In America this problem is a different one, because the American
employer is often able to take full advantage of his economic position.
For he has a labouring population of mixed nationality, which does not
readily combine, and he can play off one section against the other.
British employers cannot, if they would, deal with British labour on the
principle of Divide and Rule. There is only one method by which we can
hope to call forth this great reserve capacity of British labour, and
that is by securing its confidence. If Free Trade is one of the legs on
which British prosperity rests, the other is goodwill and active
co-operation between the workman and his employer. How is that goodwill
to be gained?

The solution of that problem is only partly in the hands of the
politician; that is one of the reasons why it is extremely difficult to
suggest an industrial policy which is going to hold out the hope of
reaching Utopia in a short time. But it is obviously essential somehow
or another to develop, particularly among employers, the sense of
trusteeship--the sense that a man who controls a large amount of capital
is in fact not merely an individual pursuing his own fortune, but is
taking the very great responsibility of controlling a fragment of the
nation's industrial resources. And we have also to develop a conception
of partnership and joint enterprise between employer and employed.


STATE OWNERSHIP: FOR AND AGAINST

What policy in the political field can be adopted to further these
objects? Reverting once more to the fourfold division which I made at
the outset, but taking the points in a different order, there is first