Page:The future of democracy.djvu/22

THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY money. They are moved by faith and not by knowledge. They think well of the real director, and if he is a good one he gets them the limited return which is all that he ought to promise.

If, however, you turn to Labour it is different. Labour also cannot under present conditions direct itself. It cannot direct itself because it has not enough scientific knowledge and organisation; it is thus shut out from direction, and with the increase of business and of the scope of business Labour is getting more like a disciplined army which does not think for itself. And that gives rise to a great deal of friction and feeling, and people think of the "good old days" when working-men did wonderful things from their own designs and patterns—they made their own individual products: Chippendale chairs, and things of that sort—in a fashion which is over to-day, because men have become like machines and cannot put their imagination into their work. One reason is that in the old days the output was very small, and the conditions of those days would not satisfy modern necessities in the way of output.

What is the solution? You muﬆ have direction. Capital, I think, is becoming more and more a sort of a thing which you can go out into the market and buy at six per cent., or whatever the rate at the time is. Labour is discontented, because it does not have enough intereﬆ in its work; it is suffering from the monotony of being treated like a machine. We want to see Labour brought more into contact with direction.

For a year and a half I was chairman of an extraordinarily intereﬆing committee. It was a Committee on the National Coal Resources, and we published one report—there exiﬆ others dealing with other queﬆions—called "The Electricity Report," devoted to the production of electrical power from coal. Now I want you to take note of one of two things that 14