every kind of danger, and determined to run every possible
risk. Walk down the by -lanes, or even the main thorough-
fare, of a poor city area, and you will see the children
literally aswarm. A hundred dusty, golden heads tumbling
through the doorways, and tiny hands and limbs on the
pavement and in the gutter. It is a dreadful sight, and a
very shameful one ! To see good corn trampled under the
feet of careless hogs or straying cattle would be sad. But
what is that to the spectacle we see at nearly every street
corner of wasted, neglected, and exposed childhood?

There is no reason why this spectacle should disgrace our
streets after the war. For already the work of bringing
all children under school age within the scope of a scheme
of nurture and education is begun and must continue to
develop. The Board of Education has taken one great step
towards the salvation of young children in giving what is
now known as the fourpenny grant. This is a grant of
4d. a day made towards the upkeep of nurseries or creches
that will undertake the proper care of children up to five
years old. For three years it has paid this grant, and in
doing so has shifted the responsibility for wasted child -life
to women's shoulders. The State cannot do everything
well, though it can help to an almost unlimited degree in
getting things well done. Cheered by its financial help and
by the knowledge that the educational system of our country
no longer ignores the youngest and most helpless children,
the women of England can now, if they will it, establish such
nursery -schools on lines that will allow them to have a good
influence, not merely on babies, but on all neighbourhoods.

Baby camps or nurseries should be opened if possible
very near to a school clinic. If this is done it will not be
necessary to have a hospital nurse (though it may be
desirable) and more stress may be laid on the health -nursing
qualifications of the matron. A small house (with one large
room for a reception room) may be all that is wanted, pro-
vided there is a large garden or open space behind it. It

THE CARE OF, CHILD LIFE 2S1

is quite astonishing to see how, in the most crowded parts of
the south-eastern districts of London, these gardens and
open spaces do exist behind the narrow streets. Further-
more, there are open spaces and waste lands even in dense
and dark areas enough to change the whole character and
appearance of many districts. It is surely time to explore
these, and to see how and where they can be used to good
purpose.

Behind the house and in the garden there must be roomy
shelters for wet and cold days. These shelters do not cost
much. After the war there should be thousands of willing
hands ready to build them. Airy, spacious, and sunny, open
on all sides, and with a terrace and garden in front, they
make a new world for many children. If the nation thus
invested, let us say, two million pounds, we could bring con-
siderably more than half a million children into the open,
furnishing them not only with garden ground and shelters,
but receiving houses as well. This estimate is made from
actual experience of a very difficult kind of camp in a very
crowded district and in war time. In view of the great
amount of outdoor building that will be left on the Govern-
ment's hands after the war, however, we could put up the
shelters for a much smaller sum, and thus, for the first time
in England's history begin to take all her children out of
the gutter.

This appears to me the first and the only thing to do as
a step towards everything else that can follow. Doles,
visiting, notifications (necessary as these are), registrations,
and even improved housing, are dead letters so long as the
children are in the gutter. Even school clinics, so necessary
and with their great field of work always proving now even
to the least sympathetic their social value — even these have
a limited function, and depend for their usefulness on the
existence of some kind of wholesome life within the reach
of all young children. This kind of life is not within the
reach of millions to-day, and that is why we are spending
money vainly. One illustration only I will give of this
wastage. At Deptford clinic within three months, over nine
hundred children were treated for diseases that are unknown
among the well-to-do, and that are unknown alsoJ, I ,may add,
in our camps. Nearly all those children were back within
eleven weeks with the same or like disease. They had to
be treated again (with an expensive drug) and to return once
more to the old life and the old seats of infection I Surely

282

SOCIAL REFORM

such treatment as this has no real "aim." Four thousand
large camp nurseries starred all over our big city areas
would go far to stamp out the very names of those plagues
of early twentieth -century childhood.

The indoor nurseries are doubtless doing a great work ;
but I think they will all have to become more or less
outdoor places in time. Not that a garden makes a camp.
As well claim that a flower -pot makes a forest. The camp
life has its own way of building, making, playing, teaching,
and learning. It is a new life— not a chance experience for
fair weather— and it offers a door of escape from many
problems as well as from many diseases. Life is difficult
in rooms. It is much harder to bring different orders |of
child or adult together within four walls, as witness the many
rules of institutions. But in the spacious, open pavilion
through which the air moves freely, and on whose floor
dance the leaf shadows of waving trees, life is easier.

Take, for example, the matter of infectious disease.
There must, of course, be exclusions from the open-air
nursery. The matron, even if medically qualified, should
if possible have the help of a doctor always at hand,
so as to exclude and isolate if necessary, not only for
measles, chicken-pox, and other child illnesses. For
dirt and other even more deadly infection cases she has
to be on the alert always. Yet work in the open is far
less difficult than the work of an indoor matron. She can
have isolation places in the open, as well as an indoor
refuge in time of need. Only a few times in a year do we
ever use the indoor room for children who are ill. And
as during the first decade after the war such a large
number of " medical " cases will have to be handled, it
is surely a great thing to know that ground space, not
building space, will limit our activities.

An outdoor nursery of from sixty to seventy children
should have a matron, a head and an under nurse, and two
probationers. If children over five are admitted there should
be a kindergarten teacher as well. Two probationers are
needed. At least one of the two nurses should have some train-
ing in the mental side of toddlers and infant life. The same
kind of knowledge should, of course, be won by the matron.
But where are the schools that give this particular kind of
training ? In so far as I know they do not yet exist ; and one
of our first duties is to bring them into existence, and mean-
while to make even our nursing school a kind of training

THE CARE OF, CHILD LIFE 283

school io£ a more or less comprehensive kind. It is sad to
note how many nurses will wash, comb, feed, and " mind " a
child, without, as it seems, ever remembering that he is
a struggling little intelligence sadly in need of help ; and,
on the other hand, our schools have turned out many teachers
whose training stops short at every kind of physiological
problem of a workaday kind, and who do not " have any-
thing to do " with bodies, but only with the teaching of
subjects.

A teacher in the open should be able to look at every
new problem from a wider standpoint. In order to illustrate

this let me give one or two examples. L enters our

school in a very sad condition. She is two years old, but
can hardly stand. She has been minded by an old woman
who kept her in a chair drawn tightly up to a table. Her
wrists are so weak that she cannot hold, still less pick up
anything. One leg is twisted. She suffers from rhinitis,
and her mouth is always open. Yet this child is eager to
live and to enjoy.

A nurse can do more than feed, wash, and tend L .

She can, without great trouble, help her to use her limbs,
to crawl, stand, walk, and climb. She can lead her out
among the tall flowers, and give her long-denied nervous
system the delicious shock of a new joy. With a little help
and encouragement those limp hands will pull out a weed,

lift a branch or stone, and put on L 's coat. And

those long silent lips, that already make new noises in the
garden, may be trained to speak.

How much help is needed by the one and two years old
one realizes only after watching them long and carefully
in a garden. To-day the soft September light shines down
on our camp and down the paths, and in the herb-garden
are the tiny blue -and -pink pinafored creatures. There is a
good deal of distress amongst these and some boredom,
because, owing to the absence of a nurse -teacher, they are
alone. Here is Sam, who is tired of running and has ex-
hausted the resources of the cabbage patch. If she was
here he would do a great many tilings. Bring a flower, for
example, and match it with another, tell its colour and even
enter^ on the (to him) formidable task of naming it. He is
learning to speak now, and makes good progress. Left to
himself he would fall behind. He is a little backward, as
most of our children are, solely by reason of being more or
less abandoned.

284 SOCIAL REFORM

Here is an older group of three- and four -year -olds. It
goes without saying that they should be alone sometimes.
Reverie is as necessary and natural to them as sleep. But
they must waken more fully at times. They are often eager
to listen as well as to talk, to look with another at pictures,
to watch the green flies and bees, and to name things.
They want a big friend who knows about caterpillars. With-
out her they will tear flowers and hurt the creatures they
find, but hardly get to love them. In the herb -garden it
is the same old story. Some one must go round at first to
pinch with them the odorous leaves, to lift them where they
can stand up to the knees in mignonette, and to name the
wonders of the new world.

It may seem trivial to the pre-war thinkers that we should
write of the value of weed-pulling for toddlers, of mug-
washing and knot -tying, of handkerchief drills and tooth-
brush drills, of talks and pictures and the naming of things,
of lip drill and singing, and the pinching of odorous
herbs in the herb -garden, of the putting' on and off of
lids, the mere tearing up of things, the guessing games
with velvet, silk, and calico balls, and all that love can
imagine of companionship for a young and groping intelli-
gence. But what are we trying to get but help for young
intelligences. And never have I seen so much distress and
waste of opportunity for lack of all this as among the
toddlers of the baby camp !

Then we need joy in the camp, and seeing the distress
and arrest that the want of all this help bringis I think it no
shame to write of it in some detail. I think it necessary,
too, that nurses should speak good English and also that
they should sing. Why should we have lullabies in every
language yet never mention singing in connection with
public creches ? In the open air, under the trees and among
sweet herbs and blowing flowers, surely we should hear
singing ? And we shall hear it ! For though children are
easily silenced in a house, they will sing in the open. The
only question is whether we can banish the vulgar street
song with something better !

A word now as to the probationers. If possible, these
should be girls trained in a camp school, and with the love
of the open in their veins. These, even at the age of
fifteen, show far more initiative and resource than the
ordinary schoolgirl or even the ordinary young nurse. They
have shed all kinds of obscure fears and weaknesses, bred

THE CARE OF CHILD LIFE 285

of a close, indoor life, and have a far better command of
themselves and their own powers. All this is not a matter
of opinion. It is a fact proven and re-proven in the storm
and stress of daily work.

Unfortunately there are very few camp schools to-day.
And this brings me to the second part of the chapter.

The pre-war type of elementary school has broken down.
It is forty-six years old and was known for at least thirty
years to be even at its best (and its best is wonderfully
good) too sadly handicapped to offer a solution. The
business man found it out very soon ; the professional
classes helped to pay for it while shrugging their shoulders ;
and the working-class parent had serious doubt. But now
this failure is not merely openly proved, it is freely
acknowledged. The work of the School Clinic has set
all the misery and suffering of children in a blazing light,
and given us facts (such as I have given above) that close
the lips of its boldest friends.

Six years ago I opened a school for children of normal
type who for one reason or another had come to the clinic
suffering from weakness, ansemia, languor, and a general
failure of vitality and power to carry on any more.
Among these were scholarship children, and others besides
these were probably bright and even gifted. Some were
backward. Nearly all spoke English very badly, and had
little or no initiative of any kind in work or in play. Nearly
all had more or less serious nervous troubles, and few, if any,
would ever (as things were) win through to any kind of
successful manhood or womanhood.

It was clear, almost from the first, that all this falling
away was the result of something that was wrong, not in the
school, however, but in the home, and of things that hap-
pened not in the day but in the night. " Ah," the pre-war
critic, "then it was not the school's failing, after all ! " To
this we answer: "What is the function of a school? Is it
to work under any kind of circumstances and with no eye
to its tools? " Yet the pre-war school did this, and that is
why it failed.

We began by making our school a real night school.

The children slept out summer and winter. A very few

I slept out even at the week-ends, but most went home on

I Saturday nights. The schools were close to their homes ;

! indeed, it was a kind of quadrangle with the back windows

'286 SOCIAL REFORM

of homes ranged down two sides, and our aim was to
make it as far as possible an extension of the home sleeping-
rooms and backyards. Every boy (and every girl, for
we had a girl camp) had his own towel, night clothes,
tooth and nail brushes, etc., and locker, and every one had
a hot bath and cold shower daily as part of his treatment.
In summer they went barefooted in camp, and the boys wore
jerseys and cotton smock -overall. The girls wore gymnastic
costumes made by themselves at a cost of about 3s. (which
they paid in weekly instalments of 2d.).

Breakfast and supper were provided in camp, and these
meals were prepared by the children with a little help (in
mixing puddings and making soup) from the night guardian
and nurse. With this humble setting of a life that had
everything essential to growth and progress, we opened our
two night camps and our schools, which were held in the
ground and shelters of the boys' camp.

Out in the pure, free-blowing night air a new influence
touched the pale cellar -plants that we had gathered into
our night shelters. Dr. Eder reported a great improvement
in the nervous cases. The teachers noted a new steadiness,
cleaner and less trivial talk, and a sudden and complete dis-
appearance of all the dirt diseases and symptoms ! Many,
indeed, soared above all that is most doleful in the life of
yesterday. We " grew " charming, clear-eyed maidens, who
spoke fair English and make ideal nurses in the baby camp.
The boys got sturdy, and played the game, and all had a
peach -like bloom and the restraint of those whose life is
deepening. Visitors gazed at out -campers and refused to
believe that they came from poor streets. We gave remedial
drill, and there was much bathing and playing of games.
We also gave " home work " — that is, preparation to be done
alone every evening in camp. The learning by doing, so
much praised by Froebel, is not possible in most homes, and
is not expected in most schools. That is why the children
do not learn to work, while the parents are very indignant
that any one should expect them to tackle anything alone.
Teachers are to pour in knowledge for five hours per day —
that is " education " according to the pre-war elementary
school. We made war on this idea ; war, and no quarter.
We expected and required all our children to work alone.
Also to speak and write decent English, and (as an aid to
this) we taught a second language. We lived in an historic
neighbourhood, and with tales, song's, and drama wakened

THE CARE OF CHILD LIFE 287

the children to some kind of emotional interest in the life-
story and sites where they are brought up. But once health
was established we went in for a quicker pace in mental
work. There was home-work and it was done. The classes
were small, not over twenty -five, but the results were some-
thing of a revelation. We were not " inspected," so I
cannot write of that. Of nurture, however, we can write,
for the clinic doctors inspected regularly and often.

" The experiment succeeded," writes one of the doctors,
"far beyond any expectation of ours." Another writes as
follows: " The change in the appearance of the girls is very
remarkable. I am struck by the great neatness and cleanli-
ness in the clothing, hair, and whole person. They bear
themselves in a perfectly new way. Their voices, manner of
speech, and carriage are entirely changed. Sallowness and
pallor have given place to healthy bloom." From the testi-
mony of the Danish authority, Dr. Paul Hertz, in " School
Hygiene," I quote the following1 extract: "I was struck
by the fresh and healthy appearance of the children in the
Deptford camps, and I cannot forbear to state here my
opinion that the simple principles on which these camps are
erected possess a far greater value for raising the health
standard of weakened and debilitated children than the
open-air schools on the principles of Charlottenburg school.
The complexion and bodily conditions of the children in
the open-air schools I visited in England was essentially
inferior to that of the children I saw in Miss McMillan's
camp, and that in spite of the far poorer conditions of the
camps in respect of surrounding's, air, and all apparatus,
than in the case of the open-air schools. I have the con-
viction that this effect must be attributed to the children's
removal from the overcrowded slums and their sleeping
at night in the open air. Certainly it would be no dis-
advantage if the Charlottenburg system were given up and
Miss McMillan's camps universally adopted."

Certainly it is no desire to hear my own schools praised
that makes me willing to quote these words. I have pointed
out the fact that already a great deal of money is wasted in
the buying of drugs that are only useful in warding off pain
for a little time. But let us think now of the probable waste
of money that goes on through a system of scholarships that
is founded not on any real knowledge of the environment
of the children but on almost complete ignorance of their
actual circumstances, as well as of their latent powers. We

288 SOCIAL REFORM

provide much the same kind of school for all orders of
children. The well-to-do go to well-built, substantial
schools, and sit, in large classes, under teachers trained
in a definite way. The bathless, ragged, hungry child
who sleeps in a bed with five other persons goes to
the same kind of school, and has the same kind of
school life.1

The lot of millions of children lies outside all the plans
and aims of yesterday's primary schools. Yesterday the
little voyager was kept afloat by means of school meals, etc.
It could never lead him into harbour. It was never planned
nor constructed for that.

Even in the camp school every new child is a problem
for a time, not only to his teacher, but to the doctor : and it
is only by daily observation that some idea can be formed
of what he can really become or do. There are exceptions,
of course. Some children do well under almost any con-
ditions. They are exceptions. (And the " doing well "
at examinations is not always a real development at all. In
some cases it is a forced growth that stops soon and arrives
at nothing.) It is the normal child, the child in the street,
who is variable, chameleon -like, giving or withholding
himself according to his surroundings. There are millions
of children who do not and cannot profit fully by anything
done in schools to-day, because home life attacks all that
and destroys it !

And all this is so needless. In the camp school no
child is bathless, or hungry, or deserted after school-
hours. No one goes without enough sleep, or breathes
bad air, or wears dirty clothing". No one shares
another's bed, or does work for hire and overtaxes his
strength. And no one can escape the influence of
teachers and guardians, who have a goal that is kept in.
view at all hours — in lesson hours, but also in the early

1 There is a quotation from Dr. Eder, in the Fourth Report of the Deptford
Health Centre : —

"An inquiry is being made into the sleeping habits of children and the
nervous affections engendered by overcrowding. A very large number of
children, up to the end of school age, sleep two or three in the same bed. I
have cases of five and four in the same bed. Certain nervous affections are,
in my opinion, engendered by this habit. When the child is allowed to have
a separate bed these symptoms are not infrequently allayed. . . . Much cannot
be expected when the change is made at a late age.

" The open-air camp school with its separate bed for each child has helped
very much in some cases."

THE CARE OF CHILD LIFE 289

morning, in winter and summer, at midnight and twilight,
in visits home (daily and at week-ends), in play and pre-
paration, in work and study. That is the only kind of
school that can save at least two out of our eight millions
of children. And for at least one-half of them all it is the
school that can best ensure health and a higher order of
intelligence.

What would it cost ? This is a question which we are
now in a position to answer fully and in detail. The build-
ing of camp -shelters is not costly. A large shelter serving
sixty children as dormitory, and eighty to a hundred as
classroom, would not in pre-war days cost over £150. A
bathroom, with hot -water boiler attached, could be built for
under £40. The drainage was £qo. fin the babies' camp
the drainage cost over £100. The building cost of the
three shelters, to take seventy children, was about £180.
The problem is one for the more advanced orders of
architects. Many existing school buildings could be adapted,
terraces run up and covered ways, and walls lowered or
removed. Above all, the many open-spaces (not refuse
pitches') in poor areas, should be cleaned, part concreted,
and made into smaller camps, with waste ground laid under
cultivation. War tent^, huts, and shelters, most of which
may be scrapped, could be bought in large quantities by the
education authorities as raw material or even as ready-made
buildings. At the back of all the three Deptford camps
(girls', babies', and boys' night camp) there are large vacant
spaces, in one of which three hundred boys or girls could
sleep in night camps ! In short, there is hardly any building
problem.

A much more difficult thing is the staff question — though
that also may be more easily met now than at any former
time. The camp needs a double staff, but not a double
staff of teachers. The nipfht guardian has a different func-
tion from that of the da v -teacher, and he will work, we hope,
under the eye of the doctor and also of headmasters and
mistresses. He has to sive a home atmosphere to the
camp, and to be a hyp'ienist. He must be a lover of games
and outdoor life, and yet know the value of studv alone
in the evening or early morning. It seems to me that
among the many naval and military men, unfitted perhaps
for " active service " in the field or on the sea. there may
be found many who could do frreat service to their country
in taking night -camp work. One man could take forty to

290 SOCIAL REFORM

fifty boys. In camp the principal can have the help of older
children as monitors.

The day school might be fed from three or even more
night camps. The classes should not be over thirty if the
best results are to be hoped for, and this brings us to the
question of salaries. The country needs an army of two
hundred thousand elementary teachers. Of these at least
twenty thousand should be specialists in remedial drill, and
an equal number specialists in other subjects. The nation
should be prepared to spend £40,000,000 per annum on
teachers' and nurses' and guardians' salaries now. Later
it may find a great advantage in spending a great deal more
— for these, if efficient, will cut directly and rapidly at the
very root causes of terrible disease, misery, poverty, and
waste.

Finally, the new age requires a new outlook, for it unveils
new horizons. Not by mere tinkering at age-long evils can
it hope to unseal the well-springs of a new world. We
have spent much time in gathering statistics, in comparing
" methods," and also in a great variety of pettifogging
reforms. The time for such work is over. Through the
dimness that is our past and the cloud of storm and blood
that lies just behind us glances something that is more
precious than anything that we hoped for and aspired to.
It is the hope of the generations to follow, the dazzling, un-
dreamed-of joy that echoes through the footfalls of colossal
failure and sorrow.

CHAPTER XVII

Unsolved Problems of the English
Poor Law

By Sir WILLIAM CHANCE, Bart., M.A.

ALL thinking persons, especially those interested in social
and economic subjects, are sensible that things in this
country cannot be the same after the war as they were
before, and that the whole of our national institutions and
way of living will be then subjected to the closest scrutiny.
Not to speak of the future relations of our country to the
great Dominions and Dependencies of the Empire and to
foreign countries, internal questions, fiscal, land, parlia-
mentary reform, national education, public relief, to
mention only some of the most important ones, cannot
escape it. It has fallen to my lot to deal with the subject
of Public Relief in this chapter, and to suggest in what
way its administration — for its principles are sound and
well founded — may be brought into line with other great
changes in our political and social life.

Were I writing some twenty-five years ago I should
have said, what in fact I then thought, that the problem
of the Poor Law had been solved, and I should have pointed
to the great decrease of general pauperism which the
country had witnessed since the great Reform of 1834, and
especially to the decrease of able-bodied pauperism. A
decrease in general pauperism from 627 per 1,000 of popula-
tion in 1849 to 25-6 in 1892, and in able-bodied pauperism
of from \yi to y2 per 1,000 of population during the
same period, seemed to me to show that the new Poor
Law had been successful beyond all expectation, and that

it was only necessary to continue the then existing system

291

292 SOCIAL REFORM

for the pauperism of the country to be reduced still
further.1

In 1892 the expenditure in relief per head of popula-
tion stood at the same figure — viz. 6s. id. — as in 1844,
and this in spite of the enormous improvement which had
taken place in institutional relief during these forty -eight
years. But, in spite of such evidences of progress in the
depauperization of the nation, the principles on which the
Poor Law is based were subjected to the most violent
attacks by ill-informed critics. Its administration was
described as " scandalously harsh to those who have the
misfortune to be driven to accept the pauper dole." "The
ruling classes have deliberately made the. lot of these poorer
citizens so degraded that the more sensitive will die linger-
ing deaths rather than submit to it, whilst others prefer
going to gaol." " After fifty years of trial it [the Poor
Law] has failed to extinguish pauperism and destitution.
It succeeds in obviating any but a few cases of direct
starvation ; but it does not prevent a widespread
demoralization. It often fails to secure the children
from a life of pauperism and the aged from public dis-
grace. More important than all, it fails utterly in its
chief and most important purpose, of encouraging the
provident and the worthy, and discouraging the spend-
thrift and the drunkard. It is indeed now coming to be
denounced by experienced philanthropists as the greatest
of all the existing hindrances to provident saving, and an
instrument of serious degeneration of character among the
English people."

The pamphlet 2 from which the above extract is taken
appeared at the time when the doctrine of laissez /aire had
come into bad odour, and when the help of the State, other

1 The actual figures are as follows : — Average daily number of paupers of all
classes during the years ended at Lady Day 1849 and 1892 (" Mean Pauperism ") —

(1) All Classes of Paupers.

Rate per Rate per

Rate per

1,000 of 1,000 of

1,000 of

Indoor Estimated Outdoor Estimated

Total

Estimated

Paupers. Population. Paupers. Population.

Paupers

Population

Year 1 848-49

133,513 77 955J46 55'°

1,088,659

627

„ 1891-92

186,607 6-4 558,150 19-2

744-757

25-6

(2) Able-bodied Paupers, excluding Vagrants.

Year 1848-49

26,558 1-5 202,265 117

228,823

13-2

„ 1891-92

26,392 0-9 66,073 2-3

92,465

3"2

2 " The Reform of the Poor Law," Fabian Tract No. 173, by Sidney Webb
(1891).

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 293

than in the form of a carefully restricted system of public
assistance, was being invoked in many directions " to secure
a greater protection for the poor against the rapacity of
the rich, for the workman against the tyranny of his
employer, for the child against the neglect of its parents."
The extension of the franchise in 1884 strengthened the
hands of those who put themselves forward as the special
champions of the downtrodden classes, and gave rise to
the legislation which came to be described as " socialistic."
Politicians of both the great parties strove which could
outbid the other for the popular vote. New relief agencies
were established to do work which it was thought un-
advisable to leave to the Poor Law, mainly because it was
so " unpopular." As a consequence, omitting the very
great rise in the cost of education since 1892,1 these
new agencies are responsible for an addition of fully
£20,000,000 a year to the taxation of the country ; and,
instead of Poor Law expenditure being reduced thereby,
it actually increased from nearly £9,000,000 in 1892 to
over £15,000,000 in 19 1 4. As to the number of paupers
of all classes, their mean number increased from 744,575
in 1892 to 916,377 in 19 10, while able-bodied pauperism
rose during the same period from 92,465 to 126,629.
It is impossible to make any fair comparison of the latest
figures of pauperism with those of 1910 or of previous
years on account of the effect produced by the Old Age
Pensions Act, which in 1 9 1 1 transferred a number of aged
paupers from the Poor Law to the Pension authorities,
so 1 shall not attempt to do so.

I. The Poor Law Commission of 1905.

Having regard, then, to the increase of pauperism and
of poor relief expenditure during the years following 1892,
it was not surprising that a Royal Commission should have
been appointed at the close of 1905, which was directed
to inquire into the working of the Poor Laws and into
the various means which had been adopted outside of those
Laws for meeting distress arising from want of employ-
ment, particularly during periods of severe industrial
depression, and also to consider and report whether any
modification or change in their administration or fresh

1 The cost of public education in England and Wales rose from £4,838,120
in 1892 to £29,700,273 in 1912.

294 SOCIAL REFORM

legislation for dealing with distress were advisable. This
Commission sat for just over three years, issued its Report
in February 1909, and was not unanimous, four of its
members signing a Minority Report. The Majority Report
practically stood to the principles of 1834, but recom-
mended an entire change in administration, which was,
however, dissented from by Miss Octavia Hill and Dr.
(now Sir Arthur) Downes, while the Minority Report
advocated an entire break up of the existing Poor Law,
and the transfer of all relief work, except that connected
with the relief of the able-bodied and vagrants,1 to (the
various Committees of County Councils.2

I do not propose to enlarge on the extraordinary con-
fusion and overlapping of public relief which would result
if the recommendations of the Minority Report were
adopted, even assuming that they were practical. It is
sufficient to refer my readers to some of the numerous
criticisms of it which have been published. 3 It is not

1 " For these there should be a new authority of national scofe and a
Government Department organizing Labour Exchanges all over the kingdom,
developing a system of insurance against unemployment, doing what is possible
to regularize seasonal and casual labour, and providing for all sections of able-
bodied men in distress whatever colonies and training may be required"
(" An Outline of the Proposal to Break Up the Poor Law," published by The
National! Committee to Promote the Breaking Up of the Poor Law).

2 In •' English Poor Law Policy," by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb (Mrs.
Webb having been one of the signatories to the Minority Report), the authors
claim that the Majority Report abandoned the principles of 1834 altogether,
and adhered to those of 1907. In other words, they make the extraordinary
claim that what they call " the principles of 1907," i.e. the principles laid down
by themselves, are accepted by the Majority Report (see pages 204 to 2070!' their
book) ! The comments contained in Part III of the Majority Report (pp. 71-80)
on the principles of 1843 taken as a whole give no support to such a statement,
as any careful reader must admit. It is indeed stated (p. 80 of the Report) that
the " less eligibility " principle was intended by the reformers of the Old
Poor Law to apply to able-bodied only. But such a statement is not supported,
indeed it is definitely contradicted, by an extract from the Report of 1834,
given on p. 74, which says " throughout the evidence it is shown, that in pro-
portion as the condition of any pauper class [the italics are my own] is elevated
above the condition of independent labourers, the condition of the independent
classes is depressed, their industry is impaired, their employment becomes
unsteady, and its remuneration in wages is diminished." There is no doubt
that the reformers of 1832 were mainly interested in restoring the able-bodied
pauper of that time to independence, and so devoted their main efforts to
secure that desirable result, but the " less eligibility " principle was never
meant to be applied to that class only.

3 The Minority Report. " A Criticism " (P. S. King & Son, 1910) ; "The Poor
Law Indispensable," by Mr. Gladstone Walker (The Poor Law Publications

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 295

surprising that Socialists are loud in their praises of it.
It carries out their ideal of bureaucratic government, and
Mr. H. G. Wells, in " New Worlds for Old," welcomed
it with ecstasy as follows : ' The Minority Report, boldly
planned and magnificently done, expresses just that de-
liberately constructive Socialism which I have always
advocated. I adopt the Minority Report as my banner."

II. The Majority Report.

The Majority Report, on the other hand, deserves the
most serious consideration. Its great merit lies in its
directing attention to the pressing need of the consolida-
tion of all public relief under one Central Authority,
which it recommended should be a " Public Assistance
Division " of the Local Government Board. We need not
quarrel over the new term " Public Assistance " to replace
the present one of " Poor Relief." Where the great
difference of opinion exists is about the local authorities
who are to administer it ; indeed, it was on this point
that all the Majority Commissioners could not agree.1

The Report recommended that these authorities should
be the County and County Borough Councils, working
through Statutory Public Assistance Authorities, consti-
tuted in much the same way as County Education Com-
mittees now are. Boards of Guardians were to be abolished
and replaced by Public Assistance Committees, appointed
by and working under each Statutory Authority. Side
by side with these new bodies were to be established
Voluntary Aid Councils and Committees and County and
Local Medical Assistance Committees. This new adminis-
trative machinery will be more clearly understood by the
following diagram:

Public Assistance Division of the
Local Government Board.

County Voluntary County Public Assistance County Medical Assistance

Aid Council. Authority. Committee.

Local Voluntary Local Public Assistance Local Medical Assistance

Aid Committee. Committee. Committee.

Company, 19 14) ; Papers read at Poor Law Conferences — e.g. by Mr. A. F.
Vulliamy (Central Poor Law Conference, 1910), by Rev. S. Morgan (South
Wales District Conference, 1910), and by Mr. T. Hancock Nunn (Yorkshire
District Conference, 1910).

1 See the Memoranda attached to the Report of the late Miss Octavia Hill
and Sir Arthur Downes on this point.

296 SOCIAL REFORM

The great idea underlying the new scheme was, of course,
to secure a better relief organization by bringing all the
various agencies of public and private charity into close
connection with one another, with a view to better co-opera-
tion between them in every branch of relief work, and to
prevent overlapping. The Majority Commissioners, how-
ever, accepted the proposals of the Royal Commission on
the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded, and did not
suggest, as in the case of those of the Departmental Com-
mittee on Vagrancy, that, before any action was taken upon
them, the Government should carefully consider the effect of
their own proposals for the reorganization of the Poor Law
system. As the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 came
into force before their Report appeared, the subject was
removed from their cognizance, and we can only guess
what their recommendations would have been on the
subject.

III. Mr. Charles Booth's Scheme.

Mr. Charles Booth, who was a member of the Poor
Law Commission until his forced retirement from it owing
to ill -health before it had concluded its work, prepared
Memoranda (printed in Volume XII of the Appendix to
the Report) outlining another scheme of Poor Law
Reform.1 He retained the present parish area as the Unit
of each Union, and the existing Unions as the Units
for grouping under District Poor Law Boards, with direct
ad hoc election by ratepayers. By this means he thought
the consolidation of all public relief, on which he laid
great stress, could be secured. These District Boards were
to be elected by the ratepayers of each constituent Union,
and a certain number of residential nominees of the Local
Government Board were to be added to each Board. They
would take over all the duties and liabilities of the present
Board of Guardians, together with all existing Poor Law
Institutions. But any duties not specially connected with
Poor Law administration (such as vaccination, registration
of births, and valuation for assessment) would be trans-
ferred to the appropriate authority, so that the administra-
tion of the Poor Law should be the sole work of the Boards .
London, for example, was to be under one of these Poor
Law Boards.

1 These Memoranda have been republished in book form, with very little
alteration, by Macmillan & Co. under the title of " Poor Law Reform." (New
Issue, 1911.)

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 297

If such Boards were established, he saw no reason why
the care of lunatics, mental defectives, vagrants, and the
unemployed should not be left to them to provide for.
Sir Arthur Downes, who was one of the signatories to this
Majority Report, but who was wholly opposed to the
administrative changes in the system of poor relief which
it recommended, appears to favour Mr. Booth's proposals
in his Memorandum, and there can be no doubt that their
adoption would get over many difficulties in the way of
securing the consolidation of all public relief under one
authority, which seems to me to be so desirable. It must
be noted that the scheme is designed to preserve the
existing Poor Law fabric, instead of destroying it root and
branch .

IV. The Scheme of the National Committee for
Poor Law Reform.

This scheme was formulated in 1908 by the British
Constitution Association, and a National Committee for
Poor Law Reform was established to bring it to the public
notice.1 It went strongly for the consolidation of all Poor
Law work, under one central and separate authority. It
recognized that the administration of the present Poor Law
system was unsatisfactory, but that it could be set right
and made more efficient without any revolutionary changes.
The present ad hoc Poor Law Authorities were to be
preserved, and the recommendations of the Majority Com-
missioners that the relief of the unemployed and the feeding
of necessitous school children should be again brought
within the province of the Poor Law were supported. The
scheme also suggested that Boards of Guardians might be
strengthened by giving to the County Councils and other
statutory authorities the right to appoint representatives on
to all Boards of Guardians within their areas. It further
suggested that Boards of Guardians should be continuous,
a proportion only of the members retiring at each election.
Close relations between the official administration of the
Poor Law and local charitable bodies should be brought
about by the establishment of central registries as recom-

1 The Scheme has been published in pamphlet form under the title of
"Poor Law Reform not Revolution" (British Constitution Association, ir
Tothill Street, S.W., 3d.), and is also dealt with in " Poor Law Reform, via
Tertia," by the present writer (P. S. King & Son, is. net).

298 SOCIAL REFORM

mended in the Minute of the Poor Law Board of the 20th
November 1869.

V. Defects of the Present Poor Law System, and
the Remedies.

The proposals for the administrative reform of the Poor
Law were, of course, based on certain glaring defects which
the Report of the Poor Law Commission brought to light.
Some of these defects have since been remedied, following
upon recommendations made in the Report, and I hope
to show that remaining ones can be remedied without
destroying the whole Poor Law fabric.

For some of the defects Boards of Guardians were not
in any way responsible . Such arise from ( 1 ) the size of
many Boards, (2) the qualifications for election of
Guardians, (3) the system of their retirement from office,
and (4) the want of a better classification of the indoor
poor. Defects for which Guardians may be considered
responsible arise from neglect in carrying out what are
generally considered to be sound principles of relief, but
they could be cured by a freer use of the great powers
which the Central Authority possesses to ensure good relief
administration.

1. Defects for which Boards of Guardians cannot be
considered responsible .

(a) Size of Boards. — There can be no doubt that this
is an adverse influence to good administration. At the
present time two Unions have each 103 Guardians, while
242 Unions out of 643 have more than 40. l The Unions
thus over-represented are mostly rural ones with a large
number of separate parishes, each of which must have one
Guardian at least.2 If, as recommended by the Poor Law
Commission, it was left to County Councils or the Public
Assistance Authorities to appoint the Local Committees
which were intended to be set up in the place of Board
of Guardians, it would be easy to limit the number of
members to a reasonable amount. Under the scheme of

' One Union has 90 Guardians ; eight from 80 to 90 ; twelve from 70 to 80 ;
twenty-eight from 60 to 70 ; and sixly-two from 50 to 60 ; the remaining 131
Unions having between 40 to 50 Guardians.

2 In rural parishes the district councillor for the parish acts as Guardian,
there being since the Local Government Act of 1894 no separate elections for
the office in these parishes.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 299

Mr. Charles Booth, too, the problem could be easily solved,
because he would have the election of Rural Guardians
again separated from those of Rural District Committees,
and an amalgamation of parishes for the purpose of limit-
ing their number. It is undoubtedly a defect of the scheme
of the National Committee for Poor Law Reform that it
does not deal with this very important question. But as
a matter of fact the abnormal and unnecessary size of
many Boards arises from the fact of Urban Districts which
elect Guardians ad hoc being often grossly over-repre-
sented on the Union Boards, and there ought to be little
difficulty in reducing their representation to more moderate
proportions. It might also be possible without again re-
sorting to the ad hoc election of Guardians in every
Union, and so necessitating an amendment of the Local
Government Act of 1894, to amalgamate the small rural
parishes with adjoining ones for the purpose of the election
of Rural District Councillors, and so reduce the number
of Guardians representing rural parishes. But the argu-
ments for returning to the old system of electing Guardians
ad hoc and for separating Poor Law entirely from other
administrative work seem to me to be so strong that it
would be better to amend the Act of 1894 in this regard,
if the necessary reform would not be effected in any
other way.

(b) Qualifications for Election as Guardians. — However
desirable it may be considered to alter the present law
under this head, it is questionable whether, in this demo-
cratic age, any Parliament would venture to do so. As
a matter of fact, it is doubtful whether the alleged evils
of the present system are nearly so great as represented.
Further, the relief orders of the Central Authority afford
a considerable protection against the abuse of Guardians'
powers in the matter of relief. In the Majority Report
the farmer class of Guardians is especially attacked. It
is said that farmers are always against any change which is
going to cost money. ' They always look at every penny
they pay in rates very keenly, and they come in and oppose
expenditure of all kinds." But is it proposed, and if so how,
to disqualify farmers from sitting on Boards of Guardians,
or even on the new bodies which it is proposed should
replace these Boards ? And the same witness quoted in
the Report admits that in spite of a farmer's opposition
he generally has to give way in the end, so that, after all,

$66 SOCIAL REFORM

the desired reform is only delayed for a time. Compare
our Poor Law institutions and their staffs with what they
were fifty years ago. Progress may have been slow, but
is it not possible that it may have been sure as well ?
The suggestions of the National Committee for Poor Law
Reform would, I think, work far more effectively than the
setting up of new and non -elected authorities as a remedy
for the evils under this head to which the Majority Report
calls attention. That Committee was of opinion that the
Local Authority should be elected by those who contribute
the funds to be administered, and that the democratic prin-
ciple of elections should be preserved, but in conjunction
with effective safeguards enforced by a non -elected Central
Authority. Any disadvantages arising from a popular
electoral system might be minimized —

(a) By the authoritative publication of a clear statement
of the law — in other words, a simple and intelligible abstract
or precis of the Acts, rules, and regulations in force ;

(b) By more frequent inspection on behalf of the Central
Authority by inspectors trained in the details of administra-
tion and having a knowledge both of the law and the
economic principles which underlie it ;

(c) By the decisions of the auditor being upheld by
the Central Authority when they are found to be in accord-
ance with the law ; for the constant remission of illegal
expenditure has a demoralizing effect upon the auditors,
as well as upon the Guardians and their officials.

(d) By enforcing responsibility on all who have
sanctioned an illegal expenditure by vote or otherwise,
and not merely on those signing the cheque ;

And (e) by the appointment of relieving officers who
have previously passed an examination, both written and
oral, conducted by some qualified authority, upon the work
and duties of their office.

(c) Retirement from Office.— In order to get the best
relief administration it is desirable that a proportion only
of the members of a Board of Guardians should retire at
one time. A Board holds office for three years, and then
it must retire as a whole, but a County Council may order
that a third or as near that number as possible of the
members shall retire at the end of each year. By this
expedient continuity is secured, and a sudden change of
relief policy prevented, and it would be well if this method
of retirement was made universal.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 301

(d) Classification of Paupers by Institutions. — For many
years after the Poor Law was reformed in 1832 and work-
houses had been established, the classification of the inmates
was carried out in the workhouse itself under the orders
and regulations of the Central Authority.1

But during the last forty years great changes have taken
place. Country workhouses have become the last refuge of
many aged, non -able -bodied, and sick persons. Very few
really able-bodied persons resort to them. In the town
workhouse, where a certain number of able-bodied paupers
have to be provided for, the size of the buildings and the
separate infirmary enable these and the other classes of
inmates to be kept separate. Further, in both Urban and
Rural Unions alike, children over three years of age must
be housed in buildings separated from the workhouse
proper, where they are not already otherwise provided for
separately, and their scholastic education is now under the
control of the Education Authorities. Again, much use
is made by Boards of Guardians of special institutions
for the mentally and physically unfit, sane epileptics, the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and other special cases, while
in some parts of the countrv the Unions have combined
for the purpose of providing separate accommodation
themselves for mental defectives and sane epileptics.

But, if it is considered advisable to divide the country
into districts (not necessarilv by counties') and to set aside
as many of the Poor Law institutions in each district as
may be required for the reception of different classes of
the indoor poor chargeable to the Unions in the district,
there are ways of effecting this reform under the existing
law without any change of authoritv. But I doubt whether,
outside London, this is either advisable, necessary, econo-
mical, or in the real interest of the ordinary workhouse
inmate. For the wants of special classes of paupers, such
as the able-bodied and those above mentioned, districts
might be formed, each with much the same population,
and a bodv consisting of representatives of all the Boards
within each district, anpointed on the lines of the Metro-
politan Asylums Board, and charged with much the same
duties. At the same time, a Common Poor Fund might
be established in each district, as has been clone in London,
so as to spread the cost of the improved svstem as evenly
1 I have found it convenient to use the old term " Workhouse " instead of
" Institution " throughout this chapter.

302 SOCIAL REFORM

as possible over the whole district. This reform would,
to my mind, be more effective than any system of classifica-
tion of workhouses, as recommended in the Majority Report,
and would enable the bringing under the Poor Law (or
Public Assistance, if this term be preferred) every kind
of public relief work. If a Common Poor Fund were estab-
lished in each Poor Law district as suggested, then it could
also be credited with the Exchequer grant for distribution
among the combined Unions in accordance with fixed rules.

2. Defects for which Boards of Guardians are Respon-
sible .—Although the Poor Law orders and regulations are
very precise as to the treatment of any person after he
has once been admitted into a Poor Law institution, they
allow Boards of Guardians a fairly free hand in deciding
whether to grant indoor or outdoor relief, and as to the
amount of outdoor relief to be given. The consequence
of this is that while we find a very small variation in the
ratios of the numbers of persons in receipt of indoor relief
to population at any particular date in Unions of a similar
character, the variations in the corresponding ratios of out-
door pauperism may be very great indeed. In some Unions
the only outdoor paupers are a few in receipt of medical
relief only ; in another Union of a similar type they may
be numbered by hundreds. This difference is brought about
by different ideas as to what policy ought to be followed
in the grant of relief. One Board may act on the " work-
house test " principle, and practically offer the relief of
the " House " to every applicant ; another may cause very
careful inquiries to be made into the position, means, and
mode of life of an applicant before granting outdoor relief ;
while a third may have got into the habit of making it
the rule to grant it " because it would be so hard to
compel the applicant with his family " to come into the
workhouse, or because they labour under the entirely wrong
impression that it is the cheaper course to adopt.

Nowadays, I think, the majority of Boards of Guardians
adopt the middle course, and more and more are coming
to accept the principle that it is unjust to the ratepayers-
many of whom may be as badly off as the applicant for
relief himself — to grant relief, whether indoor or outdoor,
to any one until after the most careful inquiry and con-
sideration has been made or given as to the character of
himself and his family, as to whether the relief is really
wanted, and as to the best jorm in which to give it . Further

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 303

than this, it is becoming more general, if outdoor relief
is given, not to give it according to a fixed scale, but
to make it really adequate to relieve distress according
to the circumstances of each case.

During the last thirty years of the nineteenth century
the fight between those who held to the workhouse test
principle and those who opposed it as harsh and unjust
upon applicants for relief was a keen one, and the question
was a " hardy annual " at Poor Law Conferences. The
former could point to the great decrease of both indoor
and outdoor pauperism which had followed upon the prac-
tical abolition of outdoor relief, to the greater content of
the wage -earning classes, to the increase in the member-
ship of friendly and provident societies, and to a stirring
up of well -organized voluntary effort to help those who
might really suffer unjustly under the policy adopted. And
although there are still Unions where the relief administra-
tion is based on the opposite principle of making outdoor
relief the rule and indoor relief the exception, their number
is, as I have said, diminishing ; while those Boards which
adopt the via media policy of relief — that is, taking every
care to cause careful inquiries to be made before any relief
is granted at all, and then deciding as to whether it is
best to offer relief in the workhouse or to give outdoor
relief, and finally if outdoor relief is granted to see that
it is adequate to relieve the distress — now form the vast
majority. The statistical results of such a policy approach
very nearly to those of the " test of the workhouse " policy.
Further, because the poor themselves can and do under-
stand and appreciate it, this system of careful inquiry before
relief given is probably the wisest one to adopt at the
present day, and it has been much encouraged and sup-
ported by the orders and circulars of the Local Govern-
ment Board, which followed closely upon the Report of
the Royal Commission. Thus pay-stations have been done
away with in country Unions and any outdoor relief is taken
to the home ■ the case-paper system has been generally
established ; more care is taken in the appointment of
relieving officers ; permanent relief has been done away
with, and every case where relief is given at the home
has to be reconsidered at short intervals.

No doubt much more remains to be done by Boards of
Guardians to improve the work of relief, but it is doubtful
whether a change of authority would expedite the improve-

304 SOCIAL REFORM

ment. In many Unions it would be impossible to better
the present relief administration, and their example and
its beneficial results act as a spur to other Boards of
Guardians to follow suit. At no time in the history of the
Poor Law has more attention been given to the necessity
of close co-operation between the Poor Law and voluntary
relief agencies if the best results are to be obtained. It
is quite common now for Boards of Guardians to help
willingly in cases brought before them by such agencies, and
for these latter to take over the charge of such cases as
can be best dealt with by them. The circulars of the
Central Authority receive attention, and experience has
shown that its suggestions for improved administration are
usually accepted. In this connection due recognition must
be given to the splendid work done by the women
Guardians, whose numbers have increased steadily year by
year.1 It is to them that we owe many of the improve-
ments that have taken place in both outdoor and indoor
administration — improvements which, while they mean so
much to the recipients of poor relief, prove to be economical
in the result. I am afraid that a good many male Guardians
take little trouble to inform themselves about the law they
have to administer and the best methods of applying it ;
but the first business a woman Guardian undertakes after
election (if she has not done so before) is to get all the
information she can on the subject. The best administra-
tion of the Poor Law depends largely on details, and
attention to these is a special peculiarity and virtue of the
gentler sex.

VI. Suggested Lines of Poor Law Reform.

My readers must, I think, have already guessed what
my solution of the problem is. Believing as I do that
the present Poor Law structure, however defective it may
be in parts, has proved itself securely built, and stood
up well against the storms of criticism to which it has
been subjected from time to time, I naturally can see no
necessity for pulling it down to the ground and rebuilding
it on new lines altogether. Rather do I wish to see any
defects repaired, and certain buttresses which originally
belonged to it, but were removed, rebuilt into its walls

1 Since 1894 the number of lady Guardians has increased from 160 to nearly
T.600.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 305

Sir Arthur Dowries says the same thing in other words
in his Memorandum already referred to : "I have studied
the list of defects on which the sweeping changes originated
in the Majority Report are based. My experience con-
vinces me that there is not one which could not be met,
and I venture to say better met, by a revision, strengthen-
ing, and an extension of existing powers on lines already
established. Powers exist more elastic and more exten-
sive than the proposals of the Report, whereby any exten-
sion of area, any combination of local administration, or
any classification could be effected. Some revision or
addition of detail and a public mandate are alone needed
to set them in operation. The Report, premising that
extending areas are necessary, proposes that the future area
of local Poor Law administration shall be the county or
the county borough. The vast amount of readjustment
involved in this will be realized by those who have had
experience of the difficulties entailed. There would have
; to be no less than 225 adjustments of existing properties
J and liabilities, involving much time, trouble and expense,
and without finality being secured. Urban districts grow
into populous places and may be organized as boroughs.
; Boroughs increase in importance, and will claim to rank
; as county boroughs. Each change will necessitate further
.i adjustments, and the more complete the institutional service
provided by the administrative county from which the
population would pass, the more difficult the rearrange-
ment would become. With what confidence could institu-
tions be established for so uncertain a population ? ' The
scheme of the Report, indeed, is inconsistent with the object
J of self-contained classification, on which it is chiefly based.
There are even cases in which the area would be reduced ;
the Union of West Ham, with a population in 19 10 of
fl more than half a million, would be replaced by a county
borough of only half the population of the dissolved union,
I while the remnant would be incongruously grouped for relief
ii purposes with the sparsely peopled marshes of the coast.
" At present there are ninety-two Poor Law Unions, each
with a population of more than 100,000. Among the
administrative counties and county boroughs by which it
is proposed that these unions should be replaced, seventy-
seven only have populations exceeding 100,000. The
scheme, in fact, does not solve the problem of the great

1 Memorandum by Mr. Charles Booth.
20

3o6 SOCIAL REFORM

urban populations where necessity for reform is greatest,
while it threatens a maximum of disturbances to the rural
districts where the need is less pressing. It may, indeed,
be doubted whether many of the proposed areas would,
after all, suffice for a complete self-contained scheme of
classification ; some of them are manifestly too small for
moderate or even elementary requirements. But the
grouping of county or county boroughs would be difficult
or practically impossible in proportion to the incongruity
of social and industrial conditions and to the jealousies
of strong municipalities. And thus the problem of the
fringe of the great cities would still remain."

Sir Arthur Downes appears to support generally the
administrative proposals of Mr. Charles Booth, but it seems
to me that the scheme of the National Committee for
Poor Law Reform has many advantages if it could be
so amended as to deal satisfactorily with the size of Boards
of Guardians, and to provide for the better organization
of institutional relief by means of grouping Unions together
in larger administrative areas under bodies directly repre-
sentative of the constituent Boards in those areas. I have
already suggested how the first object might be effected.
As to the second, the Metropolitan Asylums Board has been
in existence since 1867, and has proved its ability in regard
to dealing with the sick, the mentally defective, the homeless
poor, and the vagrant. In other parts of the country
county committees have been already formed for the care
of mental defectives and vagrants under special orders of
the Local Government Board. These bodies are carry-
ing out the duties imposed upon them with great success,
and are composed entirely of Guardians appointed by their
respective Boards to serve upon them, the number of repre-
sentatives from each Union depending on its population,
or, in some cases, on its assessable value.

There is no reason why this system should not be
extended by order over the whole country, and, as in the
case of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, it might be wiell
that a certain number of additional members should be
nominated to serve on each county Joint Committee by
the Local Government Board. There would still be plenty
of work for Boards of Guardians to do ; e.g. the decision
as to how cases should be dealt with, the inquiries which
would influence this decision, and the whole control of
outdoor and ordinary indoor relief. Unnecessary work-

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 307

houses and casual wards could be done away with, and,
if thought well, classification by means of the remaining
ones carried out. In the case of a workhouse which had
been done away with in any Union, the Guardians of that
Union might, if it were necessary for good relief administra-
tion, become an outdoor relief Committee for the Union
and do all the preliminary work of deciding for what
applicants the discipline and treatment in an institution was
necessary. The principle of the Common Poor Fund, with
any necessary modifications, could be applied to each com-
bined district, as is done in London, and any Government
grants could be administered by means of it. As each
district might contain both Urban and Rural Unions, the
expenses would be fairly equalized over it.

If the result were, as it would undoubtedly be, to make
a Board of Guardians very careful in its outdoor relief
administration, this would be all to the good. If such
Joint Committees as are suggested were generally estab-
lished, it would be possible for public relief of every kind
to be placed under one Public Relief Authority. The only
possible exception, although I cannot see any good reason
for its being made, might be the granting of old age
pensions. Parliament has decided that they are not to be
considered as relief but as a right in return for national
service, just as the soldier or sailor gets his pension, and
it is perhaps too late to draw back now. But the care of
lunatics and mental defectives, of whom the vast majority
are at present chargeable to the Poor Law and proper
persons for it to deal with, the feeding and medical treat-
ment of necessitous children in the elementary schools, the
relief work now performed by the Public Health Authori-
ties, and the dealing with the unemployed and vagrants
might well be placed under their control.

The advantages of bringing all public relief under one
Central Authority are so great that it might be well to
repeal the law which disenfranchises certain classes of those
who receive it. It is well known that this law is often
broken and quite impossible to enforce completely. It is
very doubtful whether it is really preventive. But of course
the recipient of relief, if allowed to exercise the parlia-
mentary vote, would not be permitted to use it in the local
elections of the authorities from whom he receives relief.
The removal of the disqualification for the parliamentary
vote would go far to get rid of that stupid phrase " the

3o8 SOCIAL REFORM

stigma of pauperism," which sounds so grand and means
so little.

If it were thought well to substitute the words " Public
Assistance " for " Poor Relief/' by all means let it be
done. We have already " Institutions " in the place of
" Workhouses," and no one can say that they have become
more popular in consequence.

Vagrancy.

The Departmental Committee on Vagrancy, which issued
its report in February 1906, a few months after the appoint-
ment of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, recom-
mended that the care and control of vagrants should be
transferred from the Board of Guardians to the police
authorities and that detention colonies should be estab-
lished for habitual vagrants. The whole subject has been
exhaustively and well dealt with by Mr. W. H. Dawson
in his book " The Vagrancy Problem." 1 If Joint Poor
Law Committees were established, as suggested above, the
care and control of vagrants could be committed to them.
Boards of Guardians have already combined in certain parts
of the country, mainly for working what is known as the
Way and Food Ticket system which was recommended by
the Departmental Committee, and they are already seeking
powers for the sake of securing more uniformity in the
treatment of vagrants than at present exists, to enable
the shutting down of unnecessary casual wards in their
district and the spreading of the relief expenses over those
areas so that each Union, whether it has casual wards or
not, will bear its fair share of the burden. These Vagrancy
Committees would, of course, be merged in the Joint Poor
Law Committees when established. The success of this
plan has been illustrated by what has been done in London.
There the Metropolitan Asylums Board took over twenty -
four casual wards in 1 9 1 2, when the number of vagrants
relieved (1st January 191 2) was 936, and, with the assist-
ance of the Homeless Poor Committee (an Advisory Com-
mittee consisting of representatives of official bodies and
charitable agencies in the Metropolis), had by 191 6 reduced
the number of wards to seven and the number of vagrants
relieved to 108 (24th December 191 5).

It would be useful to have a penal colony under State

1 Published by P. S. King & Son, 1910.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF THE POOR LAW 309

control for detention of those vagrants who have been con-
victed of vagrancy offences — say, three or four times in
one year— the order of detention to be made by Quarter
Sessions. It is at present difficult for the police to prove
previous convictions of vagrants, so as to make the fear
of detention really deterrent, but by the introduction of
the finger-print system, as recommended by the Depart-
mental Committee, the difficulty would be removed.

Settlement and Removal.

The Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission did
not find much fault with the present system of settlement
and removal, although they thought that it could be simpli-
fied if the County and County Boroughs were made the
area for all persons, if the forms of settlement were reduced
to four — births, parentage, marriage, and residence, if the
settlement were acquired by one year's residence in the
new area, if the Local Government Board determined
all cases of disputed settlement other than those which
it considered more suitable to be decided in a court of
law, and if there were reciprocity of removal between
the United Kingdoms.

It is, I think, clear that with the substitution of
District areas for the proposed County and County Borough
areas the above suggestions could all be carried out. But
of course there are very strong arguments for doing away
with the law of removal altogether, as has been so often
recommended by experts both past and present.

Conclusion.

It has been my object in writing this article to try to
show how the English Poor Law system might be
strengthened and fortified, while leaving it still subject
to democratic control as at present. On the whole, Boards
of Guardians do their work well with the help of good
officers. They would be assisted to do their work better,
in my opinion, if the combinations of Boards were carried
out as suggested. I believe that this moderate reform
would work economically because it would bring all public
relief work under one authority, instead of under different
authorities, and I do not think that anything more is
wanted. There are of course many questions which space

310 SOCIAL REFORM

does not allow me to deal with, but they could be worked
easily into the framework. The better organization of
charitable effort is outside the purview of my article, but
it is of course absolutely necessary that, in this case, the
one hand should know what the other doeth. The better
charity is organized, the more easy will it be to secure
that close co-operation between public and private effort,
between legal and voluntary charity, which will ensure the
best relief work.

Those who now abuse our Poor Law system, which
curiously enough has been so praised by foreign critics
of our institutions — and outsiders are said to see most of
the game — are those who know least about it and the
work it has to do. One must always remember that the
Poor Law is the Cinderella of the social family. It has
to deal with cases such as no other body or organization
will touch. This is often forgotten. It is often said that
the Poor Law is only repressive and not preventive, that
it can only relieve the destitute and not the poor. But
the word " Destitution " has a much more extensive mean-
ing. As pointed out in the Circular of the Local Govern-
ment Board of the 1 8th March 1910 on the administration
of outdoor relief, " a person may be destitute in respect of
the want of some particular necessity of life without being
destitute in all respects, as, for instance, a person who is
not destitute in the sense that he is entirely devoid of the
means of subsistence may yet be destitute in that he is
unable to provide for himself the particular form of medical
attendance or treatment of which he is in urgent need."
This shows, I think, what a power of prevention is placed
in the hands of Poor Law administrators.

I venture to say that our Poor Law institutions, taken
as a whole, will bear the closest inspection. I only wish
that the general public knew more about them. If they
did, the attacks made upon the system would become very
feeble. The system is fundamentally a sound one, and
I believe that it has helped to preserve " the liberty of the
subject " in a way which those who believe in the thing
often do not appreciate. Only those who love bureau-
cratic interference with this liberty are really its foes.

NATIONAL FINANCE AND
TAXATION

CHAPTER XVIII

National Taxation after the War

/. THE APPROPRIATE DISTRIBUTION
OF ITS BURDEN

By Professor ALFRED MARSHALL

ASPIRATIONS for social betterment, which were growing fast
before the war, have been strengthened by the community
of life of men of all classes in the trenches. But their
development and realization, when the war has passed and
its debris have cleared away, will be to some extent
hampered by the destruction of capital and the necessity
for raising a very Targe public Revenue to pay interest on
the National Debt and for other purposes. The aim of
this chapter is to inquire how that revenue may be
obtained with the least hardship and the least waste.

It is concerned almost exclusively with the economic
aspects of the problem. But Adam Smith's enthusiastic
loyalty to the British race led him to the daring proposal,
that when the British Colonies in North America had over-
taken and surpassed the Mother Country in wealth and
strength, the seat of the Central Government of the Empire
should migrate across the Atlantic. And a humble follower
of his may venture to apply his principles to the new
problems, which have arisen out of the co-operation of
Britain's remaining Dependencies with her in resistance to
Germany's truculent execution of the long -prepared assault
on the liberties of her neighbours.

i. Britain's diminished resources and increased burden of

TAXATION AFTER THE WAR.

Before the war Britain had exceptional freedom in her
choice of taxes : she did not need to force any of them

313

3M NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

up to a point at which its pressure would be very painful.
But after the war she must force many of those taxes,
which she has judged to be most suitable to her conditions,
up to points at which their pressure will cause consider-
able hurt, both direct and indirect. In order to keep this
hurt within moderate limits, she must make some use of
other taxes, which are less suitable to her conditions, and
are technically inferior to those which used to suffice for
her needs.

It is true that the increased energy of all, and the
increased economy of many, have enabled her to obtain
from her own people nearly all the funds that she has
needed for the war on her own account, as distinguished
from those which she has incurred on behalf of her Allies
and Dependencies. But this vast internal borrowing is
not merely a transfer from one hand to another ; pro-
ductive capital has been converted into appliances
for destroying the enemy and saving' Britain, and
indeed the civilized world, from calamity. The conver-
sion was inevitable, but the fact must be faced that
it involves the destruction of a vast amount of
capital, that would otherwise have been available for
production.

This capital has been annexed for the war, partly by
the sale of securities in neutral markets ; partly by the
depletion of the stocks of goods held abroad at the charge
of British exporters and others ; partly by suspension of
the normal replacement of wear and tear of business plant
of all kinds, including such things as railway rolling stock ;
of domestic appliances of all sorts and of houses, buildings,
etc. In addition to these direct losses the country is poorer
than she otherwise would have been by the savings which
she normally devotes to investments abroad, and to ex-
tending her own stock of material capital — fixed and
movable of all kinds. But against this must be put the
value for peace purposes of buildings, etc., set up for
the purposes of the war ; and that of the products avail-
able for home consumption or for the export trade,
which are due to the increased energies of men and
women, working under the stimulus of their country's
need.1

1 The energies of munition-workers, like those of actual combatants, yield
their fruits in making for victory ; and their products do not enter into the calcu-
lation here. But reckoning has already been made for all the expense to which

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 315

If we look beyond material wealth, something must be
allowed for the new energy, the new perception of the
importance and the methods of organization and
standardization, which we have acquired. On the other
hand, the loss of the multitudes of men in the prime of
life, who are dead or maimed, is a destruction of national
capital.

It is not possible to forecast the national Revenue that
must be raised after the war from sources thus narrowed.
But it will certainly be more than £111.400 ; that
is, more than twice as much as before the war, and
possibly much more. By far the greater part of any
indemnity which can be got from the impoverished Central
Powers will go to the desolated provinces of Belgium,
France, Serbia, Poland, and Rumania ; and the expenses
of demobilization will absorb a great part of the value
of the Government property set up during the war. The
National Debt, Funded and Unfunded, at the end of the war
may therefore be taken provisionally at £m. 3,000 (i.e. three
thousand million pounds) ; it seems likely to exceed that
sum. The interest on this at 5 per cent, will be £111.150.
The expenditure on the services of defence on the sea and
under the sea, on the land and in the air, seem unlikely to
be less than £m.ioo: they were £111.77 in l9!3~l4-
Under ordinary conditions 2 per cent, of the Debt ought
to be paid off annually if the country is to be in a good
position to meet any emergencies that may arise during
the next fifty years ; but as £111.45 are expected to be
needed for war pensions, which are in effect but partial
repayments of obligations that the country has incurred
towards those who have fought for her, it may be suffi-
cient to set aside £m.8o for pensions, together with repay-
ment of the Debt ; the pensions will of course gradually
dwindle as the beneficiaries pass away. If this is done
bravely and steadfastly, and peace is preserved, the Debt
may be converted to a 4^ per cent, or even a 4 per cent,
basis. We will assume the charges for interest on it to
fall to 4^ per cent. — i.e. £111.135. On tnis basis the

the Government has been put in paying their wages and salaries and in pro-
viding for their needs ; and therefore we must not count the whole value of
the services, which they would have rendered in time of peace, as lost by the
war : we must count only the excess of the value of those services over the
wages and other payments which would have been made in connection with
them, if peac« had been unbroken.

316 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

Revenue needed for expenses connected with war will be
£m. 135 + 100 -f 80— i.e. Jim.315.1

There must be further added £1x1.75 at least for net
expenditure on services other than those of Defence and
the Debt, as in 191 3-14. One item of this amount was
£m.io, paid over to Local Taxation account. Nearly
£m.4o were taken by the " Social Services " — Education,
Old Age Pensions, Labour Exchanges, etc. ; whereas five
years earlier they claimed only half that sum. Their just
demands will not shrink ; they will increase continuously.
A small portion of the £1x1.390 thus reached will be
covered, as before, by income from Crown Lands, etc. ;
but, on the other hand, the expenses of collecting the
Revenue from taxes, etc., will increase with their volume.
Thus we must frankly face the fact that, even if hostilities
cease in the autumn of 1 9 1 7 , our taxes will be required to
yield more than twice the greatest Revenue hitherto
obtained from them in the past. If things go badly, very
much more than this will be needed.

The brilliant, though gravely chequered, success which
the Government has attained during the war in the direction
and control of some industries has fostered the fond
imagination that Government business may be a source
of large Revenue. But it is to be remembered that many
of those business men, as well as those scientific experts,
whose energy, ability, and strength of character best fit
them to direct great undertakings and pioneer new ways,
are now in the service of Government ; and many of the
rest are giving some of their best energies and resources,
for little or no remuneration, to the Government ; and their
imported energy has swept away the cobwebs of many
Government Departments. Also the Government has reaped
the economics of massive standardized production by
numerous unskilled workers, guided by a relatively small
number of skilled workers, on a scale which had never been
approached till within the last two years in any country in
the world. But all this affords no indication that it is likely
to pioneer progress and economy in industry an time of peace
by superseding independent industry.

When considering the real burden that will be thus
imposed on the country in the future, something must be

1 The fabove1 account omits the ^m.24 spent on Postal services in 1913-14 :
for they more than paid their'.way, and they may be made a source of additional
net revenue'after the war.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 317

said as to the probable future of prices. The rise in
prices during the war has been caused partly by bad
harvests ; partly by the destruction of factories and the
closing of mines, etc., in Belgium and elsewhere, and by
the destruction and internment of ships, etc. ; and partly
by purely monetary causes. Gold has been sent to America
and other neutral countries, and has stimulated a rise of
prices there ; while in some of the countries at war there
has been a greatly extended use of paper currencies and
cheques. Also the feverish urgency of the demand for the
necessaries of war has raised money wages, and thus stimu-
lated a rise of prices.

Peace will bring prices down : but probably not to their
old level. In that case Government will have to pay more
money than before for goods and for services. But the
money incomes, and the money values of things on which
taxes are levied, will be higher also: and as the money pay-
able as interest on the Debt will not be increased, the burden
on the Exchequer will be rather less than if prices fell.
On the other hand, a continued rise of prices would tend
to sustain a high rate of interest and to increase the diffi-
culty of converting the Debt on the basis of lower rates
than those at which it has been incurred.

2. A SEARCH FOR THE LEAST DETRIMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE
FUTURE HEAVY BURDEN OF TAXATION.

Until recently " equity " was thought an adequate guide
in the philosophy of taxation : and it was generally con-
sidered equitable that every one should contribute " on
the joint -stock plan " to the expenses of the State in pro-
portion to the income (or, as was sometimes said, the
property) which he enjoyed under it. But further con-
sideration showed that while a joint -stock company has
no responsibility for the number of shares which each
individual holds in it, the duty of the State is of larger
scope. For equity proceeds on the basis of existing rights,
as generally recognized: and, though a joint-stock com-
pany must accept them as final, the State is under obligation
to go behind them ; to inquire which of them are based
on convention or accident rather than fundamental moral
principle ; and to use its powers for promoting such
economic and social adjustments as will make for the well-
being of the people at large. A chief place among those

318 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

powers is held by its control of the distribution of the
burden of taxation. The notion that this distribution should
be governed by mere equity remained dominant till late
in the nineteenth century ; but, when the war began, the
tide was in full swing towards the notion that the problem
is one of constructive ethics ; though, of course, on its
technical side it calls for careful economic and political
thought.

This new notion is indeed largely based on observations
which were certainly made two thousand years ago, and
probably much earlier, that the happiness of the rich does
not exceed that of the poor nearly in proportion to the
difference in their commands of material wealth. Sages
have indeed frequently asserted that happiness is a product
of healthy activity, family affection, and content ; and that
it is as often to be found in the cottage as in the mansion.
But yet a lack of the necessaries of life causes positive
suffering, which transcends in a way the lack of happi-
ness ; and therefore taxes, which trench on the necessaries
of life at the command of any stratum of sober, hard-
working people, stand in a class by themselves.

Again, though the upper strata of society do not enjoy
an excess of happiness over the lower strata at all pro-
portionate to their superiority in incomes, yet almost every
one derives considerable pleasure from an increase of his
income, and suffers annoyance from its diminution. For
the increase gratifies, and the diminution disappoints, the
hope of some enjoyment or of some ambition which is
near in sight. In the one case the man feels himself
rising in that social stratum to which he is accustomed :
the stratum which knows him, and which he knows ; the
stratum whose wants and thoughts and aspirations are
kindred to his own. A clerk is made proud and happy
when he can move from a working-class quarter to one
in which untidy clothes are not seen ; but he does not fret
at being unable to move into a fashionable quarter: he
is grieved if unable to take his family to the seaside for
their wonted two or three weeks ; but he does not greatly
repine at being unable to travel round the world.

These considerations point to the conclusion that, while
anti-social excess in the consumption of alcohol by any
class is rightly subject to heavier taxation, those who apply
practically the whole of a very small family income to
good uses should make little or no net contribution to

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 319

the Revenue. It will not be possible to exempt from taxa-
tion all the things consumed by them : but the greater
part of what they contribute directly to the Exchequer
should be returned to them indirectly by generous expendi-
ture from public funds, imperial and local, for their special
or even exclusive benefit. The ever-growing outlay on
popular education, old age pensions, insurance, etc., is
an expression of the public conscience needed to palliate
extreme inequalities of wealth, while yet enabling even
the poorest class of genuine workers to remain full, free
citizens, with a direct interest in public finance. Their
life is an integral part of the national life. If all were
equal in wealth and other matters, national life would be
something more than the aggregate of the lives of its
individual members, and all would need to make sacri-
fices for it. As things are, while all must suffer, and
if needs be die, in time of war for the national life ; the
purses of the well-to-do alone can be expected to con-
tribute largely to its expenses in time of peace. To do
so is merely good business : it is not charity.

We may not shut our eyes to the fact that though as
much personal hurt is caused by taking £1,000 from an
income of £10,000 as by taking £20 from an income of
£200 — a matter on which opinions differ — yet the hurt
caused by obtaining £1,000 of additional Revenue by means
of levies of £20 from each of fifty incomes of £200 is
unquestionably greater than that caused by taking it from
a single income of £10,000. For the fact is becoming
ever more prominent to the minds of those who are not
specially well-to-do ; and it may be a source of some
peril to the country, especially in view of the large Revenue
that will be needed after the war, unless careful account
be taken of the extent to which excessive taxes on capital
react indirectly on the people at large. While special pro-
vision is made for those whose incomes fall short of the
necessaries of life and vigour, every one else must bear a
considerable share of the national burdens ; but the shares
must be graduated very steeply.

We shall see that this can be effected only by a very
large use of taxes on income and property. No approach
towards it has been attained by taxes on particular com-
modities ; for indeed many such taxes press with the
heaviest weight on the poorest classes, and with no appre-
ciable weight on the rich ; while those which fall chiefly

320 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

on the consumption of the rich have never been made to
yield any large Revenue.

3. Extensions of the graduation of the income-tax.

In earlier times nearly the whole of most people's
incomes was derived from operations known to their neigh-
bours, and a large understatement of income was not likely
to escape detection. But modern methods of investment
and other causes had made it almost impossible to detect
fraudulent understatements, until the plan, now familiar,
was adopted of taxing at the source all British corporate
incomes ; while incomes from Stock exchange securities
issued abroad are now in effect brought under the same
discipline by aid of the agencies of the money market.
This has enabled the Inland Revenue officials to give most
of their attention to the intricacies of small private
businesses, a task in which their methods have greatly
improved. Thus the percentage of income demanded by
the tax rose long ago much above that which it had
originally been thought possible to charge with tolerable
safety, unless during the emergency of a war ; and yet
the evasions are believed to have become relatively small.
This plan, however, increases the difficulties of direct
graduation of the burden of the tax: so recourse is now
had to the indirect method of allowing certain abatements
to be made from small incomes before they are assessed
to the tax.

In order to carry the graduation above the limit at which
no abatement was made a Super-tax was introduced in
1909, surcharging all very large incomes. The collec-
tion of that tax derives little aid from the practice of
charging at the source ; but, as the number of incomes
which come under it is small, the officials can give a
good deal of time to each of them. The great increases
in the income-tax and Super-tax levied during the war,
together with the Excess-profits-tax, while throwing no
direct light on the probable course of taxation after the
war, suggest a hope that the various advances towards
graduation made before it, will be sustained and developed
after it. In so far as the graduation is effected by abate-
ments, people have a direct interest in submitting state-
ments of their incomes in detail to the income-tax officials :
and in this way graduation tends to promote the accuracy
of income-tax returns and to diminish evasions.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 321

The exceptional power of adjustment to special con-
ditions possessed by the income-tax extends some way in
the direction of taking account of the fact that two persons
with equal incomes may have to bear very unequal burdens.
Thus insurance premiums are deducted, subject to certain
conditions, from income before taxation : and some further
deductions, which might advantageously be enlarged, are
made on account of young children. There is much to be
said for the present plan of regarding the incomes of
husband and wife as a single unit for taxation : but the
charge levied on that unit should be less than if it had to
support only one person.

This inequality between the burdens of taxation on two
persons with equal incomes, but unequal responsibilities,
extends below the income-tax paying class ; but it is only
in that class that a direct remedy is in sight. Among the
working classes especially an unmarried man is likely to
consume highly taxed alcohol and tobacco in greater quan-
tities than a married man with an equal income ; but in
regard to most taxed commodities the married man's
expenditure is likely to be the larger. It is true that
the married operative is likely to derive more aid than
the unmarried from public expenditures on health insurance
and on schools. But unfortunately, though the education
given by the subsidized schools is often at least as good
as that afforded by relatively expensive private schools,
even the lower middle classes are induced by convention
to hold aloof from them in this country.

If it were possible to exempt from the income-tax that
part of income which is saved, to become the source of
future capital, while leaving property to be taxed on
inheritance and in some other ways ; then an income-tax
graduated with reference to its amount, and the number
of people who depended for their support on each income,
would achieve the apparently impossible result of being
a graduated tax on all personal expenditure. Rich and
poor alike would be left to select those uses of their incomes
which suited them best, without interference from the State,
except in so far as any particular form of expenditure might
be thought specially beneficial, or specially detrimental, to
public interests. The income-tax would then levy the same
percentage on the rich man's expenditure on coarse tea
and on fine tea, on bread and on expensive food ; and
a higher percentage on each than on the poor man's ex-

322 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

penditure on anything, unless it be alcohol and tobacco.
The way to this ideal perfection ;is difficult ; but it is more
clearly marked than in regard to most Utopian goals.

In pursuing it a watchful eye must of course be kept
on the danger that excessive taxes on large incomes may
check energy and enterprise. It is true that a man of
high genius and originating faculty often values his gains
less for their own sake, than for the evidence which they
afford to himself and others of eminent power. His
energy would not be much affected by a tax which lowered
his share, provided it did not put him at a disadvantage
relatively to others. The zeal of a yachtsman in a race
is not lessened whan an unusually unfavourable tide retards
the progress of all ; and so the business man of high
faculty would not be much less eager for success, if taxa-
tion took from him and his compeers a considerable
portion of . their gains.

But the average man desires wealth almost exclusively for
its own sake ; though some little introspection might suggest
to him that what he really cares for is an increase in wealth
relatively to his neighbours : and thus the problems of a
steeply graduated income-tax run into those of graduated
taxes on capital.

4. Limitations of the scope of taxes on capital.

Heavy taxes on capital, of course, tend to check its
growth and to accelerate its emigration. It is to Britain's
credit that she was able to export a great deal of it before
the war : but, if her factories had been equipped with as
generous a supply of machinery as those of America, her
industries would probably have been more productive than
they were ; and if she is to hold her place in the van
of industry after the war, she will need much new capital
for her own use. Her natural resources, except in coal
and a favourable coastline, are small ; and a chief cause
of the superiority of the wages of her workpeople over
those in other countries of Europe has been the fact that
her businesses could obtain the necessary supply of capital
at lower charges than anywhere else. Therefore taxes on
capital must be handled with caution.

So far as the rights of property have a " natural " and
" indefeasible " basis, the first place is to be attached to
that property which any one has made or honestly acquired
by his own labour-. But the right thus earned does not

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 323

automatically pass to his heirs : the tardy development of
steeply graduated duties on inheritance (or " Death
Duties ") has approved itself increasingly to the ethical
conscience and to the practical counsels of administration :
and this in spite of the fact that such taxes are generally
paid out of capital, for the heir seldom sets apart a sinking
fund out of his income. There are considerable evasions,
some technically valid, and others not ; but they are said
to be less than had been anticipated. The annoyance which
a man feels on reflecting that his heirs will inherit some-
what less than he has owned does not seem to affect con-
duct much ; and perhaps some part of the Revenue needed
after the war, in excess of that before it, may be safely
got by a moderate increase of these duties.

A man's - unearned " income may be derived from
inherited property, or from the fruits of his own labour.
Partly because earned income is likely to be subject to
heavy demands in making provision for dependents, it is
reasonably assessed to income-tax at lower rates than un-
earned income. So far all seems well. But a graduated
income-tax falls short of attaining the great ideal of being
a graduated tax on lavish " expenditure," because it is
levied on what a man saves as well as on what he spends.

The '•- expenditure " which is contrasted with saving is,
of course, expenditure for immediate personal consump-
tion on commodities and services of all kinds ; for that
part of an income which is " saved " is spent, if not
by the person who saves, yet by those to whom he hands
over its use in return for promised income. Thus all is
spent ; but that part which is spent for personal consumption
disappears soon after it is taxed, and that part which is
turned into income-yielding capital is taxed again fully in
the long run.1

The duty of each generation to those which are to follow
is as urgent as that of the rich to consent to surrender a
more than proportionate contribution from their incomes to
the national purse ; ethical considerations and those of high
policy make alike for the preservation of the capital that is
needed to sustain the strength of a country in peace and
when assailed by hostile aggression.

1 Suppose a tax of, say, a shilling in the pound is levied permanently on all
income, and ^1,000 saved yields, say, 4 per cent, permanently : then that .£40
of annual income will yield permanently £2 as tax : and the present value of
that permanent yield will be ^50 — the exact amount of the original tax,

324 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

Finally, a remark may be made, somewhat dogmatically,
on a rather abstruse point, which cannot be fully discussed
here. It is, that if a great part of the Revenue is derived
from taxes on commodities consumed by the people, then
either the standard of living of the people must be lowered,
or the taxes must ultimately be paid by their employers ;
therefore it must in the main fall on the income obtained
from the use of capital in business. In so far as it does
this, it will tend to drive away capital nearly as much
as a tax on income derived from capital would, and even
more than a tax on all considerable incomes, including
those that are earned by professional men and salaried
business officials. All taxes, unless they are so spent as
directly to increase efficiency, tend in the same direction.

5. A STEEPLY GRADUATED HOUSE DUTY AND SOME MINOR TAXES.

A house is in some sense a single commodity ; but,
subject to exception for the differing needs of large and
small families, expenditure on it bears a much more nearly
uniform relation to total expenditure than does that on
any other commodity. The furniture of a house is not
liable to taxation as such ; but, in fact, expenditure on
furniture varies nearly uniformly with the rental value of
the house : both rise automatically with increase in its
size, its appointments, and the attractions which its situa-
tion offers to well-to-do people. Rich people with small
families select well-appointed houses in expensive neigh-
bourhoods ; poorer people with large families go where
accommodation is cheap. Taxes on houses are collected
cheaply and without evasion, and they can be graduated
at will.

Unfortunately, taxes on immovable property have been
taken over in the main by local authorities : and high
local rates are very unpopular ; for, at all events, iwhen
they are to be spent largely on purposes that do not
increase the special attractions of a locality, they are thought
to put it at a relative disadvantage. But this objection
would not lie against a heavy national Inhabited House
tax, graduated more finely and more steeply than the
present. It would somewhat relieve the pressure of taxa-
tion on income ; and it would escape the charge, that is
levied even against a graduated income-tax, of being a
double tax on savings.

Corresponding taxes on hotels, restaurants, etc., graduated

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 325

very gently, could be so arranged as neither to increase nor
diminish the relative attractions of the substitutes which
they offer for the conveniences of private domestic life.

A house-tax is in some degree a tax on domestic
servants ; but in the hard times coming, and in view of
the importance of setting labour as much as possible to
productive work, there should be a tax on domestic
servants ; it should be very high in the case of male
servants, and graduated steeply according to their numbers.
One female servant might be free from tax, a second taxed
lightly : and abatements of the tax might be allowed,
adjusted to the number of the family to whose needs they
administer.

A graduated tax on motor-cars has some of the advan-
tages of a graduated tax on houses. And if the gradua-
tion can be adjusted with reference to possible speed, rather
than horse -power (in spite of the technical difficulties in
the way) it may render a great social service : for a fast
motor which goes thirty miles in an hour on a dusty road
causes great discomfort to many people. The suggestion
that pleasure derived from a display of wealth can be
made a source of revenue without considerably injuring
those who are taxed, may appear Utopian : but it deserves
some consideration.1

Akin to this matter is the taxation of advertisements.
Every increase in the many millions of square inches
covered by the advertisements which are set up annually,
diminishes the chance that an advertisement which occu-
pies only a few square inches will attract attention : and
a tax whicti somewhat lessened the total area of advertise-
ments would economize paper, bring in some revenue, and
do no great harm either to advertisers or those who cater
for them. If the tax did slightly check the growing influ-
ence of the advertisement manager in the counsels of
periodical literature, that might be for the public good.

1 A person who locks up £3,000 in diamonds obtains whatever social prestige
may attach to the power of holding, in a sterile form, wealth that might yield,
say, £120 in income. Now if a tax of 2 per cent, were imposed on the
capital value of diamonds, the same social prestige would be derived from
diamonds worth £2,000 (for that would involve a locking up of £2,000 of capital,
at a sacrifice of £80 of income, together with a payment of £40 in taxes) ; and
the smaller stock of diamonds would be nearly as beautiful as the larger. A
small amount of jewellery might be tax-free : but lists of all taxes on it collected
in each locality would be published in local newspapers ; and some persons
might be tempted to overstate rather than understate their holdings of it.

326 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

6. Tendency to inverse graduation of the burden of
taxes on commodities.

Every tax which has been so far considered is econo-
mical in operation ; because it is collected " direct " from
the person who is destined to bear nearly its whole burden,
or from bankers and other agents acting under precise
contract on his behalf. It is true that taxes on houses
and (license) taxes on motor-cars, collected from those
who are using them, will in some measure be shifted back-
wards on to houseowners, and the building and the motor
industries ; but that is a relatively small matter. On the
other hand, the ordinary commodities, with which we are
now to be concerned, are not sufficiently prominent and
permanent to be conveniently taxed when in the hands of
the users : they can be taxed only when they are accessible
in the mass ; that isj, in the hands of producers or traders.
Every such tax tends to be shifted forwards on to the users,
together with the profits of traders ; and, in case it is
collected from producers, with their profits also : it is
therefore wasteful. Taxes on things that pass through the
hands of several groups of trades are generally very wasteful.

There are a few things, such as commercial papers,
deeds, patent medicines, etc., which can be required to
carry stamps as indications that they have paid taxes. But,
as a rule, Revenue officials can secure the payment of the
proper tax on a home -produced commodity only by re-
quiring that all the processes of its production shall be
so conducted as to facilitate their inspection. This can be
done in regard to alcoholic liquors ; because the processes
of manufacture are fairly simple, definite, uniform, and
stable ; and they can conveniently be concentrated in a
comparatively small number of places. Also the tax can
reasonably be made to yield so much Revenue, that the
cost of inspection is a relatively small matter.

There is no other commodity of which the same can be
said. Excise officers, who should undertake to control the
production and sale of things, which are made in whole
or in part by innumerable businesses scattered over the
country, could not attain tolerable success even at vast
expenditure. But so few are now the ports and the frontier
stations of international railways, at which Customs officers
have to make elaborate arrangements for inspecting im-
ported goods, that their task is relatively easy. Thus

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 327

commodities of all kinds, whether entering the country in
small or large quantities, whether completely manufactured
goods or half -finished products to be used in manufac-
turing, are taxed without difficulty at the frontier : but
most of them could not be taxed with ease or certainty
if produced at home. Hence it arises that the problem
of Revenue from taxes on particular commodities after the
war resolves itself in great measure into the problem of
the new international relations which the war will have
brought about ; they will be considered later on.

But a little may be said here as to the general tendency
of taxes on particular commodities to be graduated in-
versely. They are apt to fall on things which absorb a
larger percentage of the expenditure of the poorer classes
than of the richer ; and they are apt to be larger per-
centages of the values of a thing consumed by the poorer
classes than of the corresponding thing consumed by the
richer. This double wrong is for the greater part due to
causes deep-set in the nature of things, though some of
it could be avoided.

In this connection Customs and Excise duties may be
treated together. The British Revenue from both comes
almost exclusively from alcohol, tobacco, tea, coffee, cocoa,
and sugar (a considerable number of the smaller Customs
duties, such as those on preserved milk and fruit, are in
effect taxes on the sugar contained in otherwise innocent
products) . Now every one of these six things absorbs
a much larger part of the income of the working classes
than of the rich : and the finer and costlier sorts of each
are, with but few and small exceptions, taxed at nearly the
same rate per pound or gallon as the cheaper sorts, thus
effecting a double inverse graduation of the burden
of taxation.1

1 It is sometimes argued that the taxes on the things consumed by the indoor
servants of a rich man are really paid by him. But the wages, including food,
etc., which he pays, are governed by those earned in other employments by
people of equal capacities with those servants, allowances being made for a
certain loss of personal freedom and other incidentals. Therefore the servants
in effect pay taxes on such amounts of these things as are commonly paid by
other people in their class. In so far, however, as the remuneration, which they
receive in return for their loss of personal freedom, is likely to include larger
consumption of these things than is usual in their class, the employer may be
considered as paying the taxes on that extra consumption. Of course he pays
any excess of the rates on parts of the house allotted to their use, over those
which they would be likely to pay on their houseroom if not in domestic
service,

328 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

To go into some detail. It is very difficult to assess
spirituous liquors to taxation in proportion to the subtler
excellences of which, individual taste is the arbiter: so
the taxes on beer and spirits are graduated chiefly in
regard to their alcoholic strength, and add a much higher
percentage to the cost of the poor man's drink than of
the rich man's. This cannot easily be avoided. But wine
is distinctly a thing for the well-to-do : and yet, unless it
contains much alcohol, it is charged only about two -thirds
as much again as the cheapest beer ; that is, the per-
centage charge on the drink of the well-to-do is much
less than on the poor man's. This inverse graduation seems
a great evil, even though it may have been caused partly
by the exigencies of tariff negotiations with wine -producing
countries.

The duties on the most costly wines are only a minute
percentage on their value ; but this inequality cannot easily
be remedied without opening the door to fraud and con-
tention. Similarly cigars, which may be retailed at a
shilling apiece or more, pay only about half as much again
per pound as the cheapest tobacco, and only a quarter
as much again as the cheapest cigarettes. Again, tea
which is retailed at 4s. a pound pays only the same tax as
that consumed by the mass of the people : but the average
import price of all teas in normal times is not much more
than 6d. The adjustment of such taxes at the high per-
manent levels which may probably be necessary after the
war, is likely to afford an additional motive, as well as
a convenient opportunity, for redressing this injustice.

Germany's grasping at selfish gains by violent and
oblique methods is undermining the sources of her power
and causing her to be distrusted. In the past Britain has
striven to deserve to be trusted : and it is more incum-
bent on her, even than on others, to reject selfish and
fleeting gains, when they can be got only by methods
which are not worthy of her best self. Whatever makes
for the cohesion of the British Empire, and of the great
Alliance which has been recently strengthened, and purified
in blood, is to be sought with solid resolution. Whatever
is directly needed for hindering the recrudescence of
Germany's ambition to rule by terror over Central Europe
is both right and prudent. But the more any such measures
tend to our own aggrandizement, the more jealously should
they be scanned by us. Fiscal arrangements that injure

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 329

Germany, without permanently increasing our defensive
position against her, are certainly not in the interests of
the coming generation.

II. TAXES ON IMPORTS:
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

So far taxation has been regarded almost exclusively as
a means of raising Revenue under the difficult conditions
which the war is creating. But a tax on the importation
of anything which can be produced at home acts in pro-
tection of the corresponding home industry, unless it is
balanced by an equivalent tax on domestic products : and
if the tax is levied unequally on similar products coming
from different sources, it becomes what is commonly, though
inaccurately, called a Preferential tax. In either case, but
more especially in the latter, political considerations are
intermingled with those which are " economic " in the
narrower uses of the term ; and sometimes even they get
the upper hand. The war has developed a new political
situation. It has greatly affected international sentiments :
and it has forced even those, whose detestation of war is
the most intense, to recognize that industry and trade can
no longer be regarded only as handmaids of life ; for
they are likely to be used by a strong and resolute military
Power as pioneers of destruction and death.

It may therefore be right to take some measures, which
are not appropriate to ordinary conditions, in order to
lessen the ability of a determined enemy to destroy,
especially if that can be achieved by methods that will
disincline him for war. This is not to inculcate hatred or
revenge, which indeed indicate small natures : and still
less to advocate policies that increase his animosity, with-
out materially diminishing his chance of success in war ;
for that were folly.

Unfortunately the experience of many centuries shows
that a policy, which will confer a considerable benefit on
each of a compact group of traders or producers, will
often be made to appear to be in the interest of the nation ;
because the hurt wrought by it, though very much greater
in the aggregate than the gain resulting from it, is so
widely diffused that no set of people are moved to devote
much time and energy to making a special study of it.

330 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

Its advocates speak with zeal and the authority of expert
knowledge. But they are bad guides, even if unselfish and
perfectly upright : for a policy that makes for their peculiar
profit is invested in their eyes with a deceptive glamour.

i. General characteristics of taxes on imports.

It has just been indicated that the expense and the
interference with industry which are involved in Excise
duties, such as those levied on alcoholic liquors, cannot
be extended to commodities in general without adminis-
trative measures which would be intolerably vexatious to
home industries. Import duties on such things as tea and
tobacco yield as net Revenue to the State nearly the whole
of the money which they take from the people : and so
do taxes on imported alcoholic liquors, balanced as they
are by similar taxes on like home products.

But a tax on any imported product, which is not balanced
by a corresponding tax on similar domestic products, is
a differential tax : and is therefore wasteful. The objec-
tion to it does not arise, as is sometimes thought, from
the fact that it is a tax on an import : on the contrary,
that fact tells in its favour. It is open to objection only
on the ground that it is a discriminating or differential tax.
Every such tax is necessarily wasteful if it involves the
diversion of demand from an easier to a more difficult
source of supply : though, of course, it may have political
or even indirect economic advantages which outweigh that
waste.

The waste may be illustrated by a simple case. Freshly
quarried building stones are often soft, and can be worked
roughly into shapes for their final use with but little effort.
The Masons Union at one time insisted that all the shaping
work should be done at the point at which a stone was to
be used ; thus doubling or trebling the effort and therefore
the cost of the rough part of the work. That rule in
effect imposed a differential tax on the most efficient method
of production : and the general objection to an import
duty levied on things which can be obtained from abroad
more easily than they can be produced at home is that it
raises the total cost to the people of their supplies of that
thing, while the Revenue reaps comparatively little gain
from their sacrifices. The Exchequer, with hunger but
little appeased, is likely to attack other imports, and perhaps
earn even less in proportion from them ; and so on,

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 331

It is important to reflect that a duty on any import
prejudices in some degree, not only those who desire the
foreign product for any reason, but also all those who
are engaged in production for export. Other tilings being
equal (these words are dominant), a diminution by £10,000
of the imports which any merchant finds it advantageous
to make into Britain diminishes the demand for bills on
other countries to the amount of about £10,000. That is
to say, it tends to cause British producers for exportation,
together with the shipowning and other mercantile houses
associated with them, to curtail operations to the extent
of about £10,000. A tax on imports which rival the
products of a British industry doubtless increases its
activity ; enables it to give increased employment, tem-
porary or permanent, to the working classes and others ;
and increases its command of the economies of production
on a large scale. But at the same time it tends to diminish
to about the same extent the activity of other British in-
dustries : and it narrows, temporarily or permanently, the
range of the employment which they afford, and their
command of the economies of production on a large scale.
This statement is constantly called in question ; but never
when full account is taken of the condition " other things
being equal."

The argument that taxes on a country's imports tend to
alter the terms on which she obtains them, slightly in her
favour, deserves more consideration : but it will be found
to be of little importance in regard to general trade, except
in the case of a country nearly the whole of whose exports
are without effective rivals anywhere else. There are, how-
ever, a few cases in which a great part of the burden of
an import duty can be thrown on the foreigner : and,
though they amount to very little in the aggregate,
something must be said of them . 1

If one country is the chief consumer of a thing for
which another has special natural advantages, a tax on it

1 It must, however, be admitted that there is no adequate basis for the
argument sometimes put forward, that since merchants are not generally willing
to accept a lower net price, after paying freights, taxes, and all other costs in one
country than another, therefore consumers in a country which levies a tax on
an import must pay that tax in full. For this argument neglects the fact that the
general purchasing power of money in a country with high import duties is
lowered by those duties ; so that the real values that her people give in return
for the foreign goods which they consume are a little lower than is suggested by
the prices which they pay.

332 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

may cause the exporters to continue to work at barely
remunerative prices rather than lose their market. Such
cases are rare, and not important. But it often happens
that, when producers in one country have set themselves
to cater for the special requirements of another, and to
build up commercial connections with her, they will go
a long way towards meeting any import duty that
is suddenly sprung on them, until they have made other
arrangements for utilizing their resources. That may last
for a year or two, and give rise to the opinion that a
considerable part of the burden of an import tax falls
on the foreign producer. But smart tricks of this kind
succeed temporarily in every branch of dealing, and they
are bad business in the long run : a country which gets
the reputation of suddenly raising particular import duties
will find others slow to accommodate themselves to her
wants .

Another case, in which an import duty is largely thrown
on a foreign producer, is seen when a particular brand
of thread or the supply of petroleum in a particular market
yields monopoly profits high above the normal. Such
profits can always be annexed, in part at least, by the tax-
collector ; and his success in regard to them is frequently
quoted as affording a general argument in favour of
differential duties on imports : but the argument is invalid.
The tax on them is not a differential tax, since there is
not any efficient and cheap substitute for them.1

2. Taxes on manufactured imports yield little revenue
and cause much friction in an old manufacturing

COUNTRY.

Taxes on imported manufactures are convenient sources
of Revenue in such a country as Brazil, whose conditions
make the collection of Revenue over her large inland area
difficult, while it can be easily collected at her ports. And
a Protective tax, which helps a young industry to develop

1 It is indeed sometimes argued that imported goods do not pay their share
of the general taxation of the country as home produce does ; and that therefore
they compete at an unfair advantage unless they are taxed on importation. But
the English manufacturer of products for exportation would pay a double set
of taxes if the foreign products, for which his goods are exchanged, had to pay
a share of the general taxes of the country. For the taxes paid on importation
would have to be deducted from the proceeds of the sale of his goods abroad
before any profit could be realized.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 333

its latent strength, may be in the interest of an undeveloped
country ; even though the tax must inevitably do some hurt
to those few of her industries which are manufacturing
for exportation. For the energy developed in a few high-
class progressive industries may spread over a great part
of the industrial system of the country ; just as, when an
iron screen concentrates the whole draught of a chimney on
a small part of a nascent fire, it may generate an intense
local heat, which spreads and pioneers the way for a broad,
strong fire.

Neither of these arguments applies to an old manufac-
turing country, such as Britain is. But it has recently
been argued that after the war her finances will require
her to collect Revenue from imported manufactures : and
that the country will ultimately gain by lending some aid
to a few industries which have been outpaced by foreign
rivals through faults for which no one set of persons is
specially responsible. These claims merit attention.

Germany is in a somewhat similar position to Britain :
but she has many advantages, which Britain lacks, for such
work. It will therefore be well to look at her experi-
ence. Some of her industries which manufacture for export
have little occasion to use imported half-manufactures : but
others are much hampered by import taxes on the things
which they need. It is true that such things are not
heavily taxed ; but the trouble of obtaining drawbacks on
foreign products, which are worked into manufactures for
exportation, is so great that proposals have been seriously
discussed in Germany for setting up considerable free-
trade areas surrounding some chief ports, in which work
and trade may be unmolested by Revenue officers. A
small free area round Hamburg docks already offers facilities
for minor operations, especially those connected with
transhipment for re-exportation. But more is needed even
in Germany. l

Now Britain's exports of manufactures before the war were
nearly twice as great relatively to her population as those

1 A large space in Germany's " Trade Statistics " is occupied with the details,
always small and often trumpery, of imports which have been admitted free
because they were to be re-exported after being finished (Veredelungs-Verkehr).
The scheme has been gradually worked out with consummate skill ; but its
total results are meagre. A corresponding scheme for Britain would require a
Germanic iarmy of officials, and be very costly. It would lessen the Revenue
derived from taxes on imports, while yet doing little to lessen the grievous hurt
which they would inflict on her exporting industries.

334 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

of Germany. She owes much of her advantage as an
exporter to the ease with which goods from all parts of
the world can be used in each of her manufacturing dis-
tricts. No country would lose nearly as much as she
would from being unable to use foreign half -manufactures
freely, unless drawbacks could be got easily ; and no
people, other than those of her own kindred, would resent
so much the trouble and friction involved in getting petty
drawbacks on small things. This is all the more important
because many things which are " completely manufac-
tured," even in the narrowest use of the term, are wanted
by manufacturers for export as implements or auxiliaries
of their work.

There is indeed some force in the claim that a Pro-
tective tariff is needed to aid giant businesses in estab-
lishing a complete standardization on the most advanced
modern model. But the economies of production on the
largest scale are not those which belong to a single
business, nor even to a single industry. They belong in
the highest degree to a compact industrial district, such as
Lancashire, where the productions of many correlated
industries for sale at home and abroad work into one
another's hands ; thus getting what they need without
obstruction, and without special inducement to dump in
favour of the foreign purchaser.

Let us contrast Lancashire's industries with the German
steel industry, which sprang into strength, as is well known,
late in last century when a chemical discovery of British
origin enabled Germany to turn to good account the cheap
and abundant ores of Luxemburg and Lorraine ; to which
those recently opened out in north-eastern France have
now been added. The industry was aided by a low Pro-
tective tariff, which was perhaps for the time beneficial
to the country. But, as generally happens, the tariff was
increased : and, largely in consequence, the shadow of an
oligarchy of a few giant capitalists is already over the
land. Smaller men are being suppressed ; and in particular
those, who work up half -finished materials, have to pay
more than their full costs of production, while similar things
go past them to be sold abroad at less than full costs.

The worst abuses of this practice were mitigated before
the war began. But it has been used with some force
as an argument in favour of protecting the British steel
industry against malignant dumping ; although it was carried

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 335

to greater extremes against highly Protected steel indus-
tries in Italy and elsewhere than against the British. No
good distinction has yet been found practicable between
malignant dumping and the practice of selling abroad occa-
sionally at relatively low prices, which obtains in almost
every British industry.

In spite of the care and ability with which Germany
has sought to make her tariff a source of Revenue, as
well as an engine of commercial and political strategy,
she has not succeeded in doing so : and Britain would be
unlikely to succeed where she has failed. In 19 13
Germany reaped about 2S. per head of her population
from taxes on finished goodis of all kinds {Fertige
War en) : and it is probable that the population of Britain
will need to contribute about a hundred times as much as
this per head to her Exchequer after the war. Germany's
taxes on manufactures were but small percentages on the
values of the quantities taxed, which were themselves not
nearly co -extensive with the quantities imported ; since for
one reason or another the sharp edge of nearly every tax on
manufactures had had to be blunted : but there was no
mercy for the food of the people. Her import duties on
grain, even after allowing for large rebates and bounties
on exportation, yielded far more than all those on finished
and half -finished goods. Some advocates of protection
for British manufactures will learn with surprise that her
receipts from import duties on " raw materials for the
purposes of industry " (Rohstoffe fiir Industriezwecke)
yielded almost the same amount as those on finished goods,
and more than four times as much as those on half -finished
goods {H alb fertige War en).1

Before going farther it may be well to point out that
some adjustments of Protective duties, which have been
recently advocated, fail to indicate clearly the full intensity
of the Protection afforded by them. For as a rule the raw

1 The leading groups of manufactures contributed about iod. per head ;
cotton stuffs, yarn and thread yielded a little over 2d. ; about id. per head was
reaped from each of the following five groups : — iron goods, woollen goods and
yarn, machines and rolling stock, silk and silken goods, and wooden goods.
Less than £d. per head was reaped from each of the two or three remaining
groups, which were thought worthy of separate notice in the Slatistiches
Jahrbruck. The year 1913 was favourable to the tariff. Going back ten years,
we find smaller items generally : and, pursuing the minute details given in the
huge records of Germany's external trade, we find many sub-heads showing
only a very small fraction of a farthing per head.

336 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

material of a manufactured product is admitted free, and
half -products are charged at a low rate. But the high
tax on finished manufactures is levied on their whole value,
and affords therefore a much higher premium on the
process of manufacture than is suggested by its rate.1

3. Protective taxes will not enable British industries to
overtake those which have outstripped them.

The steel industries require large capital, high ability,
ever -ready initiative, and some scientific faculty. But the
industries in which Britain has been most outpaced by Ger-
many, have additional requirements. They need a long-
continued investment of great masses of mental as well as
material capital. Such are pre-eminently the dye and fine
glass " chemical " industries ; and, in a somewhat less
degree, the electrical industries. None of them owes much
to the tariff : for each has been ahead of foreign com-
petitors almost from the start, in consequence of its
abundant supply of mental capital. At first they owed
much to the co-operation of public laboratories : but now
their own vast laboratories, largely concerned with secret
processes, put them above such aid. Their finances are,
however, greatly assisted by the very, low salaries which
suffice for the " Scientific proletariat " that have been
trained in public institutions. Their success suggests indeed
a prima facie case for a Protective tax as a sub-
sidiary means of promoting the growth of a British dye
industry.

But unfortunately, while Britain is by far the largest ex-
porter of textile goods in which these dyes are used, she
took only about an eighth of Germany's exports of them
before the war, while China took about a fifth. Again,
if, after the war, Britain cuts off her supplies of German
dyes before she is ready with effective rivals from her
own resources, aided by those of Switzerland, etc. ; she
will hand over a great part of her trade in the Southern

1 To take a somewhat extreme case : Suppose a manufactured import which
contains £200 worth of material, and on which £100 worth of labour, etc.
(profits included), has been spent, to be taxed at the rate of 20 per cent. — so that
it cannot be sold at less than ^360 ; then a home producer, who could obtain
the material untaxed, would receive a bounty at the expense of the consumer
of £60 : i.e. 60 per cent, (not 20 per cent.) on the ^100 of labour, etc., which
he expended. Even if he had to pay a tax of 10 per cent, on his material,
his bounty would be 40 per cent, on his outlay.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 337

hemisphere to Germany, and other countries which use
German dyes.1

To speak generally : when it appears that an industry
needs the sinking of several millions of capital in scientific
and other preparatory work, spread over many years, before
it can speak on even terms iwith a German or American
industry which has got the start over it ; then the best
remedy is a voluntary association of British manufacturers
and traders, who have some special interest in the matter,
and who unite their resources to set up the industry in full
strength. For this purpose they may reasonably receive
a good subsidy from the State, which, on the one hand,
should defend them, more carefully than seems to have
been done in the past, against foreign patents designed
to hamper the growth of a British industry ; and, on the
other hand, should provide against the danger that the
new industry may be tempted to make selfish use of
monopolistic strength. Meanwhile State Laboratories and
University Laboratories, subsidized by the State, should be
required to undertake suitable inquiries on behalf of the
industry. But all this absorbs Revenue : and therefore
a small duty may reasonably be levied on imports which
compete with the products of the new industry ; and a
heavy duty on any of them which can be shown to be
often " dumped " in the British market at an exceptionally
low price for the express purpose of crushing the new
industry.2 , ' _., __* '

The scientific foresight of the Germans has enabled
them to obtain control over a long series of " key " metals,
some of which have their sources exclusively in the British
Empire. This control does not seem to have been much
abused so far : but many of the compounds into which

'•The following figures of Germany's exports of the three chief groups of
dyes in 1913 in million marks may be of interest. Total, 216 : to Britain, 28 ;
Russia, 8; France, 5; Italy, 11 ; Japan, 14; China, 45; United States, 38.
The average value of all was not far from 2 marks for a kilogram ; say is. a
pound.

The initiative having been taken by the Royal Society, a great plan for
organizing the best scientific ability of the country in the aid of her industries
was promulgated in the first annual " Report of the Committee of the Privy
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research " [Cd. 8336].

2 The scope of this chapter does not permit an inquiry into the various aims
and methods of remedies. But reference may be made to the study of " Con-
structive Measures " in §§ 94-132 of the Memorandum on " The Industrial
Situation after the War," recently issued by the Garton Foundation.

338 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

these metals enter are vital as materials, if not for munitions
of war, yet for the appliances by which munitions are
fashioned. This is a matter in which new conditions seem
to call for some departure from that liberal policy which
has served Britain well in the past : the far-reaching
military designs of Germany seem to require that some
restrictions should be imposed on the nationality of the
ownership of these sources. But the key metals of
to-day are not those of a few years ago : and restrictive
measures by taxation are but a poor substitute for con-
structive energy, which may outpace the Germans in
finding out what will be the key metals of the coming
generation.1

4. The policy of import duties on some kinds of food,
considered in relation to the new requirements of
national defence.

Before the war it seemed clear that the vastly greater
purchasing power, in terms of wheat, given by the wages
of British workmen over that of the wages of correspond-
ing classes in Germany and other countries with high Pro-
tective tariffs on foodstuffs, was too great an advantage
to be abandoned, merely on the ground that in a war
Britain might be forced to restrict her total imports. It
was argued that, though comforts and luxuries and many
sorts of raw materials might be in reduced supply, yet
the necessary quantum of wheat could always be brought
in by aid of convoys, or otherwise. It was urged that a
rich man's family eat less than a working man's, because
their appetites are largely assuaged by more expensive
foods : and therefore a tax on bread involves an inverse
graduation of the burden of taxation in its most extreme
form. Stress was laid on the wastefulness of the intensive
cultivation by men, women, and children on the land at
home ; while much less expense would bring better sup-
plies from land which only needed to be scratched in
order to blossom with grain : for the cost of transport
of grain from the centres of distant continents to British
harbours had become less than that of moving it a few
miles by land had been a century ago.

1 " The Report of the Tariff Commission on War and British Economic Policy,"
issued in March 1915 (MM 56) contains well-digested matter, helpful even to
those who do not concur in its tendencies.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 339

The argument was conclusive, on the assumption that
adequate supplies of food and other necessaries could be
convoyed to our shores in reasonable security. But recent
developments have made that assumption questionable ; and
some measure of Protective policy in regard to necessary
food supplies may need to be accepted as an insurance
against disaster. Britain by herself is not able to contend
on equal terms against the military and naval forces, in-
cluding those below the surface of the water, which may
be brought against her : and while almost every part of
the British Empire is liable to become a cause of contest,
Britain may have to rely in the main on her own resources
for defence against an enemy near at hand. It may there-
fore be good economy to spend a considerable sum
annually on insuring both the maintenance of fairly large
stocks of necessary food and some other things in the
country ; and so considerable an increase in the area of
land under tillage, together with so ample a supply of
trained female labour ready for the lighter work of the
farm, that large harvests can be secured when importation
has become difficult.

The case for such a policy has been prejudiced by the
assumption of some of its advocates that, independently of
the risks of war, agricultural progress is to be measured
by the increase of output per acre : whereas, if the home
supply could be supplemented securely by cheap importa-
tion from abroad, it ought to be measured by the increase
of output for each thousand workers on the land : so
measured, Britain compares favourably with other countries,
in spite of her neglect of the general and technical education
of her agriculturists.

Even if it be desired, for any special purpose, to measure
progress by the output per acre, there is no good ground
for the suggestion that Germany's recent advance is to be
attributed to the Protective duties on food, which have
compelled her working classes generally to be content with'
a meagre diet, while the rapid increase of their skill and
intelligences was providing large fortunes for their
employers. For, as Professor Naumann argues, while
admitting that she cannot now change her policy in regard
to agricultural Protection, the progress of her agriculture
in recent years has been at about the same rate as under
the more liberal Caprivi policy : and he adds that " com-
parison with duty-free agriculture in Switzerland, Belgium,

340 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

Holland, and Denmark shows that the improvement is at
least as great in the duty-free countries as in those with
Protective tariffs." l

Germans, when praising the fertility of the English soil,
have in mind chiefly the power which much of it has of
yielding rich crops of grass without labour : and there
seems no good reason to suppose that nearly all of it
would be ploughed up if it were under German manage-
ment. But, since the military situation seems to require
that the country should greatly diminish her dependence on
imported supplies of grain and meat, it may probably be
well to plough up a great deal of land, selected under expert
advice, as capable of yielding under the plough, with but
moderately expensive methods, a considerable quantity of
grain, together with fodder for about as many cattle as
used to be nourished by its grass.2

Co-operation among farmers and better technical educa-
tion may do much to insure the country against shortage
of food. No abstract principle should stand in the way
of taxes on its importation if they would work well. But
an artificial rise in the prices of staple foods is not lightly
to be contemplated. Heavy taxes on imports of them from
other parts of the Empire would be a great evil : and,
as we shall see presently, import duties from which they
were exempted would have little effect. But some slight
movement in that direction might be accompanied by low
taxes on grass land from which land under the plough was
exempted, and by other measures, among which might be

1 " Central Europe," pp. 226-7.

2 Mr. Middleton's important report on " The Recent Development of German
Agriculture," 1916 [Cd. 8305], tells us that the production per acre under arable
cultivation is as high in Britain as in Germany: but that two-thirds of the
cultivated land in Britain are under grass, and only one-third in Germany.
Allowing for this and for the fact that a large number of the agricultural
workers in Germany are women, and that a good many more are not perma-
nently employed, this is not a bad showing" as to the efficiency of British work.
For the average number of persons engaged in agriculture per hundred acres
was, by Mr. Middleton's reckoning, 58 in England and Scotland, against 183
in Germany. Statistical records of agriculture are a little unkind to Britain.
Germany was credited before the war with fifty million tons of potatoes and
ten million pigs : but the pigs eat a great part of the potatoes ; and the swedes,
etc., which British cattle eat are not counted. Very little beef is eaten in
Germany : the cattle are mostly middle-aged and calves ; they do not eat nearly
as much as the British ox who is being made ready for slaughter. When
talking with German economists on such subjects, I found that they did not
know that the British statistics of horses relate only to those on the farm.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 341

a low premium on the storage of grain : for that would
help the British farmer more than the importer, and would
induce the importer to store his grain here. The grain must
be stored somewhere : the erection of granaries here would
not cause additional cost in the long run.1

Whatever public expense is incurred for such purposes
should make for public ends : it should leave unaltered
the position of the landowner, save in so far as he
directly contributes to the expenses of increased produc-
tion. The people must suffer by paying more for their
food : the Exchequer must not expect to gain anything
net, and it may lose ; the farmer and labourer, who pro-
duce more, should gain more. But the landowner should
gain only what can be shown to be due to additional outlay
on his part for the improvement of the yield of the land.

It seems that the most economical production is on very
large holdings, where many workers are supplied with the
best appliances and direction by their employer ; and on
small holdings, where every one works with his or her
hands. If the facts are as here suggested, some account
of them might be taken in the adjustment of taxes on
agricultural land.

5. Tendencies towards preferential tariffs arising out of
the experiences of the war, and the international
regards engendered by it.

We have so far been occupied almost exclusively with
economic considerations, though these have been to some
extent modified by the new military situation ; but now
we have to take account of political, and even emotional
influences also. The dominant fact, so far as Britain is
concerned, is the intensity of the affection which her Depen-
dencies, and especially the Dominions, have manifested for
her : and scarcely less notable is the persistent mutual
loyalty of the Allies in their common defence of the vital

1 Perhaps a premium on all wheat in a store in excess of a few tons might
be granted at the rate of 2s. per ton on each of, say, the first Tuesdays in
January, April, July, and October: that is 8s. annually. There would be some
large stores owned by Government, or traders, in which any one might deposit
grain on payment : but any one might apply for recognition of a store-house.
He might be bound to post sworn statements on the preceding Mondays as to
his store, and not to open it on the following two days except in the presence
of an Excise officer. Perjury would be severely punished, and therefore only
occasional verification of such statements would be required. Similar provi-
sions might be applied to oats, for which the British climate is well suited.

342 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

interests of mankind. It is only natural that those who
have previously been inclined towards a Protective tariff
policy should consider whether these cordial sentiments can
be materialized in Preferential tariffs ; and this suggestion
is not without attraction even for those who, like the present
writer, believe that simplicity, elasticity, and freedom from
all need for intricate negotiations are those qualities of a
policy of international trade which are most conducive to
national prosperity and to permanent international goodwill.

It has been proposed to set up a group of Preferences,
the highest of which would be confined to the British
Empire, and the next would be given to our Allies ; while,
in some schemes, the Central Powers would be subjected
to tariffs of exceptional severity. A weak point in many
such proposals appears to be the low place to which they
relegate Britain's first great colony, in strong contrast to
Adam Smith's loyalty to her.

It is obvious that Britain cannot grant a Preference on
imports from any country, unless she first imposes a tax
on imports from other sources. As few are willing to
propose import duties on wool, cotton, and other important
raw materials of manufacture, this leaves her without any
very important Preference to be granted to the rest of the
Empire, except in regard to food : and here the first place
is given to staple grains and meat.

Since there is much to be said for her levying an import
duty on staple grains, in order to extend the area of her
arable land for purely military reasons, this proposal seems
at first sight to have an easy course. But it does not
work out easily. If Empire grain is admitted free and
Argentina grain is not, then Argentina grain will oust
Empire grain partially or wholly from other markets ; and
Britain will be supplied almost exclusively from the Empire
at about the same prices as before ; she would then in effect
levy scarcely any tax on grain, and there would be (no
considerable rise in prices and no effective Preference. If,
on the other hand, Empire grain is taxed at a rate lower
than that levied on other grain, then the British people
will pay increased prices on all their grain, from whatever
source it is derived ; and only a part, probably not more
than half, of this extra payment will be effective in ex-
tending the area of arable cultivation in Britain : she will
thus make a valuable present to other parts of the Empire
at great cost to herself.

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 343

If this were done as a free gift, it would be a splendid
generosity : but such gifts are commonly expected to meet
with some return ; and experience shows that business trans-
actions among relatives and friends are dangerous. In
negotiations with strangers every one is apt to estimate
his " fair " claims at points somewhat higher than seem
reasonable to the other side ; but he generally accepts,
without much rancour, what he can get. On the other
hand, he thinks that a relative ought to be at least " fair,"
if not generous, in his dealings : so, when relatives bargain,
each is apt to expect more than he could get from a
stranger ; and each has some feeling of grievance if he is
disappointed. Canada and Australia might probably rate
the importance to Britain of any Preference they gave to
her manufactures over those of France, United States, etc.,
higher than she did ; and she might rate more highly
than they did the importance to them of any Preferences
she gave to their grain over that of America, Argentina,
and Russia.

Again, France has already given a hint that the great
iron and other industries of her Eastern territory, the coal of
Lorraine being left out of account, would not be willing
to reject German coal in favour of British coal. It may
even be said that her Eastern and Western Provinces
generally have divergent interests in regard to tariff
arrangements with her Eastern and Western neighbours.
Again, there may probably be seen a rise in importance of
the shores of the Pacific Ocean towards equality with those
of the Atlantic : and tariff arrangements, which on the
whole are acceptable to the Eastern Provinces of Canada,
may be of little benefit, and considerable hurt, to her
Western. External Preferences that give rise to internal
discord are likely to have harmful results, economic,
political, ethical, and even military.

Difficulties of this kind will be found to open out in
every direction if specific details of plans for graduated
Preferential duties are considered closely : and they are
in addition to those evils which, as has already been indi-
cated, are inherent in every Protective system. But they
are likely to press more hardly on Britain than on any
other country, because they would eat into the heart of
those export industries on which depend her economic
strength, and especially her power of bearing the grievous
pressure of taxation that lies before her.

344 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

It is true that she is in a strong strategic position in
regard to trade with Germany : for she is already able
to supply herself with nearly all the things which Germany
exports ; and she hopes soon to fill up the most important
gaps. But for that very reason her moral position is
exceptionally weak. For the heavier the taxes — to say
nothing of prohibitions — which her Allies and Depen-
dencies set on German goods, the better will be her oppor-
tunities for supplying similar goods in larger quantities
and at higher prices. If any action of hers gives colour
to Germany's ceaseless charges, that she organized the war
in the interests of her own industry and trade ; then she
will inflict on herself a deadly injury, from the effects of
which she may never quite recover. Bernhardi, and others
who have spoken or acted on fierce Machiavellian lines,
have been chief authors of that uprising of the world
against Germany which seems likely to put a just end to
some of her ambitions : if Britain tries to turn victory
to her own special benefit, she will commit a scarcely
less fatal error.

There is another danger of the same kind, though on
a smaller scale : it is, that she may pay too much atten-
tion to eager traders and others who press their special
desires on the attention of the Treasury and the Board
of Trade ; and forget that the trusteeship which she holds
is the largest, and up to the present time has on the whole
been the noblest, that the world has ever known. Her
Allies indeed can speak for themselves at every international
Conference : and Canada, Australia, and South Africa can,
in various degrees, keep themselves acquainted with what
is going on, and cause their opinions and wishes to be
communicated to British representatives at a Conference ;
and these influences are likely to be further increased.
But the populations of India and the Crown Colonies have
less influence in the matter. India's trade with Germany is
very important : therefore Britain is bound to consider
India's interests as much as her own in all negotiations
about it. The trade in Canada's nickel, and Australasia's
tungsten, hitherto largely in German hands, can be con-
trolled in accordance with the wishes of those Dominions :
but Burmah's great export trade in tungsten, and that of
Britain's numerous Crown Colonies in their various
specialities, raise ethical rather than economic problems.
If, on the whole, it seems right that any of them should

NATIONAL TAXATION AFTER THE WAR 345

be solved with dominant reference to Imperial exigencies
rather than to local advantage, then some compensation
should be made in other ways.

Some of the arguments on which representatives of
British industries are basing claims for Protective duties
in their own favour tell even more strongly for granting
Protection to cotton manufacturing and some other indus-
tries of India. It has often been said, and perhaps with
truth, that the greatest political achievement in the history
of the world has been the upright and unselfish administra-
tion of India by Britain. But for two generations it has
been clear that some of the pleas of Indian industries for
Protection are stronger than any which could be put forward
for British industries. Inquiries, partly created by the war
and partly made prominent by it, have furnished some new
strong arguments in favour of a limited Protection to a
few British industries. But if even a touch of approval
were given to the immoderate claims put forward in some
of the answers of representatives of great industries to a
recent circular of inquiry issued by the London Chamber
of Commerce, while all Protection were withheld from
Indian industries, Britain would appear to abdicate her great
place as ruler of India in India's interests.

These ethico -political considerations reinforce the strictly
economic reflections, indicated above, that a broad system
of Protective duties would deprive Britain of the strength
which has enabled her to carry the chief financial burdens
of the war, would confer some benefits on particular
industries at the cost of much greater injury to the people
at large ; and would lessen the funds available for paying
pensions to wounded men and to widows ; and for lowering
the present mountain of debt, which may threaten to turn
some peril of a later generation into disaster.

CHAPTER XIX

National Thrift

By ARTHUR SHERWELL, M.P.

No matter more intimately affects the economic and social
development of a nation than the wise control of public
and private expenditure and the proper and profitable
utilization of national and personal wealth. The obsolescent
formula of the so-called Manchester school of political
economists, " Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform," however
questionable in some of its proposed applications, sum-
marized in one at least of its elements an injunction and
a warning which no nation ambitious of real development
can refuse to respect.

It is the unfortunate habit of formulas, however, to lose
their influence and potency in the rush of changing circum-
stances even when, as in the case quoted, the truth which
they enshrine is of fundamental and enduring force ; and
it must be admitted that the doctrine of economy in public
and private expenditure has suffered an eclipse from which
even the, at present, incalculable social and economic con-
sequences of a world tragedy has been unable to deliver
it. The formula of " Retrenchment " suffered, as a political
doctrine, partly from the narrow and unimaginative way
in which it was sometimes sought to apply it ; but chiefly
from the undreamed of expansion of national wealth and
from collision with new social ideas which demanded ex-
periments without a strict regard to their structure or cost.
Our system of party government, with its rival cries and
programmes, and the ever -increasing, and largely un-
checked, powers of the Executive, in turn tend to
foster extravagance.

But whatever the causes, we have moved far from the

spirit, as also from the conditions, pi a time (less than

346

NATIONAL THRIFT 347,

sixty years ago) when a statesman of the position of Mr.
Disraeli could declare in the House of Commons that " there
is no country that can go on raising seventy millions in
time of peace with impunity " ; or when a Chancellor
of the Exchequer felt constrained to resign (as did Lord
Randolph Churchill in 1886) because he could not con-
sent to Army and Navy Estimates aggregating thirty -one
millions ! Such times, to a generation complacently tolerant
of a pre-war Budget of £200,000,000, seem almost as
legendary as Bolingbroke's lament that parliamentary aids,
aggregating in eight years a total of £55,000,000, con-
stituted " a sum that will appear incredible to future
generations, and is so almost to the present." l Even to
a historian like Hume, who regarded indebtedness con-
tracted upon parliamentary security as a " pernicious
practice " and " the more likely to become pernicious the
more a nation advances in opulence and credit," the
then indebtedness of the country (nearly £150,000,000)
threatened "the very existence of the nation."2

These forebodings, by men who could not anticipate the
developments of modern trade and industry nor the con-
sequent expansion of the national wealth, appear unreal
and even fantastic to a generation like the present, which
confounds economy with parsimony and is exhilarated rather
than depressed by the dimensions of modern Budgets. And
yet the enormous and increasingly rapid growth of national
expenditure in recent years is a matter of more than
academic importance, especially for those who take the
broadest and most liberal view of the value of State activity
in the organization of social progress. In Mr. Gladstone's
first year at the Exchequer (1853) the gross ordinary
expenditure of the country was approximately £56,000,000 ;
by 1865 it had risen to £65,100,000 ; in the mid-seventies
(1874) it was £74,000,000; by 1880 it had grown to
£82,000,000; and in 1893 (Mr. Gladstone's last year of
political office) it was £91,300,000. Thus in a period
of forty years it had increased by 63 per cent. Since
Mr. Gladstone's retirement the national expenditure has
grown to dimensions of which he certainly never dreamed,
and which, whatever the causes or justification in policy,
would have filled that stern economist with forebodings
and alarm. In 1 913-14, the last pre-war year (and less

1 " Some Reflections on the Present State of the Nation."

2 " History of England," 1778, vol. iii, p. 215.

348 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

than thirty years from the day when Lord Randolph
Churchill's prediction of a hundred million Budget was
greeted with incredulity as " unduly pessimistic "), the
national expenditure had risen to £200,000,000.

Now it may be admitted at once that a peace Budget
of £200,000,000 is not in itself a peril nor, assuming the
proceeds of taxation to be devoted to really economic (i.e.
remunerative and reproductive purposes) — a crucial and vital
assumption — is it out of proportion to the nation's wealth.
At the same time, in view of the pre-war temper of the
nation, and especially in view of inevitable post-war changes
in international conditions of which the effect is at present
largely incalculable, it is necessary to remind ourselves
of an almost forgotten truth that high taxation is not in
itself an index of real prosperity. It may easily be the
symptom of a spendthrift policy which issues in disaster
to a nation's interests and ideals. There is much truth
in Bentham's statement that " hand in hand with waste
is to be found taxation," and also in his further state-
ment that " in the case of a tax there will always be a
portion of evil, the quantity of which will be the same,
be the produce ever so great or ever so small." Lecky,
whose historical knowledge and judgment will be respected
even by those to whom his political opinions do not appeal,
warned us that " nations seldom realize till too late how
prominent a jplace a sound system of finance holds among
the vital elements of national stability and well-being ;
how few political changes are worth purchasing by its
sacrifices ; how widely and seriously human happiness is
affected by the downfall or the perturbation of national
credit, or by excessive, injudicious, and unjust taxation."
This is what Lord Randolph Churchill had in view when
he reminded his political chief that expenditure and finance
" involve and determine all other matters." No country,
however wealthy, can afford continually to increase its
budgets and to multiply its taxes without a full assurance
that the national revenues are being economically used and
devoted to really remunerative and reproductive purposes
(i.e. the provision of efficient "goods and services").

Even when this assurance is present there is the
danger in high expenditure that imperceptibly, but by
increasingly accelerated stages, it may foster a spirit of
extravagance which is impatient of checks and enthu-
siastically indifferent to future consequences. As Mr.

NATIONAL THRIFT 349

Gladstone warned the House of Commons in 1863,
" together with the so-called increase of expenditure there
grows up what may be termed a spirit of expenditure, a
desire, a tendency prevailing in the country, which, in-
sensibly and unconsciously perhaps, but really, affects the
spirit of the people, the spirit of Parliament, the spirit of
the public departments, and perhaps even the spirit of
those whose duty it is to submit the Estimates to
Parliament."

No one who has watched at all closely the character
and course of political demands in recent years, or the
attitude and temper of Parliament in respect to public
expenditure in the years immediately preceding the war,
and not least the dangerous innovation which associated
the organization and direction of important and valuable,
but necessarily costly, social experiments and policies with
the Treasury Department, can say that Mr. Gladstone's
warning is not needed to-day. Political conditions and
national circumstances are greatly different from those of
1863, and political parties are properly influenced by social
ideals and by an expanded theory of State responsibility
for ordered social development which represent a consider-
able advance in political thought ; but the changes, so
far from destroying the force of the warning, make Parlia-
ment and the nation more susceptible to the " spirit of
expenditure." Nor is it clear that the danger will be
removed by the stupendous experience and burden of the
war. On the contrary, if history repeats itself, it may
actually be aggravated by the war. Our previous wars
have bequeathed to us not merely a burden of indebted-
ness, but a familiarity with enlarged standards of expendi-
ture which has weakened the sense of responsibility and
tended to profligacy in the great departments of State.
That was notably the effect of the Crimean War which,
as Sir Stafford Northcote truly said, had " begotten in
us a habit and even a taste for expenditure such as it is
much easier to acquire than to get rid of." r

It is, of course, true that large public expenditure is
not in and of itself a source of national danger or weak-
ness. Mirabeau, indeed, held that <rthe more the indi-
vidual pays, and the more the public spends, the happier
are the people." And his reason was : " Because the
contributions of the individual are nothing but the service
1 "Twenty Years' Financial Policy."

350 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

which he renders to the public ; and the expenditure of
the public, likewise, is only the guardianship of individuals
or the surety of the equivalent which they should receive."
This view of the " beneficencies of taxation " is clearly
tenable if the objects aimed at are reasonably guaranteed ;
if, in other words, our machinery for expenditure, and
especially our methods of Parliamentary control, provide
us with a reasonable security for the wisie and economical
use of public revenue. That is essential. Granted such
security, an expanding Budget would be a token of
progress instead of a symptom of extravagance and
danger.

But apart from the fact that existing Parliamentary
and administrative arrangements do not give us this .security,
and that the conditions under which party government is
now maintained in this country do not favour it, the view
suggested is not in any sense destructive of the doctrine
of economy. On the contrary, it becomes fruitful and
beneficent in proportion to the efficiency of our adminis-
trative arrangements and to the vigilant practice of
economy. Expenditure unaccompanied by vigilance breeds
reaction. Economy is not parsimony, nor is it indifference
to the idea of expansion and development. It does not
imply a negation of State enterprise. It is concerned solely
with the profitableness of expenditure. In Professor
Carman's words, economy " is the best utilization of avail-
able means." Burke, adapting an old Latin saw, put the
true view tersely and completely when he described a
system of economy as " itself a great revenue."

The war, whatever its other consequences, has certainly
forced the question of national economy and thrift into the
foreground of national duties.

This is the result not merely of the vast burden of
debt which the war has imposed on the State, or of the
new conditions which the wholesale destruction of life and
wealth must create : it is also a consequence of the dis-
closure of faults and deficiencies in our methods and system
of organization.

" War," said a Minister recently in the House of
Commons, " is waste." In the strict economic sense the
dictum is incontestable, but in the narrower administrative
sense in which the words were used war need not be,
and, in a properly organized State, ought not to be, waste.
The cost of the war under any circumstances would have

NATIONAL THRIFT 351

been stupendous, but if, to take a principal condition first,
our organization and preparedness had been what the infor-
mation available only to an Executive suggests that it should
have been, there can be little doubt that some hundreds of
millions of pounds could have been saved. Or, to take
a condition of smaller but vital importance, if the lessons
learned more than a decade before in South Africa had
been embodied in pre-war organization, the cost of the
war would have been considerably reduced. The waste-
fulness of war in the administrative sense is due to
inadequate or faulty organization. Deficient organization
is ever the prolific parent of waste. No more depressing
evidence of our characteristic neglect of the foundations of
thrift could be provided than is indicated by the accu-
mulating, but still far from complete, evidence of
administrative incompetency and shameful extravagance
in the strictly business management of the war. The
emergency, it is true, was urgent and unprecedented, but
the scandals which have so far been exposed betray an
indifference to expenditure and a lack of rudimentary
prudence which stamp the administrative services of the two
principal spending departments of the State as incredibly
inefficient and untrained. The matter has still to be fully
investigated, but the information already available in Parlia-
mentary discussions and in the Reports of the Committee
of Public Accounts suggests a task of reorganization and
reconstruction upon which Parliament must strenuously
insist .

But the matter has an importance and an urgency outside
the range of these particular revelations. The war has
precipitated a general stocktaking of resources and
organization which was plainly urgent before the war.
Our administrative and financial organization and arrange-
ments, despite repeated modifications and improvements,
are imperfectly adapted to meet the requirements of the
very notable developments in State action and policy which
have occurred since Mr. Gladstone's day. This enlarge-
ment of the sphere of State action and responsibility is
the outcome of social ideas which the war will not quench
but will rather stimulate. The old demands will be followed
by new and politics will expand into a science of recon-
struction. Such expansion may be the truest form of
national thrift if it be founded upon efficient organization,
and if the checks against departmental extravagance and

352 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

incompetency are adequate and sure. Our resources are
great if they be not wasted.

It must be admitted that in recent years concern for
expansion in State enterprise has not been accompanied
by an equal concern for efficient and economical adminis-
tration. Reliance has been placed upon a Treasury system
of supervision and checks which automatic expansion of
departmental activities had already heavily taxed and from
which the scrutiny of Parliament was by force of circum-
stances largely removed. It is probable that if some part
of the very considerable time which Parliament has devoted
in the last ten years to discussion of the sources of revenue
had been devoted to investigation of the avenues of expen-
diture, the result would have been to the advantage of the
taxpayer and of the State. Be that as it may, one of the
first tasks in the impending period of national reconstruc-
tion must be a full and searching inquiry into the objects
and machinery of expenditure. This should include not
merely the equipment and costs and services of the State
Departments, but, what is much more important and urgent,
the efficacy and adequacy of our existing arrangements
for financial control.

Theoretically and constitutionally the supreme control
over finance devolves upon the House of Commons, and
the business of Supply is still by tradition the most im-
portant work set down for its consideration. In point of
fact, however, the control of the House of Commons over
finance is exceedingly limited, and the provision of Supply
tends to become more and more formal and perfunctory.
This is the result partly of an accentuated system of party
government, but chiefly of new and revolutionary changes
in Parliamentary procedure which give enormous and
dangerous powers to the Executive at the expense of the
Legislature. Under the present standing orders not more
than twenty days in any session are "allotted" * to the
consideration of the Annual Estimates (including Votes on
Account). These must be days before August 5th. As
consideration of the whole of the votes submitted to Parlia-
ment is impossible within the prescribed period, it is
customary to leave the selection of the votes to be dis-
cussed to the Opposition Whips, although other political
parties may and do prefer requests through the usual
channels for a particular vote to be taken. The choice
1 An allotted day is one on which Supply is put down as first order.]

NATIONAL THRIFT 353

:1s invariably made on non -financial grounds, and discussion
for the most part turns on matters of administrative
practice and policy rather than on the details of the vote.
Some of the matters raised are of comparatively trivial
importance, as, for instance, in a recent year, when a
large part of the day allotted to the Post Office Estimates
was absorbed by a discussion of disciplinary proceedings
connected with the love affairs of a provincial postmaster !
Valuable time is thus wasted, and important votes involving
expenditure of millions of pounds are used as pegs for the
discussion of grievances which might well be referred to
a Standing Commission or Committee.

An unfortunate feature of the case is that neither the
departments nor the Government have an interest in more
efficient procedure. As things are, the Government is sure
of its votes by simple effluxion of time. At 10 p.m. on
the last but one of the allotted days the Chairman of Com-
mittee, under the powers of the " guillotine," forthwith
puts to the House every outstanding question on the vote
then under discussion, and immediately thereafter every
other question relating to the Civil Service Estimates tand
the outstanding votes in the Estimates of the Navy, Army,
-and Revenue Departments. Similarly, at 10 p.m. on the
last allotted day, Mr. Speaker repleats the process on the
report stage of the Votes. In this summary way vast sums
of public money, amounting it may be to fifty or a hundred
millions, are voted to State departments without a word
of debate by the mechanical process of the guillotine.
The procedure has long been a scandal and a discredit
to Parliamentary authority and prestige. It reduces control
to something less than a form, and grows as a peril pari
passu with the expansion of State activities. It may not
be possible or desirable to conform our procedure to the
Continental practice by embodying the Estimates of both
revenue and expenditure in a Budget Bill and submitting
them in that form for Parliamentary approval. A change
of this kind would be useless, apart from corresponding
changes in the procedure and controlling powers of Parlia-
ment. What is urgently wanted to revive and to enlarge
the financial control of Parliament is the appointment by
the House of Commons from its own members of a strong
and representative Standing Committee on Finance, by
whom the Estimates could be thoroughly examined and
analysed before they were laid before Parliament and whose

354 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

report would be submitted with the Estimates. Such a.
Committee should have power to interrogate Ministers and
permanent heads of departments and to obtain such detailed
information as might be required to justify or to question
the grants proposed. Some supervising machinery of this
kind is indispensable if an effective Parliamentary check
is to be secured against extravagance and waste, and if
the House of Commons is not to become a purely
mechanical instrument for registering the decisions and.
demands of the Executive. Such an arrangement, while
securing thorough and necessary scrutiny of the Estimates,,,
would leave undisturbed the opportunity for Parliamentary
discussion of important matters of administrative practice-
and policy.

The suggestion is not a novel one in principle, although
in its intended scope and effect it goes much farther than
the disposition of successive Governments has hitherto
approved. In 1903 a Select Committee on National
Expenditure recommended the appointment of a special
Estimates Committee ; but the recommendation, although
repeatedly pressed upon the attention of the Government,
was not acted upon until April 1 9 1 2, when a Sessional
Committee on Estimates, consisting of fifteen members
(with five as a quorum), was appointed "to examine such
of the Estimates presented to this House as may seem
fit to the Committee, and to report what, if any, economies
consistent with the policy implied in those Estimates should
be effected therein." Under the original motion made
by the Government the Committee was merely empowered
" to examine and report " on the selected Estimates ; and
the explicit reference to possible economies was added by
the vote of the House. The Committee sat during 191 2,
and was reappointed in 191 3 and 19 14, but no report
for the last-named year (save a covering note to the in-
complete evidence taken) has been published. The Com-
mittee has not been reappointed during the last three
years. The Committee, it will be seen, had no authority
to investigate matters of policy, for which the Executive
(subject, in the larger matters, to the approval oi
Parliament) is alone responsible ; nor did it attempt a
survey of all the Estimates. The Estimates of one de-
partment only were taken each session. Its reports were
" mainly confined to questions of form and to examination
ci the methods of estimating and the justification of

NATIONAL THRIFT 355

Estimates," and its work tended to dovetail into that of
the Committee of Public Accounts which annually examines
the audited accounts of the public departments. Within
the narrow limits to which it was restricted the Estimates
Committee did useful work, but its existence was too brief
to allow it to impress its influence in any marked degree
upon the Estimates. Nor, as hitherto constituted, is it
physically possible for such a Committee to undertake the
detailed review and scrutiny of all the Estimates which
is imperatively required if Parliamentary control is to be
efficient and real.

As things have lately tended, and as is inevitable under
the growing congestion and increasing preoccupations of
Parliament, control drifts more and more from! the House
of Commons to the permanent State officials, and Treasury
discretion is the safeguard upon which the taxpayer has
chiefly, and almost exclusively, to rely. The Public
Accounts Committee— -by far the most important Parlia-
mentary check upon departmental inefficiency and extrava-
gance that now exists — has a long and honourable record
of fruitful public service to its credit, but its work is of
a special kind. It is concerned solely with the audited
accounts of the different departments, and it can only report
on expenditure when it has been actually incurred.

The supervision of the Estimates by the Treasury is,
as the Select Committee on Estimates said in its Report
for 191 2, "a real check upon the Service," but, as it
pertinently added, "the question arises whether it is suffi-
cient." It must not be forgotten, as the Committee on
Retrenchment in the Public Expenditure recently pointed
out, that the Treasury has certain functions of ordinary
administration which it must necessarily perform in con-
nection with the imposition of taxation and the collection
of revenue ; and while we fully agree with the Retrench-
ment Committee's view that " every step should be taken
to restrict its [i.e. the Treasury's] activities as a spending
department so that it may be as free as possible for exer-
cising the very important duty of securing public economy
and financial regularity," it must be insisted that gains in
this direction do not compensate the taxpayer for a lapse
in Parliamentary control. The Committee on Estimates,
in 1 91 2, appreciative of the part which constitutional usage
and law have, with deliberateness, assigned to the House
of Commons as the supreme guardian of the public purse,

356 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

" hoped " and " believed " that its own work would
" become a very real and useful part of the machinery
employed for securing economy and efficiency in the pre-
paration of the Estimates presented to Parliament/' but
experience, through no fault of the Committee, has failed
to justify that hope.

It should be one of the earliest tasks of Parliament,
in the stocktaking that must follow the war, to investigate
and to review the entire position.

But it is not merely in respect to the consideration
of the Estimates that the preoccupations of Parliament and
the mechanical rules of procedure weaken and destroy con-
trol. New and far-reaching projects of reform, involving
in many cases the annual expenditure of considerable public
funds, are forced through the House in an increasingly
undigested form, and considerable, and often material,
sections of important Bills are " guillotined " without dis-
cussion. The important and costly Insurance Act may
be cited as a case in point. It is true that the money
resolutions of such Bills are separately discussed, but such
discussion is necessarily an imperfect safeguard when the
structure and details of the scheme upon which cost is
dependent are not fully considered. The Insurance Act
is but one illustration of a method of Parliamentary pro-
cedure which, apart from its arbitrariness and clumsiness,
inevitably tends to financial extravagance and waste. That
it is an important illustration is plain from the fact that
Health Insurance, with its kindred services, now involves
an annual charge on public votes amounting to close upon
£8,000,000.

It is a tradition in British politics that the Chancellor
of the Exchequer is the watch-dog who jealously guards
the public purse, and no doubt a powerful and masterful
Finance Minister can exercise a salutary influence in the
direction of economy. No Chancellor of the Exchequer
has ever succeeded so well in stamping sound and
economic administrative principles upon State departments
as Mr. Gladstone. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his
expressed view, is " the trusted and confidential steward
of the public. He is under a sacred obligation with regard
to all that he consents to spend." '

Mr. Gladstone's own enthusiasm for economy led him
to take cognizance of the smallest details of departmental
1 Speech at Edinburgh, November 29, 1879.

NATIONAL THRIFT 357,

expenditure, and, on one occasion at least, he did not think
it derogatory to his high position to make representations
concerning the wasteful use of stationery in the Govern-
ment departments ! To him the country owes the appoint-
ment, in 1 861, of the Public Accounts Committee, and
the still greater gain of the Exchequer and Audit Act
which, with the material assistance of Mr. Childers, was
passed in 1866. That Act established for the first time
a complete system of effective audit over departmental
expenditure, and — to quote the opinion of the late Lord
Wei by — was unquestionably " a reform of the greatest
administrative importance . ' '

Even Mr. Gladstone, however, powerful as he was, and
rigid as were his views and practice, had persistently to
fight for his economies. In a letter to Mr. Cobden,
written in i860, he wrote: "I speak a literal truth when
I say that in these days it is more difficult to save a
shilling than to spend a million." The truthfulness of
that statement many of his successors, struggling with the
demands of a later and more eager generation, have pain-
fully endorsed. Mr. Gladstone, it is true, belonged to a
school of political thought which could hardly foresee the
expanded demands of a quickened national spirit, and his
theory of economy was more rigid, and perhaps less con-
siderate of the real economy of fruitful expenditure, than
a generation moved by modern social impulses could
approve ; but his instinct for the dangers attendant upon
a " spirit of expenditure " is of enduring value and force.

But while a Chancellor of the Exchequer can do much
to impress his views upon the spending departments, the
effectiveness of his influence depends, first, upon his personal
sympathies with economy, and, second, and to an immeasur-
ably greater extent, upon his authority in the Cabinet. The
limits and difficulties of revenue production naturally tend
to make him an economist ; whereas the exigencies of policy
under the party system of government may supplant or over-
ride considerations of economy in the Cabinet. And it
by no means always happens in modem Governments that
the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, apart from the Prime
Minister, the dominant personality in a Cabinet. His
responsibility is traditional and constitutional, but it
requires to be reinforced by Parliamentary vigilance and
review.

It does not fall within the plan of this chapter to discuss

353 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

in detail the channels available for the practice of economy.
The main expenditure of the country is of course
dependent on policy, external (or imperial) and domestic,
and this is, and as things are must be, outside the com-
plete control of Parliament. The unlimited control hitherto
accorded to the Cabinet in relation to foreign affairs has
financial consequences which cannot be kept out of account
in a consideration of national expenditure, and its possible
modification in safe and practicable directions on this
account, if not on others, may presently require investiga-
tion. In the sphere of domestic legislation, which has
made substantial and growing demands upon public revenue,
economy is to be sought not in opposition to legitimate
demands founded upon a reasonable claim for social better-
ment, but in a closer investigation of legislative proposals
and in a resolute insistence upon economy in the machinery
of administration. The party system of government,
nurtured as it is on appeals to popular programmes, and
sustained by legislative machinery which almost automatic-
ally registers the decisions of the Executive, has dangers
which qualify its advantages, and these become more
apparent as the social ideals of a democracy quicken and
expand. The scrutiny of Parliament becomes less search-
ing and thorough, and legislation suffers in efficiency and
utility and, too often, in permanent cost.

The result is good neither for the particular scheme
of reform, which starts its career with defects which
adequate discussion might have disclosed, nor for the tax-
payer, whose burden is increasied by the cost of all
extravagance in the provision of administrative machinery.

That this is not an exaggerated danger any one with
recent Parliamentary experience will know. Others without
that experience may find significant corroborative sugges-
tions in the final report of the Committee on Retrenchment.

But apart altogether from the part which policy plays
in the increase of national expenditure, it is certain that
in the sphere of departmental and public administration
there is opportunity and need for reorganization which
would effect important economies and — what is the highest
form of economy — lead to greater efficiency. The public
departments, for the most part (apart from war changes), have
undergone little substantial change in their structural organ-
ization for many years past. Recent Acts of Parliament have
added considerably to their duties and have led to the

NATIONAL THRIFT 359

creation of special sub -departments which, in some cases, ill-
accord with the traditional and characteristic work of the
parent department. These extensions of responsibility and
duties have sometimes been accidental, and many have been
purely opportunistic. Meantime other activities and sub-
departments have not been systematically reviewed, and some
have diminished considerably in utility and importance.
Some of the minor departments of the Board of Trade—
e.g. the London Traffic Branch and the Light Railway
Commission — provide particular illustrations of the change
in conditions referred to. The area open to reorganiza-
tion and retrenchment in many of the public departments
is, indeed, a matter of almost common knowledge. Parts
of it are significantly indicated in the recent recommenda-
tions of the Committee on Retrenchment in the Public
Expenditure and in other similar reports, and notably in
the important but neglected reports of the Royal Com-
msision on the Civil Service.1

Efficient and drastic reorganization would have the
further effect of preventing much unfortunate and costly
overlapping in administrative work, of which the medical
and health activities of the Board of Education and the
Local Government Board in respect to arrangements for
the health of mothers and young children under school age
may be cited as a single example. At present there is
sio clear line of demarcation between the work of the
two departments, and overlapping and waste are inevitable.

The staffing of our public departments and the survival
of sinecure offices are other matters which call for de-
tailed and fearless investigation. It may be true, as the
Committee on Retrenchment suggested, that the Civil
Service generally is not overpaid ; it is probably the case
that, speaking generally, " the State is obtaining valuable
services at a very reasonable cost " ; and inasmuch as
the cost of salaries and wages in Civil Departments (ex-
cluding police and school teachers in Ireland) accounts
for only £5,000,000 out of the total Civil Service Esti-
mates of £59,000,000, there may not appear to be
•opportunity for substantial economies. But excessive estab-

1 The recent creation, by sub-division, of separate labour and shipping de-
partments is an improvisation due to political and war exigencies. It may be
a pointer to a larger and more deliberate scheme of reorganization hereafter.
It is plainly an imperfect improvisation which, in regard to labour matters
•particularly, must be extended and developed to be permanent.

3.6o NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

lishments (and especially the preoccupation of well-paid
officials with mechanical and routine work which could
well be delegated to junior clerks) have both direct and
indirect effects upon administrative efficiency which are
more costly to the State than the amount of the redundant-
salaries paid. The Treasury, it is true, have full powers
to deal with questions of staff, and do in fact " hold
inquiries and appoint special committees from time to time
as necessity arises " ; but more than this is required if
the public services are to be reorganized on a sound and
efficient and scientific basis. This is made clear in re-
peated observations by the Royal Commission on the Civil
Service, which, although precluded both by its terms of
reference and, as it frankly confesses, by its constitution^,
from investigating the matter in detail, is at no pains to
conceal its belief in the opportunities for reduction pre-
sented in various public departments. Burke's dictum that
" the encumbrance of useless office " lies " no less a dead,
weight upon the services of the State than upon its
revenues " 1 is one which may be recalled to-day ; and.
the principle which he then enunciated that " all offices
which bring more charge than proportional advantage to
the State . . . ought to be taken away " is one which
has abiding importance and force.

Incidental reference has already been made to another
form of waste which, although repeatedly emphasized by
various Parliamentary and other Committees, appears by
its persistence to indicate radical defects in our present
system of financial and administrative control, and equal
or worse defects in the capacity and disposition towards
economy of many of our public servants. I refer to the
carelessness and slovenliness and disregard of rudimentary
checks and safeguards with which contracts for supplies
of all descriptions are frequently negotiated by State
Departments, and to extravagance in the requisition and:
use of supplies. The latest report of the Committee of
Public Accounts (No. 115, 19 16) contains startling
evidence of widespread waste and of incredible neglect:
of ordinary business principles ; and while some of the
instances quoted are properly attributable to urgent con-
ditions created by an unprecedented emergency, the dis-
closures are, in the main, a scathing exposure of defective-

1 Speech on the economical reformation of the Civil and other Services,,
February nth, 1780.

NATIONAL THRIFT 361

organization and of lack of prevision and control. Some
of the instances referred to betray a culpable negligence
and a reckless indifference to financial considerations which
not even the extraordinary urgency of the crisis can.
condone.

If we turn to a much more circumscribed area of public
expenditure, we find much suggestive evidence of need-
less waste in the annual reports of the Select Committee
on Publications. The work of this Committee receives
less attention than its achievements deserve, but the un-
economic arrangements which it has repeatedly exposed,
and the aggregate economies which its recommendations
have from time to time effected, have a suggestive import-
ance which is much greater than the substantial sums which
it has rescued from wasteful use. They indicate the need
for a larger and broader survey of ordinary departmental
expenditure such as existing committees, limited in function
and in constitution, are unable to undertake. Meantime the
work of these committees would be more fruitful in results
if their comments and recommendations were regularly dis-
cussed in Parliament. The Select Committee on National
Expenditure in 1902 recommended that an opportunity
should be provided by the Government for the discussion
of the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee by the
House of Commons ; but this procedure has been adopted
only in five subsequent years — viz. 1905, 1907, 1908, 1910,
and 191 6 — although it quite clearly ought to be part of
the indispensable business of every session. This is the
view of the Committee itself, which, in its latest report,
suggests " that at least one day in each session should
be set aside by Standing Order for the consideration of
the reports of the Committee."

One other aspect — a very important one — of the problem
of national thrift remains to be considered. Thrift, in a
national sense, is concerned not merely with expenditure,
but with the methods and forms of taxation. It involves
the question not only of how money is spent, but also of
how it is raised.

Taxation, as already indicated, is but a means to an
end. The necessity which imposes it is created by the
objects to which the fiscal revenue is to be directed, and
the proportions of the necessity in a democratic State
depend upon the importance and variety of the ends which
a nation wills to secure. As a loner -forgotten writer of the

362 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

eighth century, Lu Chih, put it : "To create office? and
to establish government is for the end of nourishing the
people. To tax the people and to get revenue is for the
means of supporting the Government. A wise ruler does
not increase the means at the expense of the end.
Therefore, he must first pay his attention to the business
of the people, and give them a full chance for their
economic activities. He must first enrich every family,
and then collect the surplus of their income."

The task is more easily stated than achieved, but it is
as certain as anything can be that a system of taxation
which either " increases the means at the expense of the
end," or that has incidental or indirect effects which un-
necessarily augment the weight of the tax, or which
•encroaches upon the inadequate reserves of particular
classes, is essentially wasteful and destructive of thrift. An
appreciation of this fact inevitably raises the question of
the relative merits, from a thrift standpoint solely, of direct
and indirect methods of taxation. The advantages and
defects of both have been freely and repeatedly canvassed ;
but most of the discussions, and all the decisions founded
upon them, have been governed by considerations of
political expediency rather than by economic considerations
involving the elements of national thrift.

Now whatever may be the purely political merits of
indirect taxes — and these may be examined later — it is not
questionable that they are wasteful and unthrifty revenue-
producing instruments. They are costly in collection, far-
reaching and (for large classes of the population) unequal
and impoverishing in their effect, and injurious, in varying
but certain degree, to trade and commerce. They bring
into the revenue far less than the amount taken out of
the pockets of the consumer and, in the case of taxes
upon commodities of necessary consumption, encroach upon
resources which are already, in the case of the poorer
•classes, too slender for efficient subsistence. The weight
of their incidence is, in fact, in inverse ratio to taxable
capacity. A tea tax or a sugar tax — whatever its political
merits — taxes a man in proportion to his necessities instead
of in proportion to his ability to pay. To that extent, on
any reasonable or even tolerable theory of national pro-
gress, indirect taxes are essentially uneconomic and
iunthrifty (as well as unjust) revenue-producing expedients.

To a Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the other hand,

NATIONAL THRIFT 363

they have obvious political merits. They are easy of
collection, imperceptible and convenient in their incidence,
and, as is alleged, really self-imposed. Hume, in 1741,
gave his authority to these advantages in the following
words :

" The best taxes are such as are levied upon consump-
tions, especially those of luxury, because such taxes art-
least felt by the people. They seem, in some measure,
voluntary, since a man may choose how far he will use
the commodity which is taxed : they are paid gradually
and insensibly : they naturally produce sobriety and
frugality, if judiciously imposed : and being confounded
with the natural price of the commodity, they are scarcely
perceived by the consumers. Their only disadvantage is,
that they are expensive in the levying."

Adam Smith, who held that " every tax ought to be
levied at the time, or in the manner, in which it is most
likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it," gave
a qualified approval to Hume's view in the case of " taxes
upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury."
Such taxes, he said, " are finally paid by the consumer,
and generally in a manner that is very convenient for him.
He pays them little by little, as he has occasion to buy
the goods. As he is at liberty, too, either to buy or
not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his own fault if ,he .ever
suffers any considerable inconveniency from such taxes."

This view of the "- voluntariness " of indirect taxes
plainly requires very considerable qualification. Its
validity depends absolutely upon the proper definition
of a "luxury." While an excise or customs duty, say,
•on wine or spirits is entitled to be considered a self-
imposed tax, a tax on food or any other commodity of
universal and necessary consumption is obviously an in-
voluntary tax. Nor does the "voluntariness" of a tax
justify it economically. Even in the case of pure luxuries
the imposition of a tax is wasteful if it causes an excessive
(i.e. disproportionate) increase in the price of the
•commodity to the consumer.

Nor is the argument based upon the comparative " im-
perceptibility " of indirect taxes one that can be pressed.
Dr. Channing rightly held that "a free people ought to
know what they pay for freedom," and that " they should
.as truly scorn to be cheated into the support of their
-Government as into the support of their children."

364 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

" If citizenship has in it," as another writer observes,.
" some desirable possibilities in developing the human race,,
then for a Government to abet, encourage, or build upon.
the ignorance of its citizens in such a matter is as evil
and vicious as for a despotism to abet, encourage, or build:
upon the general ignorance of the masses of its subjects.
It is not a good thing, but an evil thing, that people
should be paying shillings in taxation whilst having a
befogged idea that they are paying pennies. Let them
know that they are paying shillings, and their interest in.
the manner of spending the shillings will be aroused." 1

The importance of the matter, from the standpoint of
national thrift, was well put by Herbert Spencer a quarter
of a century ago : " The aim of the politician commonly
is to raise public funds in such a way as shall leave
the citizen partly or wholly unconscious of the deductions
made from his income. . . . But tins system, being one
which takes furtively sums which it would be difficult to
get openly, achieves an end which should not be achieved..
The resistance to taxation, thus evaded, is a wholesome
resistance ; and, if not evaded, would put a proper check:
on public expenditure."

Mr. Gladstone, while describing, in 1861, direct and.
indirect methods of taxation as " two attractive sisters," -
to both of whom, " as Chancellor of the Exchequer, if not
as a member of this House," he had " always thought it
not only allowable, but even an act of duty," to pay his
addresses, admitted in a letter to his brother in 1859 that
" if you had only direct taxes, you would have economical
government."

It is undeniable that, to a Chancellor of the Exchequer,,
who is concerned to secure productive taxes with the
minimum risk of political disturbance, indirect taxes are
peculiarly attractive. Provided that they can be easily and
cheaply collected and that they do not too violently disturb
the processes of trade, their justification is held to be
complete. It is no part of a Finance Minister's accepted
duty to safeguard the consumer against excessive enhance-
ments of price, nor are these excessive and dispropor-
tionate enhancements included, as they strictly should ber

1 R. Jones, " The Nature and First Principle of Taxation," p. 207.

2 The simile seems hardly consistent with the glowing epitome of the
beneficent results of the remission of indirect taxes which was given in the
same speech.

NATIONAL THRIFT 365

in the costs of collection. They must, however, be taken
into account in any estimate of the comparative merits,
from an economic and thrift point of view, of direct and
indirect systems of taxation. The enhanced profits of
traders — including importers or manufacturers, merchants,
middlemen, and shopkeepers — upon the taxes they advance
are a burden upon the consumer which is as wasteful as
it is arbitrary and unjust. From the point of view of
economy and thrift, it is a rudimentary proposition
that (in Adam Smith's words) " every tax ought to be
so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of
the pockets of the people as little as possible over
.and above what it brings into the public treasury of the
State."

It may be a counsel of perfection to urge the immediate
abolition of all indirect taxes, save, possibly, those on pure
luxuries ; but so long as they are preserved the respon-
sibility of a Chancellor of the Exchequer ought not to be
limited, as now, to the imposition and collection of the
tax, but should extend to the protection of the consumer
against disproportionate and unjustifiable additions to the
price of the articles taxed. Fortunately, the course of
fiscal policy in later years has substantially modified the
former costly system. In 1841 indirect taxes produced
three-fourths (j 3 per cent.) of the tax revenue. In 1861
the proportion had fallen to six -tenths (62 per cent.), and
that proportion was maintained, with slight variations, for
something like thirty years. In 1891 the proportion had
fallen to 56 per cent., and by 1901 direct and indirect
taxes approximately balanced, indirect taxes being respon-
sible for slightly less than one-half (49 per cent.) of the
total tax revenue. Since then there has been a further
readjustment, and in the present year (191 6-1 7) indirect
taxes are expected to yield 34-6 per cent., and direct taxes
(excluding the excess profits duty) 65-4 per cent, of the
total tax revenue.

While it is now generally admitted that this rearrange-
ment of the relative proportions of direct and indirect taxa-
tion has been equitable and politically expedient, it is
demonstrable that, taking a long and broad view of national
interest, it has been economical and fruitful. What Mr.
Gladstone said of the effect of the remissions of indirect
taxes between 1842 and 1857 is true of all such remis-
sions. They mean "so much addition to the comforts

366 NATIONAL FINANCE AND TAXATION

and resources, so much deduction from the privations and
the difficulties, of the great mass of the people."

"If," as he added four years later (in 1861), "we
had not gained one single shilling by the remission of
indirect taxation, it would have been worth having for
the sake of the manner in Jwhich it has knit together the
interests and feelings of all classes of the community, from
one end of the country to the other. If, on the other
hand, it had had nothing to Ido with any question of moral
and social results, still the merely economical effects, in
promoting the material well-being of the people, have been*
so signal and extraordinary that we may well rejoioe to
have lived in a period during which it has been our happy
lot to take part in bringing about such changes."

All classes, as Mr. Gladstone said in 1859, are affected
by taxation, but " indirect taxation weighs with much more-
severe pressure upon the poor and labouring man." Direct
taxes like the income-tax, on the other hand, have the
economical advantage that they tend to take in taxation
the less useful portion of private incomes, whereas indirect
taxes by creating artificial prices often encroach upon
income that is vital to health and efficiency.

The true and economically sound principle upon which,
taxation should be based was laid down by Lord Palmerston
in 1846. "If," he said, "we are obliged to call upon
any class to make for the public service a sacrifice of
a large portion of their incomes, whether arising from
commerce, from professions, or from labour, that very fact
is the strongest possible reason why we should endeavour
to enable them to make that remainder, which we leave
to them, go as far as it possibly can in procuring for
them, according to their respective situations in life, the
necessaries, the conveniences, or the luxuries which they
may wish to enjoy." '

We thus return to the proposition with which we-
started : that the methods and forms of taxation are an
integral part of the problem of national thrift.
* Corn Law Debate, March 27, 1846.

Printed in Great Britain by
I'MWIH BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDOK

lr)83 4

DllML/iftt- I- vol 41 i*'"

HC Dawson, William Harbutt (ecL)
256 After- war problems

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