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only two exercise any serious influence on workmen, and both of them have arisen within the trade-unions. They are the Labor College, at which young trade-unionists are schooled in Marxian economics and sent out to spread those doctrines among their fellows, and the Shop-Stewards' Movement. The former is an active and vigorous institution, started in 1909, and it has produced a number of young trade-union leaders, who have become prominent in recent years. It operates chiefly among miners in South Wales and Scotland, where the gospel according to Saint Marx is taking the place of the old teaching among a temperamentally religious people. Its influence has been conspicuous in the incessant turmoil in the mining industry, culminating in the great dispute of this year; but the termination of the conflict marked the limits of its sway, previously weakened by the breakdown of the Triple Alliance. In both of these crucial cases the plain sense of English workmen asserted itself against the adventurous policy of the Left Wing; and that fact is symptomatic of the present general trend of

events.

The Shop-Stewards' Movement operates chiefly among engineers and ship-yard workers. Led by revolutionaries, it is an attempt to turn an old trade-union institution to revolutionary purposes. The Clyde is its home and headquarters, but it has been carried by traveling agents to many centres. Its constructive aim is not clearly defined, but it is rather Syndicalist or Guildist than Socialist, especially among electrical engineers, though some prominent leaders profess Communism. But here too the revolutionary influence has been waning, through the failure of several abortive demonstrations, the general economic situation, and the leaden weight of unemploy

ment.

As for the political organizations, those that have drawn their inspiration from Moscow and pinned their faith to Bolshevism are sinking, with its failure, into insignificance. They never had any hold over the general body of workmen, who have no use for revolution or the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'; and since the visit of members of the Labor Party to Russia in 1920, Bolshevism has gradually, but steadily and perceptibly, dropped into general disfavor in official trade-union circles, which once coquetted with it. The decisive refusal of the Labor Party to admit Communists, in June last, put the seal on a long series of rebuffs; for the Labor Party is more revolutionary in complexion than the trade-unions, which furnish the most solid and sober part of it.

The same tendency is seen in the gradual dropping of 'direct action,' or the attempt to dictate the public policy by such labor-organizations as the Triple Alliance and the Trade-Union Congress, which was much in evidence in 1919 and 1920, when it was believed that the 'centre of gravity was passing from the House of Commons to the headquarters of the great trade-unions.' The Council of Action,' a self-constituted and irresponsible junta of persons overconscious of their own importance and wire-pulled from Moscow, never did anything but talk, and has quietly faded into oblivion. All that Bolshevism has achieved here is discussion among Socialists.

In short, the traditional sobriety of British workmen has been steadily vindicating itself, all through the alarums and excursions of this trying time. In the end, it has always carried the day. The great coal dispute is the culminating demonstration of its slow-working but massive influence. I do not mean merely the termination, in which the moderate element signally defeated

the extreme, but in the very demands of the Federation, and still more in the conduct of the dispute. The demands, and the tone in which they were made, present a striking contrast to those employed on previous occasions. Instead of claims for ever more pay, less work, and revolutionary changes, put forward in imperative language, the Federation presented a reasoned case for modifying the proposed reduction of wages universally admitted to be excessive and inequitable. The policy of ruining the pits, advocated by the Welsh and Scottish Left Wing, was defeated, and the whole three months of idleness and privation passed without the slightest disorder, save for two or three trifling incidents. Could that have happened anywhere else?

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But there is another and a positive side to the story. It would be a great mistake to infer from the failure of revolutionary plans and the subsidence into a calmer atmosphere that the Labor movement is falling back into the old rut and yielding to reactionary influences. Not at all. It is moving forward steadily and massively, after its wont. On the side of employers and capitalists there has been a corresponding struggle between the Right and Left wings; the Right Wing of moderation and acceptance of change, the Left Wing of dogged resistance and pugnacity; and in this case, too, the Left Wing is being defeated. The revolutionary press talks much of a grand conspiracy against Labor and a plot to smash trade-unionism, just as the reactionary press talks of Bolshevist plots and a conspiracy to overthrow society and smash the British Empire. There is as much, and as little, in the one cry as in the other. There are reactionary employers who would like to smash trade-unionism and reduce work

men to a state of subjection; and Bolshevist aims, which have never been concealed, have been furthered by much underground intriguing. But neither are succeeding. These fears are out of date on both sides. There is no substance in them, and the campaign is kept up only by the ammunition which each supplies to the other.

The truth is that the relations of employers and employed are undergoing a radical transformation, which amounts to a revolution, peacefully and gradually accomplished. Once more the British - or perhaps I should say the English people are displaying that genius for stability in change, for movement without losing balance, which has carried them safely through so many revolutionary periods in the past. I confess that I hardly expected it, so great was the turmoil and excitement at one time; but now I plainly see it going on. A test of extreme severity has been imposed by the artificial prosperity and demoralization due to warconditions and government control, followed by the difficult process of unwinding the chain, and, finally, by the unprecedented depression of trade, entailing unemployment on a scale never heard of before and reductions of wages all round.

But the country is standing the test with increasing sureness. This has not been visible on the surface, because only one side of the account is presented to the public. Newspapers devote their space to the exciting, not the humdrum events, and foreign correspondents are particularly bound by this law. They report strikes, disagreements, and disturbances, but say nothing indeed, know nothing of the peaceful proceedings and the far greater mass of disputes avoided.

To deal adequately with this side of the case would take a whole article; I can treat it only summarily here.

During the present year reductions of wages affecting some five million wageearners, distributed over nearly all the chief industries, have been arranged in the great majority of cases without any rupture. They have been effected by three different methods: (1) sliding scales in accordance with cost of living; (2) sliding scales in accordance with selling price; (3) negotiations between employers and trade-unions.

1. The Labor Gazette (official) for December last gave a list of twenty-four industries having a cost-of-living sliding scale, and I have a further list of sixteen. The most important groups are railwaymen, textile workers of many kinds, dyers and cleaners, police, government and municipal services, civil engineering.

2. The most important industry applying the selling-price method of adjustment is iron and steel, in which reductions ranging from 7 to 20 per cent have taken place, affecting about 125,000 persons.

3. Arrangement by negotiation has been effected in ship-building, building, mercantile marine, cotton, engineering, coal, and many other smaller groups.

Several principles of the first importance have emerged from this time of stress, greatly strengthened and extended. I place conciliation by joint committees of employers and employed in the forefront. Long established and well tried in a purely voluntary form, it was advancing in favor and usefulness before the war; but the Whitley Inquiry of 1919 resulted in a great extension of this principle. Under the Industrial Court Act, 70 joint councils have been set up, and 140 district councils, where single boards existed before.

Most of them have been active and efficient. The same act conferred powers of intervention on the Ministry of Labor by three methods: (1) Conciliation; (2) Arbitration; (3) Investigation.

During 1920 the Ministry settled 904 cases: 265 by negotiation, 633 by arbitration and six by inquiry. This work proceeds almost unnoticed.

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I must be content to mention two other highly important principles minimum statutory wage, and insurance against unemployment. Both have been greatly extended. But of greater significance than any of these more or less mechanical institutions is a change of attitude which has set in among employers. They have begun to take a new view of the wage-earners and to accord them a different position. The idea has dawned that they are really partners in a coöperative enterprise. It is not profit-sharing, or even copartnership in the old sense, but a new conception of the true relationship. It has not got very far and is not yet clearly perceived, but I see it emerging. Employers are beginning to take their men systematically into consultation, and to give them an interest in the common enterprise. It takes different forms in different conditions, but the spirit is the main thing.

The scheme proposed by coal-owners, which was accepted before the stoppage and is the basis of the new agreement, illustrates the spirit. Mr. Hodges, the miners' secretary, has called it the most far-reaching proposal made in modern industry. It provides for a standard minimum wage, as the first charge on the industry; then for a standard profit bearing a fixed relation to the aggregate of wages, and after that, for the division of further profits in fixed proportions. It is not so much profit-sharing as product-sharing, which has always seemed to me the true idea; and the ascertainment of the amounts by a joint audit of the books is a recognition of partnership rights.

It is in this direction that the solution of our most difficult industrial problem is to be found the problem

of output or working efficiency. The worst effect of war-conditions and government control has been to foster and fix the habit of restricted output and slack work. The blame for it rests primarily on employers, and it was bad enough before the war; but it is far worse now, and more responsible for the excessive cost of production, which has ruined our market, than high wagerates. It is up to employers to cure it by a large-minded in effect a revolutionary-change of attitude, which will give wage-earners a new status, a new interest, and a new responsibility.

There are serious obstacles. The first is the old evil tradition. A typical discontented but not revolutionary workman said to me lately: "The employers

are changing their attitude, but it is too late.' No, it is not too late, if the old tradition is sincerely, consciously, and purposefully abandoned. Here lies the danger of reactionary employers, who are the second obstacle. They will play into the hands of the theoretical systemmongers, who will seek to undermine and break up good relations and promote strife by every means in their power. These are the third obstacle. But they will have little power, if the enlightened employers are sincere and steadfast, and if they deal firmly with their reactionary colleagues.

This is the way things are moving and will move, because they must. A revolution is in progress, but a peaceful and practical one.

WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT COAL?

BY ARTHUR E. SUFFERN

THE Controversy between the senators sponsoring legislation affecting the coal-industry and the National Coal Association again calls attention to the imperious nature of this question. If every voter in the United States had at one time or another visited a coalmine, we should be in a better position to visualize some of the problems in the coal-industry. Such intimate acquaintance with the conditions of the industry would make it easier to obtain a comprehensive treatment of the problem before Congress. However, a knowledge of the technical process of production will not be sufficient. An understanding of the inter-relationships of all the important factors affecting the

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industry is necessary. Not until we see concretely the technical elements of the problem and the importance of the inter-relationship between mining, transportation, and the consumption of coal, shall we have a sufficient general appreciation of the complications of the coalindustry to formulate an intelligent public policy.

A strike of the miners demanding a 30-hour week and earnings that will enable them to live during the year seems arbitrary and absurd to most people. But they dismiss the matter without inquiring into the conditions that have occasioned such demands. Those who take the trouble to analyze the problem will find that the miners are at

tempting to control, in a very inadequate way, circumstances that properly belong to the public. In fact, the miners seek to do the same thing we all do, that is, use collective effort to control forces and conditions too strong and adverse for the individual. In this case these forces and conditions are beyond the control of either the miners or the operators, or both combined.

The industry has been idle on the average ninety-three working-days during the year for the last thirty years. This means that owners, miners, and consumers have been paying a heavy bill for waste and inefficiency. We are just beginning to catch a glimpse of the waste through idleness of capital and labor in all industries. The World War demonstrated to modern nations some of their latent possibilities when they attempted to attain full productive power. And this proved important solely in connection with the use of existing equipment. A consideration of full productive power does not stop with existing equipment. It takes into account the fruits of new invention and better organization.

Coal-mining was one of the first of the basic industries to find out what it meant to run to full capacity. It meant glutted markets for coal. This was because the industry was not properly organized, and coördinated with other industries. Since competitive gain was the dominant motive, anybody who owned coal-lands could open a mine and produce coal for the market. The result has been over-investment in periods of prosperity, and a full productive capacity far beyond the needs of the country. This factor, along with seasonal demand and inadequate storage facilities, has made it impossible to maintain continuity of production. No element in the problem is more important than this. But no move (except in the anthracite field) has ever been made

to cope with the over-expansion of mining capacity. Various estimates place this at from 19 to 33 per cent during the last five the last five years. A proper balancing of mining capacity with our country's needs is necessary to the conservation of our resources, to any attempt to maintain steady production, to efforts to relieve the railroads of unreasonable demands upon their facilities, and to the encouragement of improvements in technical processes.

The stage of efficiency in technical process in the industry is said by production engineers to be on a par with an attempt to raise wheat by digging the soil with a spade. This is needless, because adequate mechanical equipment can easily be had. But the owners who seek to provide such equipment and operate under different mining methods are immediately faced by the conditions established by the most wasteful competitive exploitation. Such equipment used in conjunction with the 'long-wall' system would force conservatism in opening mines, would involve longer waiting for returns on investment, and would necessitate a coördination between the coal-industry, transportation facilities, factory fuel-needs, and household consumers' demands, which, as yet, is little appreciated.

Much criticism has been directed toward the railroads in recent years, for their failure to furnish sufficient cars to the mines. It may be readily granted that there has been failure to make the best use of car-equipment under all circumstances, both during the government administration and during private control of the railroads. But a more significant matter in relation to the transportation of coal is the legal requirements on the railroads for service. Another factor of equal importance is the physical impossibility of making railroads keep pace with all the vagaries of investment, arbitrary operation of

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