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The "Daily | News" has come forward with the declaration that | blood-shed, chaos and disillusion are involved in the | realisation of Labor's aim to secure the control and | direction of industry. We do not know whether the | statement is seriously put forward as an intimidator | ultimatum or as a reasoned forecast of what the | "Daily News" | alleges must result from the substitution of the collective | will for that of private capitalism. Why should a purely | economic change involved the passions leading to | bloodshed? What ground has the | "Daily News" | for its threat or its | assumption as the case may be that re-construction on | the basis laid down by Labor involves what is, in | essence, civil war, while changes made according to the | plans of the capitalists obviate any such contingency? | It seems to us that the onus is on the | "Daily News" | to substantiate its thesis.

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In any case the assertion that Labor's demands | necessarily involve the kind of outcome indicated is as | false as it is uncalled for. Not the future as Labor | sees it, but the past as Capitalism has made it is the | era of bloodshed, chaos and disillusion. The Industrial | management of society heretofore has been so full of | disorder and so tainted with injustice that very few | remain who are so intellectually poor as to now do it | reverence. The whole world of working people is | convinced that industry conditioned by profit-making and | directed by the agents of capitalism can no longer be | regarded as satisfactory.

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That is the primary realisation. It is admitted by | Labor that adjustments are possible, even under | capitalism, by which work could be better remunerated | and made more tolerable - that wages could | be advanced and conditions ameliorated. But the organic | wrong-headedness of leaving the world's work outside the | dominion of public policy has become too apparent. Labor | cannot at this stage be bought off by bribes and | palliatives which get nowhere towards ultimate | betterment and only prolong an anti-social economy.

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Thus we have reached definitely the time when the | demand is for a new social order altogether. Labor wants | a deliberately planned co-operation in production and | distribution for the benefit of all. It is no longer | content to see the great populations of the globe | victims of a chaotic hotch-potch in which the whole life | of the workers is dependent on circumstances they are | shut out from influencing or controlling. All the | ruthless flats of the balance of trade, the buoyancy or | stagnation of markets, the opening up or the shutting | down of industries, the putting on or the putting-off of | "hands", is a matter so vital to the well-being of Labor | that it refuses to further permit capitalism to alone | hold the field. Labor puts forward the dictum that as | work is part and parcel of life itself work and the | places of work - the fields, factories and | workshops - should be subject to the | democratic control of all.

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The suggestion that democracy in industry postulates | chaos and disorder while admitting as the | "Daily News" | does that democracy in politics is an essential if the world | is to be regarded as civilised, is a method of reasoning | which only a "Daily | News" could be expected to employ. That all the | people may freely participate as equals in the political | government of a country and yet may not participate in | the management of a country's industries is surely a | negation of everything that is understandable by the | term democracy. The truth is that the demand for | democracy in industry is resisted on the same ground | that democracy everywhere else was resisted. Everything | the "Daily | News" foreshadows as an outcome of the | application of Labor's policy to the workshops was | predicted respecting every contemplated advance in the | political franchise. Class-control of the shops is | derived from the same spirit which perpetuates | class-control of the Legislative Councils, and which | maintained class-control of the Legislative Assemblies | as long as that was possible.

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We venture the view that anti-labor publicists | persistently miss the social implications of their | capitalist make-shifts. Take for example the question | of the "dilution" of labor. Here is a development of | the last five years which the newspapers have acclaimed | as an economic necessity. Now they have it the | discovery is made that, while it enables a marked | departure from the conditions of craft-training and | technique in the workshop, it has also greatly quickened | and strengthened the class organisation of the workers. | It has as a matter of fact so "diluted" trade crafts as | to bring to a close the era of craft unionism. That | terminates the policy which expressed itself in demands | for fair wages, etc, and ushers in the epoch when the | mass of workers, organised along the lines of industry | evolved willy-nilly, proceed to the formulation of | projects in keeping with the wider structure of their | unity. If the "Daily | News" only knew it, the very policy of the | capitalists is what they have to thank for the situation | which now confronts them.

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If the "Daily | News" will not have Labor control of industry | what does it propose to have? The reports from which it | has recently been making so many lengthy extracts all | indicate a position very much in advance of the | capitalism of yesterday. Neither the "Whitley report" | nor the "Garton memorandum" absolutely reject the | suggestion of a democratising of industry and neither of | them is so stupid as to suggest bloodshed as an outcome | of a programme of economic re-organisation. In fact the | only practical alternative to the Labor demand is a | development towards the Servile State. The speeches of | men like W M Hughes and his innumerable boards and | exchanges are all indicative of a "capitalizing" of the | State as a definite step forward. What Lloyd-George did | with the Munitions Act is in our view but an instalment | of what will be early attempted on a more general | plane.

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Hence no alternative is left the workers but to | organise definitely to control the industries | themselves. From this necessity arises the propaganda | of the One Big union and the case for the abrogation of | the wages system itself. In the main it is recognised | as impossible that there should be any reversion to the | status quo of 1914. Not only has the public policy been | employed as a motive force expanding and contracting | industries in accordance with their utility or | otherwise, but example after example has been given of | the greater efficiency that has resulted because the | directive authority of the nominal proprietary in a | given shop or factory has been superseded. Labor | realises its future can neither lie in the past or | remain in the present. It must either go on or go | under. And as a sane society is one in which the work | to be done is the concern of all, so should its | performance minister to the good of all. Pre-war | capitalism did not do that. Neither has the | pseudo-State capitalism of the war period done it.

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On the contrary in proportion as one stage gave place | to the next the inequalities and injustices inherent in | the industrial structure became accentuated. The last | stage was infinitely worse than the first. To | perpetuate either will not, cannot, ensure equity in the | social order. And democracy fails if it cannot | establish a basis of fair-dealing between the citizens. | A democracy that is everywhere but in the places where | is produced the subsistence of the race is a mockery and | a sham. It would indeed be the disillusion the | "Daily News" has | suggested.

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