question of our political and economic organisation as a whole.

Our economic development has, in recent years, outstripped our political organisation. Through long centuries of growth we have built up a Constitution which, with all its defects, fairly reflects our present degree of social and political development. The keystone of this Constitution is the position of Parliament as at least theoretically representative of the community as a whole, and reflecting the general consensus of opinion on matters which affect the interests common to all. Various as the activities of Parliament have become in our complex society, it exists fundamentally to secure those essential conditions of liberty, security, and order, in which all are equally interested; and for this reason its members are chosen by electors grouped not according to class or function but according to geographical distribution.

During the last hundred years the importance of differentiation by function has enormously increased. In every department of life, and especially in industry, specialisation has become the dominant note; and with specialisation the function or employment of the individual has come to play an ever more important part both in his own life and in his relations to the community. This tendency has found its expression in a development of organisation by function which has sprung up side by side with, and in very imperfectly conceived relation to, the political groupings. The great Employers' Associations are, generally speaking, hostile to State interference in industrial matters, though, like other capitalist bodies, they have not hesitated to use their influence in the shaping of fiscal and other legislation affecting their interests. The Trade Unions have been, to a great extent, built up by men who believe in the ownership and control of all industries by the State, but are themselves purely industrial bodies, having the power of collective bargaining as their primary object. Each group has in recent years drawn more closely together within itself for the purpose of common defence, but the activities of neither group are fully co-ordinated. It is only very recently that attempts have been made to bring the two groups

together for the consideration of any question from the standpoint of industry as a whole; nor have either the Associations or the Unions any recognised responsibility to the State or the public, so long as their actions are confined within legal limits. The existence of the Parliamentary Labour Party and its relations to the Trade Union Congress represent an endeavour on the part of Labour to establish some working connexion between functional and political representation, but the history of those relations suggests the difficulties as well as the possibilities of the process; and, should the Labour Party be called upon to form a Government, its relations with the functional Labour organisations will become still more complicated and difficult.

At present, therefore, we are faced by the co-existence, on the one hand, of a political organisation controlling the whole legislative and executive power of the State and based on geographical representation, and, on the other, of a great number of Capitalist and Labour organisations based on functional representation and possessing enormous influence but no recognised place in the political Constitution, and only a very rudimentary machinery of co-operation among themselves.

The evils of the situation are manifold. Having no clearly defined responsibility to the community as a whole, the activities of the various functional organisations are directed mainly to the promotion of sectional interests; and, since Parliament is the only body which can give legislative effect to their desires, they are constantly tempted to secure their ends by putting pressure on the Government of the day. This pressure may be overt, as in the threat of a general strike, or silent and unobtrusive, as in the influence exerted by the great financial and trading combinations. Even in the event of a strike threat, the preliminary negotiations are usually conducted in secret; and, whether the pressure be applied by Labour or Capital, it is seldom that the public has any adequate opportunity to form a judgment on the issues. Meanwhile, Parliament and the Executive are overwhelmed with a mass of highly complex economic and industrial questions, which have never come before the electorate, and which they have neither the time nor the knowledge to treat satisfactorily. In the lack of the

specialised training and experience needed for the consideration of such questions as a rational basis for wagesystems, their excursions into the industrial field are apt to be spasmodic and ill-considered, with the result that industrial development is hampered by arbitrary measures adopted in order to secure freedom from immediate pressure. The knowledge that such pressure can be successfully applied increases the boldness and frequency with which it is employed; and the danger becomes great, not only that powerful groups of workers or employers may secure unduly preferential treatment, but that public policy on issues of wide national importance may be seriously deflected by this clandestine influence. Moreover, the identification of the political machine with the final industrial authority readily leads to the application of industrial or financial pressure to affect public policy on general political questions, with which the functional organisations themselves have no greater fitness or representative warrant to deal, than has Parliament to deal with the technical details of industry. At the same time, urgently needed social legislation is hung up by the pre-occupation of Parliament with industrial matters. Through the comparative failure of their industrial measures, through the impediment presented by pressure of work to the discharge of their primary functions, and through the knowledge that they are subject to external pressure, the reputation of Parliament suffers and the authority of Government is weakened.

This problem of the relation between the functional organisations and the State is one of the most difficult as it is one of the most important which we have to solve. The Guild Socialists cut the knot by proposing what is practically a reconstitution of society on purely occupational lines, but they seldom appear to have thought out clearly and fully the relations of the Guilds with each other and with the State; and, in their insistence on the importance of the functional element in modern life, they are in danger of overlooking the permanence of those primary individual and social needs to provide for which the State exists. On the other hand, State Socialism appears likely to intensify rather than remove the disadvantages attaching to the present system. In

their final chapter Mr and Mrs Webb have devoted some acute criticism to showing the dangers of exclusive control of industry by producers' organisations, and they suggest that such control must be shared by representatives of the community in Co-operative Society, Municipality, or National Government.' But they do not develop the suggestion in much detail, and they avoid the question how the Municipalities and National Government are to be rendered effective both for the control of industry and for the discharge of their political functions; nor do they discuss the effect on the political efficiency of these institutions of liability to become involved in industrial conflict. For it cannot seriously be contended that in a socialist State conflicts between producers and consumers, or between one group of producers and another, will never arise.

In any event, and whatever our views as to the ultimate goal of economic organisation, what we require at the moment is some machinery which will enable us to carry on, under existing conditions, with the minimum of disturbance both to industrial and political development. We want some form of organisation which, without infringing upon the proper domain of Parliament, will link up the existing functional organisations with some responsible, authoritative, central body, composed of members elected on a basis of specialised representation, and capable of dealing in a broad spirit with purely industrial questions. We want, in other words, an Industrial Parliament, with clearly defined duties and responsibilities, placed in definite relation to the political constitution.

A year ago, some such development seemed to be within reach. The Joint Industrial Councils set up under the Whitley Scheme provided machinery by which the workers' and employers' organisations in each great industry could be brought together, not merely for settling or averting disputes, but for the joint consideration of all questions affecting the industry or those engaged in it. A recently published book on the work of the Industrial Council for the Building Industry shows how far development and experiment on these lines may extend in co-ordinating the activities of functional groups, and realising the idea of industrial

autonomy in a single complex industry. But it was always recognised by advocates of this and similar schemes that no such machinery would suffice without the formation of some central body charged with coordinating the work of the Councils and considering the interests of industry as a whole. This proposal was made by the Industrial Conference, composed of representatives of the leading Employers' Associations and Trade Unions, which sat for a brief period in 1919. The failure to establish the permanent National Council proposed by this Conference has reacted most unfavourably on the development of the Whitley Scheme. It has also deprived us of precisely the kind of organisation which we need to avert the dangers and difficulties which arise from allowing the Government to become entangled in industrial controversy.

As Sir Charles Macara reminds us, the idea was not altogether a new one. A small Industrial Council, composed of representatives of Capital and Labour from leading industries, with Sir George (now Lord) Askwith in the chair, was appointed in 1911. That Council did valuable work in connexion with an inquiry into industrial agreements, and received a large measure of support and approval both from the workers and the employers. Had it been kept in being, if only as an advisory body, it might have rendered invaluable service during the war.

It is suggested, therefore, that the idea of a National Industrial Council should be revived; but even since 1919 much water has flowed under the bridges, and the first step appears to be the calling of the Industrial Conference in a more fully representative form, to act as a Constituent Assembly. It is obvious that the National Industrial Council can represent only industries which are already highly organised in themselves; and the natural electoral groups would appear to be, as suggested by the Conference, the existing Employers' Associations and Trade Unions. In industries where a Joint Industrial Council has been set up with success, the organisations represented might prefer to leave to the Joint Council the election of representatives of the industry in the National Council. It would probably be