The widespread strikes in Italy, especially in the steel trade,
have ceased. Signor Giolitti constrained the -employers :to --accept the principle of co-operative control, and the Confedera- tion 'of Labour ordered the workmen to vacate the factories Which they had seized. The precise meaning of the new joint
control will be defined in a Bill which employers and employed are to draft for the Government. It may be safely assumed that the acute and logical Italian mind will evolve something less absurd than the early-Bolshevik formal '" workers' control " which quickly brought all Russian industries to a standstill. But there cannot be joint control, shared between employer and trade union, unless there is joint financial responsibility, and we have yet to see whether the Italian trade unions are prepared to share the lessee which Industry would probably incur •under divided and therefore inefficient management. Probably Signor Giolitti, whose -tenure of office is insecure and who fears to alienate the large Socialist _Party. in the Chamber, wishes to let the trade unions learn by experience the futility 'of Syndicalist schemes. The workmen.as well as the manufac- turers will have to pay for the lesson.
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