MORE ABOUT GUILDS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16608, 4 December 1919, Page 6

MORE ABOUT GUILDS.

AND WAGE-SLAVERY. (By “Delta.”) In a. former article some remarks were made on the guild system which, for the moment, is tho main objective of the more extreme Labour leaders. A view of the subject is presented in “National Guids” by Mr. S. G. Hobson and it is proposed to indicate very briefly the character of this book with the idea rather of sending readers to the book itself than of offering a complete resume of its teaching. The first point worthy of notice is that a very considerable portion of tho book deals with what is called wage slavery and a vast amount of vituperation is emp.oyed about the crimes of tho brutal capitalist who, it is alleged, treats labour ns merely a community which along with land and capital form the three elements of production. it is unnecessary to quote samples of the language used, because most of it is ludicrously inapplicable to the state of atiairs in this Dominion, but the writer seems to think that a good deal of this kind of ginger is necessary in order to stir the worker to revolt against the wrongs he is unconsciously suffering from.

The evils of tho existing system can bo pointed out in a low words by explaining what it is proposed to substitute for it. Curiously enough the reformers regard tho condition of the soldier as tho ideal one. He does not receive wages, officers and men alike receive pay. Tho main distinction is that so long as a soldier belongs to the army he receives pay whether ho is playing or working. He docs not sell his labour as a commodity; his labour is not marketable and there is no profit on it. Under tho guild system the workers would receive pay whether working or unemployed and the guilds would be absolute masters of their own economic affairs. *

The writers who use this example make no mention of tho discipline to which the soldier is subject as tho condition of the. advantages he enjoys. There is no mention of the fact that'he is absolutely under orders and that when he has to work there is no limit to his hours of work and that severe punishments iollow any sort of slackness. Tho guild system may include this kind of treatment, or it may not, but it is an unpleasant thought for the worker that the change proposed may merely mean a change from the whips of tho employer to.tho scorpions of guild discipline. Experience in Russia under that eminent reformer Lenin seems rather to point in that direction. EMPLOYMENT BY THE STATE. Putting aside such unpleasant possibilities the reforms demanded in the wages system are briefly; permanent employment and a fixed salary. Those conditions already obtain in our own public service to a largo extent, but without producing any great feeling of concent. Yet Mr. Hobson tells us that

‘no ono can fail to bo struck by the difference in sell-respect, at least, that comes over men when they are transferred from private to public employment.” People who have tried both in this country are rather inclined to tho opposite opinion—that a man working for a private employer has far more freedom than one who works for the State and is tightly bound in tho fetters bf red-tape. The subject, however, need not bo pursued further, for the advocates of .guilds are dead against nationalisation, except perhaps as a means to securing their final end.

RENT, PROFITS AND INTEREST

The main inducement for the abolition of tho wages system is that with it would go all rent, profits and interest and labour would enjoy tho lull benefit of these. The extent to which the wage-earner is expected to profit is shown by the following quotation:— ‘‘When tho psychological moment arrives, when tho vast mass of the wage-earners perceive the inherent dishonesty of a system that robs them of two-thirds of tho value of their labour, from that moment not only is that system doomed, but its destruction is at hand.” This has the true Semple ring and is guaranteed to make any audience of down-trodden Tiew Zealand wage-siaves prick up its ears. Unfortunately tho statement is one of those exaggerations to which reformers of all classes are so prone. Many working men have sufleient knowledge of the prices obtained for the goods they produce to know whether it is true that they receive only one-third of the value added by their labour. Fortunately a competent authority has 'produced accurate figures on the subject. Professor Pawley has recently analysed the pre-war statistics for a number of industries in Britain—excluding railways which employ 6,000,000 men, and he states that 58 per cent, of the net product, after all other expenses and depreciation are met, gobs to the manual workers. Of the remaining 42 per cent., 4 per cent, goes in salaries under £l6O a year and 6 per cent, in salaries over that amount. Thus 63 per cent, in all goes to those employed in the form of wages and salaries.

The position then is that if tho workers received all they produce without any allowance for interest and profits they would, according to Mr. Hobson, receive three times- their present wages; according to Professor Bowley they would receive rather less than 1-) time's their present wages. This is the difference between fact .and fiction. GETTING RID OF EMPLOYERS. Tho advocates of guilds propose to abolish rent, interest and profits and this will be done by taking over land and all factories from tho employers.. They object to tho I State taking over these properties since that would moan that they would he burdened with the payment of interest on the capital expended in the purchase. Instead of this, which would limit tho receipts of the workers, the proposal is “that in exchange for their present possession of land and machinery, the State might give owners, as rough and ready justice, an equitable income either for a fixed period of years or for two generations.” In plain language the owner of a large esjato or a big factory might he given £6 or, by a stretch of tho meaning of “equitable,” £lO a week for life or perhaps for 50 years. That is tho scheme, but it would not bo fair to leave it in a bald form which sounds almost like a scheme of plunder. The aim is a noble one: “We call into activity a slumbering population of infinite possibilities. Tho thousand spiritual and intellectual problems that will face ns in the future may confidently be left to a body politic i.o longer dominated or biased by economic pressure of a sectional or selfish character.” THE GOOD SIDE OF GUILDS. Little space has been left to deal

with the working of the guilds which are to bo established when the wages system has gone. They were referred to in a former article, but it may be briefly said that the trade unions are to take control and run each industry for themselves, appointing the superior officers by popular .vote and sharing the product or what it is exchanged for equally. No error could be greater than to suppose that all who advocate guilds are animated only by the desire for plunder, oijierwiso it would not prove attractive to so many as it certainly does. Tho guild proposals deal with some undoubted evils and if we disapprove. of guilds and the methods recommended to attain them it is necessary to produce some other method of removing the evils complained of. The faults of tho wages system may bo partially remedied by providing greater permanence of employment or, what amounts to the same thing, adequate payment during unemployment, also a pension when work Is no longer possmle. These features already exist in Government employment and the problem is to make them universal without burdening industry too greatly. Then, it is essential that workers should be given some share in tho control of the business in which they are engaged. One could wish that the unions would take over or start businesses lor themselves, with or without assistance from tho State, but their present leaders seem determined on destruction rather than construction, so little is to be hoped for in that direction. One thing is certain, that a spirit of change is in the air and that the old bottles will not contain the new iiie without disaster; thoreforja new botties must be provided before it is too late to make a change.