industrial sphere.


THE LIBERALISATION OF INDUSTRY

The same solution must be applied to that sphere. This does not mean
transferring the machinery of votes and elections to industry. It means
finding channels in industry whereby every person may exercise his
legitimate aspiration, if he should feel one, of being more than a mere
routine worker while still perhaps doing routine work, and of
contributing in an effective manner his ideas, thoughts, suggestions,
experience, to the direction and improvement of the industry. We have
satisfied the desire for self-expression as citizens, and we have now to
find some means of satisfying a similar desire for self-expression as
workers in industry. That is all very vague. Does it mean
co-partnership, profit-sharing, co-operative societies, joint
committees, national wages boards, guild socialism, nationalisation? It
may mean any or all of these things--one in one industry, one in
another, or several different forms in the same industry--whatever
experiment may prove to be best suited to each industry. But it must
mean opportunity of experiment, and experiment by all concerned. It must
mean greater recognition by employers of their trusteeship on behalf of
their work-people as well as their shareholders; greater recognition of
the public as opposed to the purely proprietary view of industry; and
recognition that the man who contributes his manual skill and labour
and risks his life and limb is as much a part of the industry as a man
who contributes skill in finance, management, or salesmanship, or the
man who risks his capital.

Coming to the mines, that is, the coal mining industry (with a few