National Guilds and the State. By S. G. Hobson. (Bell.
12s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Hobson is an amiable visionary who strives hard in this book, as in others, to adjust his dreams to the stern facts of life. The idea of receiving wages for work done seems to give him positive pain, but his attempt to formulate a practical alternative is a sad failure, though it is veiled in obscure terms. We are glad to find that Mr. Hobson condemns Bolshevism as an economic failure, and that he cannot accept Mr. Cole's rival Guild scheme. The poor capitalist or skilled manager, after being deprived of his property, is to be submitted to industrial conscription, for the " liberal principle" " justifies resort to compulsion where there is non-compliance with the assignment of functions in the public interest." If Mr. Hobson will think out this " principle," he will find that it sanctions all that any Russian or Prussian despot or West Indian slave-owner ever did. Still, the capitalist will be heartened when he finds that Mr. Hobson, in expropriating his factory, proposes to compensate him with " exactly what we should lose in time and labour in constructing a similar factory," for that would now mean two or three times as much as the factory cost before the war.
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