RECONSTRUCTION.*
THE problem discussed in this pamphlet is so momentous that any assistance towards its solution cannot but be welcome ; unless Labour and Capital are to be locked in a life-and-death struggle which will end in the extinction of our commercial existence, some way must be found to reconcile their conflicting claims to the product of industry ; and " Oxon." has made such a vigorous attempt to point out a practicable policy to effect this adjustment that his views deserve some serious consideration. His work is by no means without fault : it is lacking at times in clearness and continuity of thought, its style is inclined to become long and involved where it ought to be brief and forcible, it devotes too much space to the demolition of opposing argu- ments which ceased, long since, to be seriously urged. We do not believe that any Socialist thinker of any eminence would contend, nowadays, that " labour " meant only manual labour, or that " to such a being as man in such a world as the present " the gift of a large sum of money would not be helpful in the development of his business. No one asserts that invention and organizing ability do not count in the production of value.
Oxon." expends unnecessary energy in bursting through such open doorways as these. It is true that his adversaries have occasionally given him an opportunity for dialectical victory by their carelessness in their use of the terms " Capitalist " and " Capitalism" ; but the distinction which is running in their minds is clear enough, although it may not be scientifically accurate. They recognize the necessity for capital, but they object to Capitalism. They object to enormous accumulations of wealth being deposited in the possession of men who have acquired it without activity and without merit, who are able to enjoy its increase merely, perhaps, because they are the grandsons of their grandfathers. When a good Socialist thinks of " Capitalism' he sees a vision of an immense mass of gold, continually growing by sheer molecular attraction and crushing the toiling masses of mankind beneath its crude weight of metal ; when he thinks of " The Capitalist " he sees its infamous owner, inertly luxurious, his wealth increasing as his health decays, oppressing the proletariat with his unearned increment, and returning nothing to the State for all the privileges it has showered upon him. But when the good Socialist thinks of capital alone he is apt to see it as simply as any one else does, as an inoffensive means of production ; he abhors the sinner but approves the sin. If " Oxon." had remembered this distinction when he was reading his Socialistic literature, he would have discounted its engaging rhetoric at its proper value, and answered its real arguments • Reconstructor* and Reconstruction : a Pka for Common Sens.. By Oxon. exiard : B. H. Biaoluvell. Ds. ast-1
with greater conviction. For the problem exists and is imminent. The class that labours and suffers is becoming enraged against the class that only spends and enjoys ; and that this latter class is relatively insignificant in number is not sufficient to dispel the storm. It is necessary to show that Labour depends upon Capital, and that on the whole the rewards of each are not disproportionate to the services rendered, before the workers will acquiesce willingly in the existing division of profits.
To that end the present pamphlet has made several important contributions. The author brings into prominence the peculiar importance of the part played by capital in the initiation of a new business enterprise—a part overlooked by Socialistic writers who insist on treating capital as essentially fluid, and labour as practically fixed. In the beginning of an industry, however, the exact opposite is the case ; the capital is committed irrevoc- ably, and if the venture fails, it, or the greater portion of it, is lost beyond recall, while the labourer can transfer his abilities, undamaged, elsewhere. A vast amount of the wealth embarked in commercial speculation is so lost ; and in order that it should be embarked at all, the profits of successful investments must compensate for the failures so that the returns may, on the average, be commensurate with the risk. " Oxon." ie rightly insistent also on the necessity for security to attract indispensable capital ; it is not through any accident of the social system but in the very nature of human activities that, other things being equal, capital is cheapest under the most stable Governments ; the less the risks, the less the price that has to be paid for insurance ; and as it is the community that reaps the benefit, it is the com- munity that has to pay the price. In the cotton trade, which furnishes a favourite theme for Socialistic improvisations on the merciless exploitation of labour, we find that if we take the quarter of a century ending just before the war the return to the total capital invested in the trade amounted to less than 31 per cent., while the wages worked out at about 40 per cent. Labour, in fact, secured the capital it needed for its equipment at the cheapest rate.
Yet another point which, obvious as it is, the makers of Socialistic panaceas are apt to leave in convenient obscurity, is the existence of world competition. "Oxon." puts this forcibly, but not unfairly :-
" No conditions which have a monetary bearing can be pre- scribed without regard to the 100,000,000 workers of the world, living as they do in a state of tacit cut-throat competition with tha workers of this country. . . . No better example of this sublime unconsciousness of other people's existence could be cited than the 'privilege' (as it is now commonly called) that the Trade Unions stand for, of restricting output—i.e., of obstructing wealth production (r.nd incidentally preventing high wages)—as if there were no other manufacturers in the world to take advantage of this to increase their own output and, through the power of reducing prices in consequence of larger output, to undersell us in all markets, including our own."
We need not labour this argument ; we should not have thought it necessary to refer to it at all had not recent events in the political and industrial worlds made it painfully evident that a consider-
able number of workers are still blind to the fact that their own prosperity is identified with the continuance of the industry to which they belong.
Whatever views we may take, however, of the various demands of Capital and Labour, there can be no difference of opinion about
the desirability of efficient co-ordination between these two factors of production. When the human element enters into any problem, the subjective side of the question Must be con- sidered just as closely as the objective ; it is not sufficient that men should benefit according to their deserts, they must also
know they are so benefiting. If you think Cleopatra's Needle is in Trafalgar Square, it remains none the less on the Thames Embankment ; but if you think you have a pain, you have a pain, if you think you have a grievance, you have a grievance ; and when an imaginary injustice can cause nearly as much harm
as a real injustice, any machinery which will help to bring about better mutual understanding is much to be desired. The organiza- tion which " Oxon." proposes for this purpose, as well as for the amelioration of the condition of the wage-earners, is too elaborate to be explained here in detail. Briefly, it takes the form of
separate autonomous industries co-ordinated with a National Federal Parliament of Industry." For its possibilities and advan- tages we must refer our readers to the pamphlet itself. To us it appears rather too cumbrous to work smoothly, and the scheme of representation seems too unfair to be quite acceptable. If we understand our author aright, agriculture with over two million members would have exactly tbe same representation and votingpower as fishing with sixty-one thousand member ; and we cannot imagine the miners, for example, allowing themselves ' tamely to be swamped by a casual coalition between the repre- sentatives of the Civil Service and the furniture trade. But as the scheme is modelled avowedly on the League of Nations, the future will probably teach us how far it is practitable and hori far Utopian ; at any rate, it is capable of trial by instalments, and if successful in an elementary and narrow stage it could be almlied readily to the more complex conditions of national and international co-ordination.
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