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Updated: June 3, 2025
In a talk when he was asked to fill in at the last minute, he presented "two arguments why trade-unions alone could not be depended on to bring desirable change in working conditions through collective bargaining: one, because they were numerically so few in contrast to the number of industrial workers, and, two, because the reforms about to be demanded were technical, medical, and generally of scientific character, and skilled experts employed by the state would be necessary."
They have not improved in demeanour during the last twenty years. Even then the 'liberateds' and 'recaptives, chiefly Akus and Ibos, had begun the 'high jinks, which we shall find at their highest in Sierra Leone. They had organised 'Companies, the worst of trade-unions, elected headmen, indulged in strikes, and more than once had come into serious collision with the military.
They can be secured by gild socialism, by industrial self-government subject to state control as regards the relations of a trade to the rest of the community. So far as I know, they cannot be secured in any other way. Guild socialism, as advocated by Mr. Orage and the "New Age," is associated with a polemic against "political" action, and in favor of direct economic action by trade-unions.
"The trade-unions are just the same." "I believe you!" said Coryston. "Freedom's a lost art in England from Parliament downward. Well, well Good-by!" "Coryston!" "Yes?" Lord Coryston paused with his hand on the door. "Don't take the chair for Glenwilliam?" "By George, I will!" Coryston's eyes flamed. And going out he noisily shut the door. Lester was left to his work.
There might, for example, be a lowest stage which would include as the English knighthood once included almost every citizen capable of initiative, all the university graduates, all the men qualified to practice the responsible professions, all qualified teachers, all the men in the Army and Navy promoted to a certain rank, all seamen qualified to navigate a vessel, all the ministers recognized by properly organized religious bodies, all public officials exercising command; quasi-public organizations might nominate a certain proportion of their staffs, and organized trade-unions with any claim to skill, a certain proportion of their men, their "decent" men, and every artist or writer who could submit a passable diploma work; it would be, in fact, a mark set upon every man or woman who was qualified to do something or who had done something, as distinguished from the man who had done nothing in the world, the mere common unenterprising esurient man.
On the other hand, the opposition which comes from certain quarters, for instance, from some trade-unions, may be disregarded, as it is not directed against the claim that the efficiency can be heightened, but only against some social features of the scheme, such as the resulting temporary reduction of the number of workmen.
The socialist blames the wage system for all the evils of the present industrial order, regards the trade-unions as useful industrial agencies of reform, but urges a resort to the ballot as a necessary means of getting control of industry.
British labor is known to hate fascism since it has learned that fascism destroys, among other things, the value of the trade-unions and all that they have gained after many years of struggle. Any veering by England toward fascism and fascist alliances spells trouble with the trade-unions; hence, the decision "to coordinate the political education of the people."
It is safe to say, therefore, that a visitor is justified in advising non-union men to join trade-unions, and that he is not committing himself to an endorsement of every act of every trade-union in so doing.
I refer to the policy pursued by the trade-unions of reducing the practical efficiency of all their members alike to the level which can be reached by those of them who are least active and dexterous.
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