later, extensions of the franchise applied the Liberal solution of
putting it within the power of the people, if they wished it, to take an
effective share in the control of political affairs.

Industrially, their situation to-day is not unlike their political
situation a hundred years ago. Such influence as they have got is
exerted almost entirely outside the constitution of industry, and very
often in opposition to it. Their trade unions, workers' committees,
councils of action, triple alliances, and so forth, are not part of the
regular industrial machine, and too often are found athwart its path.
They are members of an industry with substantially no constitutional
control over it, just as a hundred years ago they were members of a
State whose destinies they had no constitutional power to direct.

This does not mean that a hundred years ago every working man wanted the
political vote, nor that now he wants to sit on a committee and control
his industry. It meant that a substantial number of the more enlightened
and ambitious did--a large enough number to be a source of permanent
discontent until they got it. The same is true to-day in the case of
many industries. Many men in all classes of society are content to do
their job, take their money, go home and work in their gardens, or
course dogs or fly pigeons. They are very good citizens. Many others,
equally good citizens, take a more mental and active interest in their
job, and want to have some share in the direction of it. This class is
increasing and should not be discouraged. They constitute our problem.
The Liberal solution of a gradually extended franchise has cured the
political ferment. Political controversy is still acute, and long may it
remain so, as it is the sign of a healthy political society. But the
ugly, ominous, revolutionary features of a hundred years ago in the
sphere of politics have substantially gone or been transferred to the