Art. 7.-THE PRINCIPLES OF RECONSTRUCTION.

1. Reconstruction Committee. Sub-Committee on Relations between Employers and Employed: Interim Report on Joint Standing Industrial Councils. [Cd 8606.] Wyman, 1916.

2. Memorandum on the Industrial Situation After the War: The Garton Foundation. Harrison, 1916.

3. Labour and the New Social Order. A Report on Reconstruction. The Labour Party, London, Jan. 1918. 4. Self-Government in Industry. By G. D. H. Cole. Bell, 1917.

8. Industrial Reconstruction. Edited by Huntley Carter. Fisher Unwin, 1917.

I. PRIMARY CONSIDERATIONS.

WHEN the word Reconstruction' first came into prominence as applied to the reorganisation of our national life, its meaning was, comparatively speaking, definite and limited. It implied, in the first place, the provision of adequate machinery for dealing with the problems of demobilisation; in the second place, a consideration of how the wastage and devastation caused by the war might best be made good; in the third place, due preparation for the intensified commercial competition which was foretold as the inevitable accompaniment of the return to peace. It was seen at once that all these questions were intimately connected with the general problem of industrial unrest, and that, unless some basis of cooperation between employers and employed could be discovered, there was little prospect of effecting the necessary readjustments, or of obtaining the desired standard of output. The improvement of industrial relations was accordingly indicated as a special object of study to the Reconstruction Committee; and this body appointed a sub-committee for the purpose, whose labours bore fruit in the Whitley Report.

So far the scope of reconstruction was rigidly limited to the industrial sphere, and its objects were almost exclusively economic; but it soon became evident that the exertions and sacrifices of the war had given birth to a new spirit of criticism and of aspiration, which was at work in every department of national activity. A mere desire to find the means of passing successfully through an economic crisis has been succeeded by a genuine, if at times a somewhat nebulous resolve to make the whole life of the nation more worthy of the blood which has been shed to preserve it, and to date from the conclusion of peace a new era in domestic as well as in international affairs. We have to deal, in fact, not with a mere question of 'reconstruction '-the adaptation of old machinery to new conditions-but with a renaissance, a quickening of the national spirit, concerned primarily not with machinery or systems, but with the lives and happiness of human beings.

It is in this spirit that every existing institution, social, political, educational, industrial, is being questioned; and almost every week sees some new project of reform put forward in the press or on the platform. Unfortunately it cannot be said that this criticism is always based on any well-considered standard, or that many of the programmes are inspired by a clear vision of the goal to be achieved. The conditions of modern life are not, in truth, favourable to deliberate action. The rapidity with which events succeed each other, the instantaneousness of communications, the triumphs of modern organisation and invention, have combined to produce an atmosphere in which stress is laid rather upon achievement than upon purpose. So long as the march of civilisation can be hastened, there are comparatively few who stop to consider the direction in which it is moving.

The danger of hasty and ill-considered action is at least not lessened by the spread of democracy in its present form. It is the weakness of democracies-especially of democracies in which education is at the same time universal and defective-to be impatient. And this impatience is very apt to take the form of demanding that 'something must be done,' without much consideration of what is possible or desirable, or of mistaking

catchwords for principles and formulating a programme without having thought out a policy. From this tendency springs the peculiar sensitiveness of modern governments to agitation; for in this infirmity of purpose sectional interests find an opportunity to further their own aims under cover of the plea of public utility.

This impatience of thought as the preliminary to action marks much of what is said and written about reconstruction to-day. On the one hand there is a vague aspiration towards a better order of society; on the other, there are many concrete programmes, coloured, probably quite innocently and unwittingly, by the prejudices and ambitions of particular classes or groups. It will be well, before we stand committed to any definite scheme, to call a halt and to ask ourselves what is our conception of a well-ordered national life. That is the question to be answered, not only by politicians and reformers, but by the nation as a whole and the individual citizen for himself, if the shaping of our future is not to become the sport of chance, or to be warped by the influence of sectional interests.

We shall be well advised to state our answer in the simplest and most elementary terms, for it is precisely the most elementary truths which are in the greatest danger of being overlooked. The habit of taking fundamentals for granted has led to the erection of many political structures on a false foundation. We need to keep steadily before us a simple, and, if possible, a noncontroversial definition of the object for which national institutions are framed, and to bring back continually every scheme of reconstruction to be tried by this touchstone. Such a touchstone may perhaps be found in the words of Hooker:

'Forasmuch as we are not by ourselves sufficient to furnish ourselves with competent store of things needful for such a life as our nature doth desire, a life fit for the dignity of man; therefore, to supply those defects and imperfections which are in us, living single and solely by ourselves, we are naturally induced to seek communion and fellowship with others.' That is to say, the nation as a human community must be tested by the degree in which the mass of its citizens attain to a life 'fit for the dignity of man'; by which is

implied, first, such share of material welfare as is necessary to lift a man above the constant pressure of animal needs, and to gratify the demands of his nature for order, decency, comfort, and a measure of beauty in his surroundings; secondly, opportunity for the exercise of his faculties and the development of his social instincts in intercourse with his fellows. It is required of the individual, as a social unit, that he shall minister to the utmost of his power, whether as thinker, artist, statesman or craftsman, to the needs and desires of his fellowcitizens. It is required of the nation, as a community, that each of the individuals composing it shall participate, to the full extent of his capacity, in the material prosperity and the intellectual or spiritual activities arising from the common effort.

Every community, however, is something more than the sum of its units; and national life is something more than the sum of individual activities. The common efforts of many generations have built up a body of corporate achievement, corporate traditions and corporate ideals, which has become the rightful heritage of every individual citizen; and the present generation itself has in its power to shape, in large measure, the lives of those which are to come. This inheritance from the past, this responsibility for the future, are a part of that common stock for which the nation is a trustee to the individual and the individual to the nation.

It is by the participation of its people in all these phases of communal activity that the vitality of a nation is to be judged by their share in the creation and distribution of wealth, in the evolution of thought and culture, in the shaping of political institutions and the building up of the corporate tradition. If there remains any class or group which fails to participate consciously and fully in these activities, either through indifference to its obligations, or through circumstances which cramp its energies or hinder the gratification of its reasonable demands, the life of the whole nation is impoverished and the structure of its social order stands condemned.

This conception of the nation as a living organism, of which its citizens are members, will have a bearing on our ideas as to the part which the State should play in the direction of our national activities. The conception

of the State as a separate entity, possessing power over the lives of its citizens but responsible only to itself, arose in countries in which political power is confined, altogether or in great part, to a particular class or a particular order, or where the population of the State, as a political unit, is not united by the ties of common nationality. In such countries there is often a clear distinction between the interest of the State, as represented by the governmental machine, and the individual interest of the citizens, or even their collective interest as a social community. Even if the State, or the Government as representing the State, desires the welfare of the governed, it does so, primarily, in order to increase the power and stability of the political unit, in the guidance of whose activities the bulk of the population has no real, though it may have a nominal share. In these cases, therefore, the Government claims, logically enough, to choose for its subjects the kind of good to be pursued, and to regulate in every detail the methods by which it is to be obtained.

Where the political unit is based on the principle of nationality and the form of government is representative, such distinctions can have no legitimate place. For, whether we regard the State as implying the whole commonwealth-the nation considered in its corporate capacity or confine the term to the governmental machine by which the corporate action of the community is directed, it can have no existence apart from the life of the nation itself. And in that life, its activities, its achievements and its responsibilities, it is at once the duty and the privilege of the citizens to participate. In such a case, the State is the visible symbol and representative of the national life, the guardian of the common stock and the instrument of the common will. sovereignty is delegated and held in trust for the welfare of the individual citizens, in fulfilment of the implied contract by which the sovereignty of the individual is limited by his obligations to the community.

Its

This view of the State affects not merely the objects which it will seek, but the manner in which it will seek them. An irresponsible Government may, as has been said, impose upon any section of its subjects such institutions as it deems to be for their good, and direct their