STACK ANNEX HC 256.2 L35 P s? = l> ^Jl I E? ^ ~- ' I S 1 RARYQ^ -fclEUNIVERta DIVERS//, OVERS'/A Towards a New World Being the Reconstruction Programme of the British Labor Party; together with an Introductory Article by Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Leader of the Party, and a Manifesto to the Labor Movement from the English Fellow- ship of Reconciliation // it a dream ? Nay but the lack of it the dream, And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream, And all the world a dream. WALT WHITMAN. Wyoming, New York: W. R. Browne Price Twenty Cents "A very remarkable thing is happening in America. Liberals and radicals of all shades and degrees of opinion are finding a common ground, and see before them a common road leading to that new social order of which we have dreamed and toward which we have striven so long without hope of arriving at our destination in this generation or the next. That common ground is the program of the British Labor Party. It has electrified liberal America as the speeches of President Wilson have electrified liberal Europe. And if liberal Europe looks to Wilson today as a Moses, we in turn look to the British Labor Party's program as the Ten Commandments. Yet the strength of them is that they are not commandments, nor dogmas, nor final things, but a successful attempt to strike at the roots without attempting the impossible, and to be con- structive without being trivial and merely ameliorative. It is that thing for which we have waited so long, a program practicable enough for today and tomorrow, yet radical enough to bring our ultimate destination within view." THE PUBLIC (New York). "The Report on Reconstruction of the British Labor Party is probably the most mature and carefully formulated programme ever put forth by a responsible political party. It is the result of an exhaustive criticism of the whole English experience in social legislation during the past four generations. It is the result of a careful discrimination between what the state can and must do in order to bring about social improvement and what the contribu- tion must be of the workers themselves. It is the result of an adjustment between many opinions and interests, whose conflicts in the past have impaired the unity and hampered the growth of the British labor movement. It is, consequently, at once an his- torical, a scientific and a political document which, although it was worded by a sub-committee, was written as a result of the sufferings, the struggles, the experiments, the failures, the suc- cesses, the aspirations and the thinking of the British wage-earn- ing class during its four generations of conscious development. . . If the American people are too limited or too blind to admit a programme of this kind into serious political discussion, they will only provoke and even justify a far more drastic and dangerous kind of agitation. The social reconstruction proposed in this programme is not put forth by some little group of social reform- ers or of anti-social revolutionists. It is proposed as the platform for one of the most powerful parties in Great Britain a party which will contest almost every constituency in the coming general election and which, unless it is opposed by a coalition, may elect a majority to the House of Commons." THE NEW REPUBLIC (New York). Towards a New World Being the Reconstruction Programme of the British Labor Party; together with an Introductory Article by Mr. Arthur Henderson, the Leader of the Party, and a Manifesto to the Labor Movement from the English Fellow- ship of Reconciliation Is it a dream ? Nay but the lack of it the dream. And failing it life's lore and wealth a dream. And all the world a dream. WALT WHITMAN. Wyoming, New York: W. R. Browne Down came the storm! In ruin fell The outworn world we knew. It passed, that elemental swell! Again appeared the blue. The sun shone in the new-wash 'd sky- And what from heaven saw he? Blocks of the past, like icebergs high, Float in a rolling sea. He melts the icebergs of the past, A green, new earth appears. Millions, whose life in ice lay fast, Have thoughts and smiles and tears. The world's great order dawns in sheen After long darkness rude, Divinelier imaged, clearer seen, With happier zeal pursued. s s w K- Q -~g"i !?1i S i i^fifffttik; o 3o3 S. i-BM D3 ^> cr sii* ! i I? a 2 ^ OT3 >> fl e-2" O.M.C "- "S3 yS 1 <u g 'w *o3 % K a <a i-uiirni* yill^ffljll- 8 !] STACK ANNEX INTRODUCTORY L REBUILDING THE SOCIAL ORDER BY ARTHUR HENDERSON LEADER OF THE BRITISH LABOR PARTY WHEN victory in the sense of the collapse of the military power in the Central Empires is at last achieved, we shall be confronted with the task of translating military success into its political, economic, and social equivalents in this country and every other. It will not be a democratic victory if it results merely in the restoration of the capitalistic regime which the war has discredited and destroyed. Victory for the people means something more than the continuance of the old system of production for the profit of a small owning class, on the basis of wage-slavery for the producing classes. The hard, cruel, competitive system of production must be replaced by a system of co-operation under which the status of the workers will be revolutionized, and in which the squalor and poverty, the economic insecurity and social miseries of the past will have no place. This is the' great task before the statesmen and politicians of the future. Then we must remember that the coming period of reconstruction, even more than the remaining period of the war, will impose upon the leaders of all the civilized States new and searching tests of character and intellect. As we draw nearer to the end of the war we begin to see [3] more clearly the magnitude of the problems that peace will bring. So vast, intricate, and fundamental have been the changes wrought during the last three and a half years that we are sometimes tempted to think the will and intelligence of men will be unequal to the task of dealing with them. Still more may we fear sometimes that the problems of reconstruction will be handled by men too impatient to think things through, too tired and cynical to respond to the glowing faith in a finer future for the world which now inspires the multitudes of common people who have striven so heroically and suffered so patiently during the war. For national leadership to fall into the hands of such men in the great new days upon which we shall pres- ently enter would be a disaster almost as great as the war itself. If there could be anything worse than an empiric in control of State policy when peace comes, it would be the influence of a cynic upon the splendid enthusiasm and revolutionary ardor of democracy, newly awakened to a consciousness of its power and eager to build a better future for mankind. The outstanding fact of world politics at the present time and when peace comes this fact will be made more clear is that a great tide of revolutionary feeling is rising in every country. Everywhere the peoples are becoming conscious of power. They are beginning to sit in judg- ment upon their rulers. They are beginning to ask ques- tions about the policies that have brought the world to the edge of secular ruin. In this war the people have shown themselves capable of heroic sacrifices and resolute endurance because they love liberty and desire peace. The hope that the issue of [41 this war will be an increase of freedom, not only for themselves, but for those who have lived under the yoke of alien tyrannies, has sustained the people throughout these years of war. It has caused them to pour out the blood ' of their best and bravest, to surrender hard-won liberties, to toil unremittingly in factory, field, and mine, to spend without stint the material wealth accumulated through years of peace and prosperity. But the people will not choose to entrust their destinies at the Peace Conference to statesmen who have not per- ceived the moral significance of the struggle, and who are not prepared to make a people's peace. We want to re- place the material force of arms by the moral force of right in the governance of the world. For that great task of the immediate future we want national leaders who are not only responsive to the inspirations and impulses of democracy, but who are qualified to guide the mighty energies of democracy in the task of building up the new social order. Never before have the people been confronted with problems of greater magnitude, international and national, economic and political, social and personal ; but never have they had so good an opportunity of taking hold of these problems for themselves. The policies and programmes of the orthodox parties have little relevance to the new situation. Political parties bound by tradition, saturated with class prejudice, out of touch with the living move- ments of thought and feeling among the people, cannot easily adapt themselves to the changed conditions, the new demands, the enlarged ideals to which the war has given rise. The party of the future, upon which the chief tasks of reconstruction will devolve, will be the one which derives [5] directly from the people themselves, and has been made the organ of the people's will, the voice of all the people of both sexes and all classes who work by hand or brain. Through such a party, led by democratically chosen leaders who have proved their fidelity to principle and their faith in the people's cause, the best spirits of our time will be able to work as they have never been able to work in the orthodox parties of the past. Nothing but disunity and divided counsels in the democratic movement can wreck the promise of the future. For every man and woman who believes in democracy and who desires to see a new birth of freedom there is a place in the people's movement and a well-defined work to do. In a wider sense than has hitherto been understood, the politics of the future will be human politics, and the dom- inating party will be the party of the common people, and of democracy. This is certain. The people will have it so, for the people are weary of wars. They have borne too long the inequalities and injustices inherent in an eco- nomic system based on competition instead of co-operation. They are coming together in a more powerfully organ- ized movement to achieve a new freedom, and to establish on this earth, drenched with men's blood, torn with men's struggles, wet with human tears, a fairer ideal of life; an ideal dominated not by any spirit of revenge or hatred, expressing itself in economic and financial boycott, but in love, brotherhood, and peace. (From "The Methodist Times," London) [6] THE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMME OF THE BRITISH LABOR PARTY IT BEHOOVES the Labor party, in formulating its own programme for reconstruction after the war, and in criticizing the various preparations and plans that are being made by the present government, to look at the prob- lem as a whole. We have to make clear what it is that we wish to construct. It is important to emphasize the fact that, whatever may be the case with regard to other political parties, our detailed practical proposals proceed from definitely held principles. THE END OF A CIVILIZATION We need to beware of patchwork. The view of the Labor party is that what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that government department, or this or that piece of social machinery ; but, so far as Britain is con- cerned, society itself. The individual worker, or for that matter the individual statesman, immersed in daily routine like the individual soldier in a battle easily fails to understand the magnitude and far-reaching importance of what is taking place around him. How does it fit together as a whole? How does it look from a distance? Count Okuma, one of the oldest, most experienced, and ablest of the statesmen of Japan, watching the present conflict from [7] the other side of the globe, declares it to be nothing less than the death of European civilization. Just as in the past the civilization of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, and the great Roman empire have been successively de- stroyed, so, in the judgment of this detached observer, the civilization of all Europe is even now receiving its death blow. We of the Labor party can so far agree in this estimate as to recognize, in the present world catastrophe, if not the death, in Europe, of civilization itself, at any rate the culmination and collapse of a distinctive industrial civilization, which the workers will not seek to reconstruct. At such times of crisis it is easier to slip into ruin than to progress into higher forms of organization. That is the problem as it presents itself to the Labor party. What this war is consuming is not merely the security, the homes, the livelihood and the lives of millions of inno- cent families, and an enormous proportion of all the accu- mulated wealth of the world, but also the very basis of the peculiar social order in which it has arisen. The indi- vidualist system of capitalist production, based on the pri- vate ownership and competitive administration of land and capital, with its reckless "p r fi tee ring" and wage-slavery; with its glorification of the unhampered struggle for the means of life and its hypocritical pretense of the "survival of the fittest"; with the monstrous inequality of circum- stances which it produces and the degradation and brutal- ization, both moral and spiritual, resulting therefrom, may, we hope, indeed have received a death blow. With it must go the political system and ideas in which it naturally found expression. We of the Labor party, whether in opposition or in due time called upon to form an admin- istration, will certainly lend no hand to its revival. On the contrary, we shall do our utmost to see that it is buried [8] with the millions whom it has done to death. If we in Britain are to escape from the decay of civilization itself, which the Japanese statesman foresees, we must ensure that what is presently to be built up is a new social order, based not on fighting but on fraternity; not on the com- petitive struggle for the means of bare life, but on a deliberately planned co-operation in production and distri- bution for the benefit of all who participate by hand or by brain ; not on the utmost possible inequality of riches, but on a systematic approach towards a healthy equality of material circumstances for every person born into the world ; not on an enforced dominion over subject nations, subject races, subject colonies, subject classes, or a subject sex, but, in industry as well as in government, on that equal freedom, that general consciousness of consent, and that widest possible participation in power, both economic and political, which is characteristic of democracy. We do not, of course, pretend that it is possible, even after the drastic clearing away that is now going on, to build society anew in a year or two of feverish "reconstruction." What the Labor party intends to satisfy itself about is that each brick that it helps to lay shall go to erect the structure that it intends, and no other. THE PILLARS OF THE HOUSE We need not here recapitulate, one by one, the different items in the Labor party's programme, which successive party conferences have adopted. These proposals, some of them in various publications worked out in practical detail, are often carelessly derided as impracticable, even by the politicians who steal them piecemeal from us ! The mem- bers of the Labor party, themselves actually working by [9] hand or by brain, in close contact with the facts, have per- haps at all times a more accurate appreciation of what is practicable, in industry as in politics, than those who depend solely on academic instruction or are biased by great possessions. But today no man dares to say that anything is impracticable. The war, which has scared the old political parties right out of their dogmas, has taught every statesman and every government official, to his enduring surprise, how very much more can be done along the lines that we have laid down than he had ever before thought possible. What we now promulgate as our policy, whether for opposition or for office, is not merely this or that specific reform, but a deliberately thought out, systematic, and comprehensive plan for that immediate social rebuilding which any ministry, whether or not it desires to grapple with the problem, will be driven to undertake. The four pillars of the house that we propose to erect, resting upon the common foundation of the democratic control of society in all its activities, may be termed : (a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Mini- mum; (b) The Democratic Control of Industry; (c) The Revolution in National Finance; and (</) The Surplus Wealth for the Common Good. THE UNIVERSAL ENFORCEMENT OF A NATIONAL MINIMUM The first principle of the Labor party in significant contrast with those of the capitalist system, whether expressed by the Liberal or by the Conservative party is the securing to every member of the community, in good [to] times and bad alike (and not only to the strong and able, the well born or the fortunate), of all the requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship. This is in no sense a "class" proposal. Such an amount of social protection of the individual, however poor and lowly, from birth to death, is, as the economist now knows, as indispensable to fruitful cooperation as it is to successful combination; and it affords the only complete safeguard against that insidious degradation of the standard of life which is the worst economic and social calamity to which any com- munity can be subjected. We are members one of another. No man liveth to himself alone. If any, even the humblest, is made to suffer, the whole community and every one of us, whether or not we recognize the fact, is thereby injured. Generation after generation this has been the corner-stone of the faith of Labor. It will be the guiding principle of any Labor government. The Legislative Regulation of Employment Thus it is that the Labor party today stands for the universal application of the policy of the national mini- mum, to which (as embodied in the successive elaborations of the Factory, Mines, Railways, Shops, Merchant Ship- ping, and Truck acts, the Public Health, Housing, and Education acts, and the Minimum Wage act, all of them aiming at the enforcement of at least the prescribed mini- mum of leisure, health, education, and subsistence) the spokesmen of Labor have already gained the support of the enlightened statesmen and economists of the world. All these laws purporting to protect against extreme degradation of the standard of life need considerable im- provement and extension, whilst their administration leaves much to be desired. For instance, the Workmen's Compensation act fails shamefully, not merely to secure proper provision for all the victims of accident and indus- trial disease, but what is much more important, does not succeed in preventing their continual increase. The amendment and consolidation of the Factory and Work- shops acts, with their extension to all employed persons, is long overdue, and it will be the policy of Labor greatly to strengthen the staff of inspectors, especially by the addi- tion of more men and women of actual experience of the workshop and the mine. The Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) act must certainly be maintained in force, and suitably amended, so as both to ensure greater uniformity of conditions among the several districts, and to make the district minimum in all cases an effective reality. The same policy will, in the interests of the agricultural labor- ers, dictate the perpetuation of the Legal Wage clauses of the new Corn law just passed for a term of five years, and the prompt amendment of any defects that may be revealed in their working. And, in view of the fact that many millions of wage-earners, notably women and the less skilled workmen in various occupations, are unable by combination to obtain wages adequate for decent mainten- ance in health, the Labor party intends to see to it that the Trade Boards act is suitably amended and made to apply to all industrial employments in which any consid- erable number of those employed obtain less than thirty shillings per week. This minimum of not less than thirty shillings per week (which will need revision according to the level of prices) ought to be the very lowest statutory base line for the least skilled adult workers, men or women, in any occupation, in all parts of the United Kingdom. The Organization of Demobilization But the coming industrial dislocation, which will in- evitably follow the discharge from war service of half of all the working population, imposes new obligations upon the community. The demobilization and discharge of the eight million wage-earners now being paid from public funds, either for service with the colors or in munition work and other war trades, will bring to the whole wage- earning class grave peril of unemployment, reduction of wages, and a lasting degradation of the standard of life, which can be prevented only by deliberate national organ- ization. The Labor party has repeatedly called upon the present government to formulate its plan, and to make in advance all arrangements necessary for coping with so unparalleled a dislocation. The policy to which the Labor party commits itself is unhesitating and uncompromising. It is plain that regard should be had, in stopping govern- ment orders, reducing the staff of the national factories, and demobilizing the army, to the actual state of employ- ment in particular industries and in different districts, so as both to release first the kinds of labor most urgently required for the revival of peace production, and to pre- vent any congestion of the market. It is no less impera- tive that suitable provision against being turned suddenly adrift without resources should be made, not only for the soldiers, but also for the three million operatives in muni- tion work and other war trades, who will be discharged long before most of the army can be disbanded. On this important point, which is the most urgent of all, the pres- ent government has, we believe, down to the present hour, formulated no plan, and come to no decision, and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative party has apparently [13] deemed the matter worthy of agitation. Any government which should allow the discharged soldier or munition worker to fall into the clutches of charity or the Poor law would have to be instantly driven from office by an out- burst of popular indignation. What every one of them will look for is a situation in accordance with his capacity. Securing Employment for All The Labor party insists as no other political party has thought fit to do that the obligation to find suitable employment in productive work for all these men and women rests upon the government for the time being. The work of re-settling the disbanded soldiers and discharged munition workers into new situations is a national obliga- tion ; and the Labor party emphatically protests against its being regarded as a matter for private charity. It strongly objects to this public duty being handed over either to committees of philanthropists or benevolent societies, or to any of the military or recruiting au- thorities. The policy of the Labor party in this matter is to make the utmost use of the trade unions, and, equally for the brainworkers, of the various professional associa- tions. In view of the fact that, in any trade, the best organization for placing men in situations is a national trade union having local branches throughout the kingdom, every soldier should be allowed, if he chooses, to have a duplicate of his industrial discharge notice sent, one month before the date fixed for his discharge, to the secretary of the trade union to which he belongs or wishes to belong. Apart from this use of the trade union (and a correspond- ing use of the professional association) the government must, of course, avail itself of some such public machinery ['4] as that of the employment exchanges ; but before the exist- ing exchanges (which will need to be greatly extended) can receive the cooperation and support of the organized Labor movement, without which their operations can never be fully successful, it is imperative that they should be drastically reformed, on the lines laid down in the Demobilization Report of the "Labor After the War" Joint Committee; and, in particular, that each exchange should be placed under the supervision and control of a joint committee of employers and trade unionists in equal numbers. The responsibility of the government, for the time being, in the grave industrial crisis that demobilization will pro- duce, goes, however, far beyond the eight million men and women whom the various departments will suddenly dis- charge from their own service. The effect of this peremp- tory discharge on all the other workers has also to be taken into account. To the Labor party it will seem the supreme concern of the government of the day to see to it that there shall be, as a result of the gigantic "General Post" which it will itself have deliberately set going, no- where any degradation of the standard of life. The gov- ernment has pledged itself to restore the trade union con- ditions and "pre-war practices" of the workshop, which the trade unions patriotically gave up at the direct request of the government itself; and this solemn pledge must be fulfilled, of course, in the spirit as well as in the letter. The Labor party, moreover, holds it to be the duty of the government of the day to take all necessary steps to pre- vent the standard rates of wages, in any trade or occupa- tion whatsoever, from suffering any reduction, relatively to the contemporary cost of living. Unfortunately, the present government, like the Liberal and Conservative parties, so far refuses to speak on this important matter with any clear voice. We claim that it should be a cardi- nal point of government policy to make it plain to every capitalist employer that any attempt to reduce the cus- tomary rates of wages when peace comes, or to take ad- vantage of the dislocation of demobilization to worsen the conditions of employment in any grade whatsoever, will certainly lead to embittered industrial strife, which will be in the highest degree detrimental to the national inter- ests; and that the government of the day will not hesitate to take all necessary steps to avert such a calamity. In the great impending crisis the government of the day should not only, as the greatest employer of both brainworkers and manual workers, set a good example in this respect, but should also actively seek to influence private employ- ers by proclaiming in advance that it will not itself attempt to lower the standard rates of conditions in public employ- ment; by announcing that it will insist on the most rigor- ous observance of the fair wages clause in all public con- tracts, and by explicitly recommending every local author- ity to adopt the same policy. But nothing is more dangerous to the standard of life, or so destructive of those minimum conditions of healthy existence, which must in the interests of the community be assured to every worker, than any widespread or con- tinued unemployment. It has always been a fundamental principle of the Labor party (a point on which, significant- ly enough, it has not been followed by either of the other political parties) that, in a modern industrial community, it is one of the foremost obligations of the government to find, for every willing worker, whether by hand or by brain, productive work at standard rates. It is accordingly the duty of the government to adopt [16] a policy of deliberately and systematically preventing the occurrence of unemployment, instead of, as heretofore, letting unemployment occur, and then seeking, vainly and expensively, to relieve the unemployed. It is now known that the government can, if it chooses, arrange the public works and the orders of national departments and local authorities in such a way as to maintain the aggregate de- mand for labor in the whole kingdom (including that of capitalist employers) approximately at a uniform level from year to year ; and it is therefore a primary obligation of the government to prevent any considerable or wide- spread fluctuations in the total numbers employed in times of good or bad trade. But this is not all. In order to pre- pare for the possibility of there being any unemployment, either in the course of demobilization or in the first years of peace, it is essential that the government should make all necessary preparations for putting instantly in hand, directly or through the local authorities, such urgently needed public works as (a) the rehousing of the popula- tion alike in rural districts, mining villages, and town slums, to the extent, possibly, of a million new cottages and an outlay of three hundred millions sterling; (b) the immediate making good of the shortage of schools, training colleges, technical colleges, etc., and the engagement of the necessary additional teaching, clerical, and administra- tive staffs; (c) new roads; (d) light railways; (e) the unification and reorganization of the railway and canal system; (/) afforestation; (g} the reclamation of land; (A) the development and better equipment of our ports and harbors; (*) the opening up of access to land by coop- erative small holdings and in other practicable ways. Moreover, in order to relieve any pressure of an over- stocked labor market, the opportunity should be taken, if [17] unemployment should threaten to become widespread, (a) immediately to raise the school-leaving age to sixteen; (b) greatly to increase the number of scholarships and burs- aries for secondary and higher education; and (c) sub- stantially to shorten the hours of labor of all young per- sons, even to a greater extent than the eight hours per week contemplated in the new Education bill, in order to enable them to attend technical and other classes in the daytime. Finally, wherever practicable, the hours of adult labor should be reduced to not more than forty- eight per week, without reduction of the standard rates of wages. There can be no economic or other justification for keeping any man or women to work for long hours, or at overtime, whilst others are unemployed. Social Insurance Against Unemployment In so far as the government fails to prevent unemploy- ment whenever it finds it impossible to discover for any willing worker, man or woman, a suitable situation at the standard rate the Labor party holds that the government must, in the interest of the community as a whole, pro- vide him or her with adequate maintenance, either with such arrangements for honorable employment or with such useful training as may be found practicable, according to age, health and previous occupation. In many ways the best form of provision for those who must be unemployed, because the industrial organization of the community so far breaks down as to be temporarily unable to set them to work, is the Out of Work Benefit afforded by a well ad- ministered trade union. This is a special tax on the trade unionists themselves which they have voluntarily under- taken, but towards which they have a right to claim a public subvention a subvention which was actually [18! granted by Parliament (though only to the extent of a couple of shillings or so per week) under Part II of the Insurance act. The arbitrary withdrawal by the government in 1915 of this statutory right of the trade unions was one of the least excusable of the war economies ; and the Labor party must insist on the resumption of this subvention immedi- ately the war ceases, and on its increase to at least half the amount spent in Out of Work Benefit. The extension of state unemployment insurance to other occupations may afford a convenient method of providing for such of the unemployed, especially in the case of badly paid women workers and the less skilled men, whom it is difficult to organize in trade unions. But the weekly rate of the state unemployment benefit needs, in these days of high prices, to be considerably raised ; whilst no industry ought to be compulsorily brought within its scope against the declared will of the workers concerned, and especially of their trade unions. In the twentieth century there must be no ques- tion of driving the unemployed to anything so obsolete and discredited as either private charity, with its haphazard and ill considered doles, or the Poor law, with the futili- ties and barbarities of its "Stone Yard," or its "Able- Bodied Test Workhouse." Only on the basis of a uni- versal application of the Policy of the National Minimum, affording complete security against destitution, in sick- ness and health, in good times and bad alike, to every mem- ber of the community can any worthy social order be built up. THE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF INDUSTRY The universal application of the policy of the national minimum is, of course, only the first of the pillars of the house that the Labor party intends to see built. What marks off this party most distinctly from any of the other political parties is its demand for the full and genuine adoption of the principle of democracy. The first condi- tion of democracy is effective personal freedom. This has suffered so many encroachments during the war that it is necessary to state with clearness that the complete removal of all the war-time restrictions on freedom of speech, free- dom of publication, freedom of the press, freedom of travel, and freedom of choice of place of residence and kind of employment must take place the day after peace is de- dared. The Labor party declares emphatically against any continuance of the Military Service acts a moment longer than the imperative requirements of the war excuse. But individual freedom is of little use without complete political rights. The Labor party sees its repeated de- mands largely conceded in the present Representation of the People act, but not yet wholly satisfied. The party stands, as heretofore, for complete adult suffrage, with not more than a three months' residential qualification, for effective provision for absent electors to vote, for absolute- ly equal rights for both sexes, for the same freedom to exercise civic rights for the "common soldier" as for the officer, for shorter Parliaments, for the complete abolition of the House of Lords, and for a most strenuous opposi- tion to any new Second Chamber, whether elected or not, having in it any element of heredity or privilege, or of the control of the House of Commons by any party or class. But unlike the Conservative and Liberal parties, the Labor party insists on democracy in industry as well as in gov- ernment. It demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock; and the setting free of all who work, [*o] whether by hand or by brain, for the service of the com- munity, and of the community only. And the Labor party refuses absolutely to believe that the British people will permanently tolerate any reconstruction or perpetua- tion of the disorganization, waste, and inefficiency involved in the abandonment of British industry to a jostling crowd of separate private employers, with their minds bent, not on the service of the community, but by the very law of their being only on the utmost possible profiteering. What the nation needs is undoubtedly a great bound on- ward in its aggregate productivity. But this cannot be secured merely by pressing the manual workers to more strenuous toil, or even by encouraging the "Captains of Industry" to a less wasteful organization of their several enterprises on a profit-making basis. What the Labor party looks to is a genuinely scientific reorganization of the nation's industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteering, on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity and only among these, and the adoption, in particular services and occupa- tions, of those systems and methods of administration and control that may be found, in practice, best to promote the public interest. Immediate Nationalization The Labor party stands not merely for the principle of the common ownership of the nation's land, to be ap- plied as suitable opportunities occur, but also, specifically, for the immediate nationalization of railways, mines, and the production of electrical power. We hold that the very foundation of any successful reorganization of British industry must necessarily be found in the provision of the utmost facilities for transport and communication, the production of power at the cheapest possible rate, and the most economical supply of both electrical energy and coal to every corner of the kingdom. Hence the Labor party stands, unhesitatingly, for the national ownership and administration of the railways and canals, and their union, along with harbors and roads, and the posts and telegraphs not to say also the great lines of steamers which could at once be owned, if not immediately directly managed in detail, by the government in a united na- tional service of communication and transport; to be worked, unhampered by capitalist, private, or purely local interests (and with a steadily increasing participation pi the organized workers in the management, both central and local), exclusively for the common good. If any gov- ernment should be so misguided as to propose, when peace comes, to hand the railways back to the shareholders, or should show itself so spendthrift of the nation's property as to give these shareholders any enlarged franchise by presenting them with the economies of unification or the profits of increased railway rates, or so extravagant as to bestow public funds on the re-equipment of privately owned lines all of which things are now being privately intrigued for by the railway interests, the Labor party will offer any such project the most strenuous opposition. The railways and canals, like the roads, must henceforth belong to the public. In the production of electricity, for cheap power, light, and heating, this country has so far failed, because of ham- pering private interests, to take advantage of science. Even in the largest cities we still "peddle" our electricity on a contemptibly small scale. What is called for immediately after the war is the erection of a score of gigantic "super- [**] power stations," which could generate, at incredibly cheap rates, enough electricity for the use of every industrial establishment and every private household in Great Britain; the present municipal and joint-stock electrical plants being universally linked up and used for local dis- tribution. This is inevitably the future of electricity. It is plain that so great and so powerful an enterprise, affect- ing every industrial enterprise and, eventually, every house- hold, must not be allowed to pass into the hands of private capitalists. They are already pressing the government for the concession, and neither the Liberal nor the Conserva- tive party has yet made up its mind to a refusal of such a new endowment of profiteering in what will presently be the life blood of modern productive industry. The Labor party demands that the production of electricity on the necessary gigantic scale shall be made from the start (with suitable arrangements for municipal cooperation in local distribution) a national enterprise, to be worked exclu- sively with the object of supplying the whole kingdom with the cheapest possible power, light, and heat. But with railways and the generation of electricity in the hands of the public, it would be criminal folly to leave to the present one thousand five hundred colliery com- panies the power of "holding up" the coal supply. These are now all working under public control, on terms that virtually afford to their shareholders a statutory guarantee of their swollen incomes. The Labor party demands the immediate nationalization of mines, the extraction of coal and iron being worked as a public service (with a steadily increasing participation in the management, both central and local, of the various grades of persons employed ) ; and the whole business of the retail distribution of household coal being undertaken, as a local public service, by the elected municipal or county councils. And there is no rea- son why coal should fluctuate in price any more than rail- way fares, or why the consumer should be made to pay more in winter than in summer, or in one town than an- other. What the Labor party would aim at is, for house- hold coal of standard quality, a fixed and uniform price for the whole kingdom, payable by rich and poor alike, as unalterable as the penny postage stamp. But the sphere of immediate nationalization is not re- stricted to these great industries. We shall never succeed in putting the gigantic system of health insurance on a proper footing, or secure a clear field for the beneficent work of the Friendly Societies, or gain a free hand for the necessary development of the urgently called for Min- istry of Health and the Local Public Health Service, until the nation expropriates the profit-making industrial insurance companies, which now so tyrannously exploit the people with their wasteful house-to-house industrial life assurance. Only by such an expropriation of life assurance companies can we secure the universal provision, free from the burdensome toll of weekly pence, of the indispensable funeral benefit. Nor is it in any sense a "class" measure. Only by the assumption by a state department of the whole business of life assurance can the millions of policy-holders of all classes be completely protected against the possibly calamitous results of the depreciation of securities and sus- pension of bonuses which the war is causing. Only by this means can the great staff of insurance agents find their proper place as civil servants, with equitable conditions of employment, compensation for any disturbance, and secur- ity of tenure, in a nationally organized public service for the discharge of the steadily increasing functions of the government in vital statistics and social insurance. In quite another sphere the Labor party sees the key to temperance reform in taking the entire manufacture and retailing of alcoholic drink out of the hands of those who find profit in promoting the utmost possible consumption. This is essentially a case in which the people, as a whole, must deal with the licensing question in accordance with local opinion. For this purpose, localities should have conferred upon them facilities (a) to prohibit the sale of liquor within their boundaries; () to reduce the number of licenses and regulate the conditions under which they may be held; and (c) if a locality decides that licenses are to be granted, to determine whether such licenses shall be under private or any form of public control. Other main industries, especially those now becoming monopolized, should be nationalized as opportunity offers. Moreover, the Labor party holds that the municipalities should not confine their activities to the necessarily costly services of education, sanitation, and police ; nor yet rest content with acquiring control of the local water, gas, elec- tricity, and tramways ; but that every facility should be af- forded to them to acquire (easily, quickly, and cheaply) all the land they require, and to extend their enterprises in housing and town planning, parks, and public libraries, the provision of music and the organization of recreation ; and also to undertake, besides the retailing of coal, other services of common utility, particularly the local supply of milk, wherever this is not already fully organized by a cooperative society. Control of Capitalist Industry Meanwhile, however, we ought not to throw away the valuable experience now gained by the government in its assumption of the importation of wheat, wool, metals, and [51 other commodities, and in its control of the shipping, woolen, leather, clothing, boot and shoe, milling, baking, butchering, and other industries. The Labor party holds that, whatever may have been the shortcomings of this gov- ernment importation and control, it has demonstrably pre- vented a lot of "profiteering." Nor can it end immediate- ly on the declaration of peace. The people will be ex- tremely foolish if they ever allow their indispensable in- dustries to slip back into the unfettered control of private capitalists, who are, actually at the instance of the govern- ment itself, now rapidly combining, trade by trade, into monopolist trusts, which may presently become as ruthless in their extortion as the worst American examples. Stand- ing as it does for the democratic control of industry, the Labor party would think twice before it sanctioned any abandonment of the present profitable centralization of purchase of raw material; of the present carefully organ- ized "rationing," by joint committees of the trades con- cerned, of the several establishments with the materials they require; of the present elaborate system of "costing" and public audit of manufacturers' accounts, so as to stop the waste heretofore caused by the mechanical inefficiency of the more backward firms; of the present salutary pub- licity of manufacturing processes and expenses thereby en- sured; and, on the information thus obtained (in order never again to revert to the old-time profiteering) of the present rigid fixing, for standardized products, of maxi- mum prices at the factory, at the warehouse of the whole- sale trader, and in the retail shop. This question of the retail prices of household commodities is emphatically the most practical of all political issues to the woman elector. The male politicians have too long neglected the griev- ances of the small household, which is the prey of every profiteering combination ; and neither the Liberal nor the Conservative party promises, in this respect, any amend- ment. This, too, is in no sense a "class" measure. It is, so the Labor party holds, just as much the function of government, and just as necessary a part of the democratic regulation of industry, to safeguard the interests of the community as a whole, and those of all grades and sections of private consumers, in the matter of prices, as it is, by the Factory and Trade Boards acts, to protect the rights of the wage-earning producers in the matter of wages, hours of labor, and sanitation. A REVOLUTION IN NATIONAL FINANCE In taxation, also, the interests of the professional and house-keeping classes are at one with those of the manual workers. Too long has our national finance been regu- lated, contrary to the teaching of political economy, ac- cording to the wishes of the possessing classes and the profits of the financiers. The colossal expenditure in- volved in the present war (of which, against the protest of the Labor party, only a quarter has been raised by taxation, whilst three-quarters have been borrowed at onerous rates of interest, to be a burden on the nation's future) brings things to a crisis. When peace comes, capital will be needed for all sorts of social enterprises, and the resources of government will necessarily have to be vastly greater than they were before the war. Mean- while innumerable new private fortunes are being heaped up by those who have taken advantage of the nation's needs; and the one-tenth of the population which owns nine- tenths of the riches of the United Kingdom, far from being made poorer, will find itself, in the aggregate, as a result 1*7] of the war, drawing in rent and interest and dividends a larger nominal income than ever before. Such a position demands a revolution in national finance. How are we to discharge a public debt that may well reach the almost incredible figure of seven thousand million pounds ster- ling, and at the same time raise an annual revenue which, for local as well as central government, must probably reach one thousand millions a year? It is over this prob- lem of taxation that the various political parties will be found to be most sharply divided. The Labor party stands for such a system of taxation as will yield all the necessary revenue to the government without encroaching on the prescribed national minimum standard of life of any family whatsoever, without ham- pering production or discouraging any useful personal effort, and with the nearest possible approximation to equality of sacrifice. We definitely repudiate all pro- posals for a protective tariff, in whatever specious guise they may be cloaked, as a device for burdening the con- sumer with unnecessarily enhanced prices, to the profit of the capitalist employer or landed proprietor, who avowed- ly expects his profit or rent to be increased thereby. We shall strenuously oppose any taxation, of whatever kind, which would increase the price of food or of any other necessary of life. We hold that indirect taxation on com- modities, whether by customs or excise, should be strictly limited to luxuries, and concentrated principally on those of which it is socially desirable that the consumption should be actually discouraged. We are at one with the manu- facturer, the farmer, and the trader in objecting to taxes interfering with production or commerce, or hampering transport and communications. In all these matters once more in contrast with the other political parties, and by no [*f] means in the interests of the wage-earners alone the Labor party demands that the very definite teachings of economic science should no longer be disregarded as they have been in the past. For the raising of the greater part of the revenue now required, the Labor party looks to the direct taxation of the incomes above the necessary cost of family maintenance; and, for the requisite effort to pay off the national debt, to the direct taxation of private fortunes both during life and at death. The income tax and super-tax ought at once to be thoroughly reformed in assessment and collection, in abatements and allowances and in graduation and differ- entiation, so as to levy the required total sum in such a way as to make the real sacrifice of all the tax-payers as nearly as possible equal. This would involve assessment by families instead of by individual persons, so that the 'burden is alleviated in proportion to the number of persons to be maintained. It would involve the raising of the present unduly low minimum income assessable to the tax, and the lightening of the present unfair burden on the great mass of professional and small trading classes by a new scale of graduation, rising from a penny in the pound on the smallest assessable income up to sixteen or even nineteen shillings in the pounds on the highest income of the millionaires. It would involve bringing into assess- ment the numerous windfalls of profit that now escape, and a further differentiation between essentially different kinds of income. The excess profits tax might well be retained in an appropriate form ; whilst, so long as mining royalties exist, the mineral rights duty ought to be in- creased. The steadily rising unearned increment of urban and mineral land ought, by an appropriate direct taxation of land values, to be wholly brought into the public ex- 1*9] chequer. At the same time, for the service and redemption of the national debt, the death duties ought to be regradu- ated, much more strictly collected, and greatly increased. In this matter we need, in fact, completely to reverse our point of view, and to rearrange the whole taxation of in- heritance from the standpoint of asking what is the maxi- mum amount that any rich man should be permitted at death to divert, by his will, from the national exchequer, which should normally be the heir to all private riches in excess of a quite moderate amount by way of family pro- vision. But all this will not suffice. It will be impera- tive at the earliest possible moment to free the nation from at any rate the greater part of its new load of interest- bearing debt for loans which ought to have been levied as taxation ; and the Labor party stands for a special cap- ital levy to pay off, if not the whole, a very substantial part of the entire national debt a capital levy chargeable' like the death duties on all property, but (in order to secure approximate equality of sacrifice) with exemption of the smallest savings, and for the rest at rates very steeply graduated, so as to take only a small contribution from the little people and a very much larger percentage from the millionaires. Over this issue of how the financial burden of the war is to be borne, and how the necessary revenue is to be raised, the greatest political battles will be fought. In thfe matter the Labor party claims the support of four-fifths of the whole nation, for the interests of the clerk, the teacher, the doctor, the minister of religion, the average retail shopkeeper and trader, and all the mass of those liv- ing on small incomes are identical with those of the artisan. The landlords, the financial magnates, the possessors of great fortunes will not, as a class, willingly forego the [30] relative immunity that they have hitherto enjoyed. The present unfair subjection of the cooperative society to an excess profits tax on the "profits" which it has never made specially dangerous as "the thin end of the wedge" of penal taxation of this laudable form of democratic enter- prise will not be abandoned without a struggle. Every possible effort will be made to juggle with the taxes, so as to place upon the shoulders of the mass of laboring folk and upon the struggling households of the professional men and small traders (as was done after every previous war) whether by customs or excise duties, by industrial monopolies, by unnecessarily high rates of postage and railway fares, or by a thousand and one other ingenious devices an unfair share of the national burden. Against these efforts the Labor party will take the firmest stand. THE SURPLUS FOR THE COMMON GOOD In the disposal of the surplus above the standard of life, society has hitherto gone as far wrong as in its neglect to secure the necessary basis of any genuine industrial efficiency or decent social order. We have allowed the riches of our mines, the rental value of the lands superior to the margin of cultivation, the extra profits of the for- tunate capitalists, even the material outcome of scientific discoveries which ought by now to have made this Britain of ours immune from class poverty or from any widespread destitution to be absorbed by individual pro- prietors and then devoted very largely to the senseless luxury of an idle rich class. Against this misappropriation of the wealth of the community, the Labor party speak- ing in the interests not of the wage-earners alone, but of every grade and section of producers by hand or by brain, not to mention also those of the generations that are to succeed us, and of the permanent welfare of the com- munity emphatically protests. One main pillar of the house that the Labor party intends to build is the future appropriation of the surplus, not to the enlargement of any individual fortune, but to the common good. It is from this constantly arising surplus (to be secured, on the one hand, by nationalization and municipalization and, on the other, by the steeply graduated taxation of private income and riches) that will have to be found the new capital which the community day by day needs for the perpetual improvement and increase of its various enter- prises, for which we shall decline to be dependent on the usury-exacting financiers. It is from the same source that has to be defrayed the public provision for the sick and infirm of all kinds (including that for maternity and in- fancy) which is still so scandalously insufficient; for the aged and those prematurely incapacitated by accident or disease, now in many ways so imperfectly cared for; for the education alike of children, of adolescents, and of adults, in which the Labor party demands a genuine equal- ity of opportunity, overcoming all differences of material circumstances ; and for the organization of public improve- ments of all kinds, including the brightening of the lives of those now condemned to almost ceaseless toil, and a great development of the means of recreation. From the same source must come the greatly increased public pro- vision that the Labor party will insist on being made for scientific investigation and original research, in every branch of knowledge, not to say also for the promotion of music, literature, and fine art, which have been under capitalism so greatly neglected, and upon which, so the Labor party holds, any real development of civilization fundamentally depends. Society, like the individual, does not live by bread alone does not exist only for perpetual wealth production. It is in the proposal for this appro- priation of every surplus for the common godd in the vision of its resolute use for the building up of the com- munity as a whole instead of for the magnification of indi- vidual fortunes that the Labor party, as the party of the producers by hand or by brain, most distinctively marks it- self off from the older political parties, standing, as these do, essentially for the maintenance, unimpaired, of the per- petual private mortgage upon the annual product of the nation that is involved in the individual ownership of land and capital. THE STREET OF TOMORROW The house which the Labor party intends to build, the four pillars of which have now been described, does not stand alone in the world. Where will it be in the street of tomorrow? If we repudiate, on the one hand, the imperialism that seeks to dominate other races or to impose our own will on other parts of the British empire, so we disclaim equally any conception of a selfish and insular "non-interventionism," unregarding of our special obliga- tions to our fellow-citizens overseas, of the corporate duties of one nation to another, of the moral claims upon us of the non-adult races, and of our own indebtedness to the world of which we are part. We look for an ever-increas- ing intercourse, a constantly developing exchange of com- modities, a continually expanding friendly co-operation among all the peoples of the world. With regard to that great commonwealth of all races, all colors, all religions, and all degrees of civilization, that we call the British [33] empire, the Labor party stands for its maintenance and its progressive development on the lines of local autonomy and "Home Rule All Round"; the fullest respect for the rights of each people, whatever its color, to all the demo- cratic self-government of which it is capable, and to the proceeds of its own toil upon the resources of its own terri- torial home; and the closest possible co-operation among all the various members of what has become essentially not an empire in the old sense, but a Britannic alliance. We desire to maintain the most intimate relations with the Labor parties overseas. Like them, we have no sym- pathy with the projects of "Imperial Federation," in so far as these imply the subjection to a common imperial legislature wielding coercive power (including dangerous facilities for coercive imperial taxation and for enforced military service), either of the existing self-governing Dominions, whose autonomy would be thereby invaded, or of the United Kingdom, whose freedom of democratic self-development would be thereby hampered, or of India and the colonial dependencies, which would thereby run the risk of being further exploited for the benefit of a "White Empire." We do not intend, by any such "Im- perial Senate," either to bring the plutocracy of Canada and South Africa to the aid of the British aristocracy, or to enable the landlords and financiers of the mother coun- try to unite in controlling the growing popular democracies overseas. The autonomy of each self-governing part of the empire must be intact. What we look for, besides a constant progress in demo- cratic self-government of every part of the Britannic alli- ance, and especially in India, is a continuous participation of the ministers of the Dominions, of India, and event- ually of other dependencies (perhaps by means of their [34] own ministers specially resident in London for this pur- pose) in the most confidential deliberations of the Cabinet, so far as foreign policy and imperial affairs are concerned ; and the annual assembly of an Imperial Council, repre- senting all constituents of the Britannic alliance and all parties in their 1 local legislatures, which should discuss all matters of common interest, but only in order to make recommendations for the simultaneous consideration of the various autonomous local legislatures of what should increasingly take the constitutional form of an alliance of free nations. And we carry the idea further. As regards our relations to foreign countries, we disavow and dis- claim any desire or intention to dispossess or to impoverish any other state or nation. We seek no increase of territory. We disclaim all idea of "economic war." We ourselves object to all protective customs tariffs; but we hold that each nation must be left free to do what it thinks best for its own economic development, without thought of in- juring others. We believe that nations are in no way damaged by each other's economic prosperity or commer- cial progress; but, on the contrary, that they are actually themselves mutually enriched thereby. We would there- fore put an end to the old entanglements and mystifica- tions of secret diplomacy and the formation of leagues against leagues. We stand for the immediate establish- ment, actually as a part of the treaty of peace with which the present war will end, of a universal league or society of nations, a supernational authority, with an interna- tional high court to try all justiciable issues between na- tions, an international legislature to enact such common laws as can be mutually agreed upon, and an international council of mediation to endeavor to settle without ultimate conflict even those disputes which are not justiciable. We [35] would have all the nations of the world most solemnly undertake and promise to make common cause against any one of them that broke away from this fundamental agree- ment. The world has suffered too much from war for the Labor party to have any other policy than that of last- ing peace. MORE LIGHT BUT ALSO MORE WARMTH ! The Labor party is far from assuming that it possesses a key to open all locks, or that any policy which it can formulate will solve all the problems that beset us. But we deem it important to ourselves as well as to those who may, on the one hand, wish to join the party, or, on the other, to take up arms against it, to make quite clear and definite our aim and purpose. The Labor party wants that aim and purpose, as set forth in the preceding pages, with all its might. It calls for more warmth in politics, for much less apathetic acquiescence in the miseries that exist, for none of the cynicism that saps the life of leisure. On the other hand, the Labor party has no belief in any of the problems of the world being solved by good will alone. Good will without knowledge is warmth without light. Especially in all the complexities of politics, in the still undeveloped science of society, the Labor party stands for increased study, for the scientific investigation of each succeeding problem, for the deliberate organization of re- search, and for a much more rapid dissemination among the whole people of all the science that exists. And it is perhaps specially the Labor party that has the duty of placing this advancement of science in the forefront of its political programme. What the Labor party stands for in all fields of life is, essentially, democratic co-operation ; [36] and co-operation involves a common purpose which can be agreed to, a common plan which can be explained and dis- cussed, and such a measure of success in the adaptation of means to ends as will ensure a common satisfaction. An autocratic sultan may govern without science if his whim is law. A plutocratic party may choose to ignore science, if it is heedless whether its pretended solutions of social problems that may win political triumphs ultimately suc- ceed or fail. But no Labor party can hope to maintain its position unless its proposals are, in fact, the outcome of the best political science of its time, or to fulfil its purpose unless that science is continually wresting new fields from human ignorance. Hence, although the purpose of the Labor party must, by the law of its being, remain for all time unchanged, its policy and its programme will, we hope, undergo a perpetual development, as knowledge grows and as new phases of the social problem present themselves, in a continually finer adjustment of our meas- ures to our ends. If law is the mother of freedom, science, to the Labor party, must be the parent of law. 37] MANIFESTO TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT FROM THE ENGLISH FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION The Fellowship has been formed to bind together men and women who believe that the spirit of strife, whether national, personal, or economic, can only be conquered by a practical belief that Love, as shown forth in Jesus Christ, is the only true basis for Society. THE war and its problems have brought to us a fresh realization of the need for reconstructing our social and industrial world from within by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Led as we have been to emphasize the sacredness of personality, we have been compelled to apply that principle to all spheres of life. We see that, under the present system, property is more regarded than human life, profits are considered of more importance than the welfare of men and women. We see that behind this war there is another, less appap ent but more permanent, the war that goes on within each nation in its industrial life, which is especially mani- fested between those possessed of the power that capital gives, and those whose lack of property renders them sub- ject to that power. We stand for co-operation in com- merce and industry in place of competition. By this we do not mean that we would here and there restrain the power of the privileged to exploit others. [38] Merely to correct the more evident abuses of the present system would not satisfy us. The whole structure of society needs refashioning upon a different basis. The teaching of Jesus Christ leads us to the belief that no modification of the competitive system will remove its evils : it must be abolished. The problems that need solving in the spirit of that teaching are more particularly: 1. The Economic Relations of Nations. Neither Protec- tion nor Free Trade, as commonly understood, satis- fies our ideal. We desire the organization of inter- national commerce in the interests of all. 2. The Relationship of Men and Women. Love, as taught by Christ, must express itself in comradeship, and this lifts the relationship of men and women out of the region of comparison. The arbitrary distinc- tions drawn by which men and women are assigned wholly separate tasks must, therefore, be abolished, and replaced by freedom for each to choose the sphere in which to serve the community. On such basis alone can true companionship stand. 3. The Relationship of Employer and Employee. These are not permanent forms of human relationship. We apply in industrial sense the injunction : "Call no man master; all ye are brethren." We do, of course, de- sire a better understanding between the members of these two classes. But we cannot be finally satisfied until, as classes whose economic interests are bound to clash, they are abolished, and all are masters of their own lives, and all are servants of the community. 4. The Relationship of Producer and Consumer. While Trade Unions have done a great work in their efforts to improve conditions of labor, it must be remembered that they represent sectional interests. In any scheme of reconstruction we must seek to co-ordinate all such interests, remembering that every producer is also a consumer, and, more than that, a citizen. [39] There are certain ideals of labor revolutionary it m.ay be, but so is Christianity implicit in the foregoing, which we recognize as fundamentally Christian. They may be summed up in the following three points : 1. The recognition of the value of every human being as an individual personality, entitled not only to the necessaries of physical life, but to an education which will secure him fullest mental and spiritual develop- ment. 2. The reconstruction of industry upon such a basis that a man may have the opportunity for choice of work, and a share in the direction of that work, and may feel that, in the performance, he is not merely provid- ing for his own needs, but is making a contribution to the community in which he lives of the things which have a real value for it. 3. The production of commodities for use and not for .profit, and the release of men from the toil involved in the manufacture of superfluities. In fellowship with labor we are resolved to strive for these ideals. The Commonwealth, in which each shall work for the good of all, and all shall unite for the good of each, is, we believe, no mere human scheme, but the purpose of God Himself. We are conscious that such an ideal can only be attained if a spiritual revolution is wrought in men, and their outlook towards their fellow-men is wholly changed. But we are confident that, however great the difficulties, God's purpose must eventually triumph. [40] "The recent Report on Reconstruction prepared by a sub-com- mittee of the British Labor Party is the most comprehensive scheme of economic change yet formulated by a responsible political party. . . Of even greater significance than the practical details of the programme is its spirit. . . We are here face to face with a new type of political philosophy, a type which rests upon a definite view of the ends of life and a vision of life as a whole. . . We are witnessing the emergence of a full-blooded humanism into political theory and practice. Beneath this report, which is in its spirit and hope an embodiment of the idealism of the British labor movement, there lies a clear sense that every man has and is an end in himself, and that he can achieve that end only in a social setting which he must share in creating. Its view is that man and the community achieve their distinctive ends in each other. The great soul and the great society will arrive together. The historical significance of this document appears to be that it presages a new stage in the development of the democratic ideal. Perhaps it is the beginning of the long-delayed economic sequel of the achieve- ment of the French Revolution, in which case it may very well turn out to be the Magna Charta of the new democracy." THE NATION (New York) " The British Labor Party's report on Reconstruction is obviously the work of economic thinkers of rare vision and ability and it may well rank among historical documents of the highest class. . . It is impossible not to feel that we are here dealing with a new thing in the literature of politics ; and we believe that the future historian will put his finger upon this paper as the point at which a new idea of the first magnitude made effectual entrance into political theory and practice. So constant is the pressure of this idea that it breaks out here and there through the discussion of concrete economic measures in swift gleams of corroborating light. . . . Every period of political history is governed by some master idea; liberty, empire, individual rights, and so forth. The note of the coming period is already announced in the broad and generous humanism which this document reveals as the characteristic im- pulse of the British Labor Movement. In this report, British labor appears to assume definite leadership in the creation of the political and economic framework of the new world." THE WORLD TOMORROW (New York) THINKING people everywhere agree that the document reprinted in this pamphlet marks an epoch in human affairs. Here for the first time we have a clear-cut, detailed, inclusive, practicable programme of social recon- struction, sanctioned by millions of the world's most intelligent workers, out of whose daily needs and hopes and experiences it has grown. It is a programme which, in its general outlines, is of universal application. And if the world is to be made not merely safe for democracy but decent for humanity this programme must some- how be realized. By far the most important thing to be done at present toward realizing it is to give this document the widest possible circu- lation. You, the present reader, can help in this great work by distributing copies among your friends, and persuading them to distribute copies also. Interest the clubs and organizations to which you belong in sending out copies to their members. Only by the widest possible publicity, -only by bringing this epoch-making paper to the direct attention of every thoughtful man and woman in the country, can the social pressure necessary to carry through such a programme be created. Will you help? Additional copies of this pamphlet may be secured of the publisher at the fol- lowing prices : Single copies, 20 cents each; 10 copies, $1.75; 25 copies, $3.75; 50 copies, $7; 100 copies, $12.50. Further reductions on quantities of more than 100 copies will be promptly quoted upon request. Address: w. R. BROWNE WYOMING, NEW YORK UNIV. OF CAUF. LIBRARY. LOS ^** ^^^^* A ^^ ~~7ft )5 3 =? r - V_r o il Wp ^*&r V C? g A 000 803 888 7