To my method of thought it is a truism to say that every man is entitled to the full social value of what his labor produces.

The difficulty with it, however, is that human intelligence has not as yet devised a method by which you can compute the value to society of the labor that is contributed by any man. and until human intelligence has devised a method by which you can compute the value of the mental and physical labor of mankind, it is futile to assert that every man is entitled to the full social value of what his labor produces.

We have endeavored, in years gone by, in the centuries that we have been engaged in industrial enterprises, to solve that question on the basis of competition,-competition multiplied on one side by the organization of capital and on the other side by the organization of labor.

But having laid that foundation for their philosophy-and a very sound foundation this-they proceed to step farther and they say that all property is valuable only so far as profits can be secured from the property-that if you can destroy the profits that result from the use of the property the owner will no longer desire to retain it, and the thing for the workers to do, therefore, is to destroy the profits from the property-to shirk, to soldier, to "perform a stint," as they say on the other side of the ocean, to put sand upon the bearings, to break the machines, to destroy the product, to drive copper nails into fruit trees-anything that will reduce the production per individual and increase the cost; and the allegation is made that if this course is pursued by the workers, the profits will be eliminated so far as the owner of the property is concerned, and with the profits eliminated and the property no longer valuable, the workers can take the property over, operate it themselves collectively and secure the full social value of their labor.

The people who are advancing these theories fail to take into consideration our public school system, our facilities for acquiring information and knowledge, the method of thought of the average American. They fail to realize that the vast majority of the workers of our country have at least a smattering knowledge of industrial history, and all we had to do to upset that kind of preaching was to call attention to the historical fact that. prior to the introduction of the modern factory system, prior to the rebirth of the inventive genius of man, when everything that was produced was produced by hand, there was a smaller amount of production per individual per day,

per week, per year than could possibly result from any system of shirking they could introduce.

Yet in those old days there were still profits for the employers and value in the property. What did result was a very much lower standard of living for the wage workers; and if these people succeeded in crowding their theories into effect, if it had been possible for them to do it, instead of destroying the value of the property and the profits of the employer it would have resulted in reducing the standard of living of the wage workers of our country.

Mutual Interest

The employer and the employee have a mutual interest—and an identical interest; mark the distinction-the employer and the employee have a mutual interest in securing the largest possible production with a given amount of labor, having due regard to the health, the safety, the opportunities for rest, recreation and improvement of the workers. Those being safeguarded, then the larger the production the better it is for all of us. If there is nothing produced there will be nothing to divide. If there is a large amount produced, there will be a large amount to divide.

The interests of the employer and the employee only diverge when it comes to a division of that which has been produced; and if they are wise in their generation, if they have the good business tact that the average American man usually has, in these times of stress and in the years that are to follow when it comes to the point of a division of that which has been mutually produced they will sit down round the council table and endeavor to work out the problem on as nearly a just basis as the circumstances surrounding the industry will permit.

Divergent Views

And yet we find very divergent views exisiting amongst employers and amongst workmen on that very question.

We find amongst employers the theory set forth that their property is their own, their business is their own, and they have a right to run their business as it suits themselves, without interference from any sources. Now that may have been true in the days of Adam, when there was only one man on earth,

but when the second man came the second man had equal rights with the first, and as they grew in numbers each of the additional men had equal rights with those who had preceded them. They had divergent views as to what constituted their rights. That grows out of the judgment which the Almighty has endowed us with. And because they had variations of judgment as to what constituted their rights, they had conflicts; and finally as a means of adjusting those differences without resorting to physical conflict, we established organized society in its various forms-and in the organized society no man has a right that is absolute and complete within himself that has any bearing upon the equal rights of his neighbors.

There are certain things that are inherent, that deal only with the man and his own conscience-a man in his relation to the Almighty, in which no majority has the right to impose its will upon the smallest kind of minority; but in the relation of man to man no one has an absolute right that in any way interferes with the equal rights of somebody else.

Partners in Industry

To my mind, the employer and the employee, having a mutual interest in the largest possible production, are, to the extent that they have that mutual interest, partners in the business. It does not follow, however, that because men have a voice in determining the conditions under which they will assist in producing they will be compensated alike, because as I have already said, men are endowed with different degrees of intelligence, with different viewpoints, they have lived in different environments; and because of these differences they approach the question from divergent standpoints, and so there may be conflicts growing out of these divergences of opinion, even where both feel that they are absolutely right in their position; but the number of conflicts will be reduced to a minimum when there is a recognition on the part of the employer of that partnership and where there is also a recognition on the part of the employee that there is that partnership.

SHOP STEWARDS

THE SHOP STEWARDS AND THEIR

SIGNIFICANCE1

The swing to the left in British labor in its organized front in foreign and domestic politics, shows itself in the economic field in the newer movements for workers' control.

True, we have had outreachings toward democracy in industry in the long upward thrust of craft unionism, in the Socialist movement for state ownership of the means of production, in the more recent syndicalist movement for producer's ownership. But there is something at work in England which can be differentiated from all three. It is manifesting itself spontaneously in the insurgency of the shop-stewards. It is manifesting itself organically in the rise of industrial unionism. It is manifesting itself deliberately in the recommendations by the Whitley Commission of industrial councils which have been adopted by the British government as the basis for its policy for industrial reconstruction; deliberately, also, in the plans of farsighted employers and the propaganda of the guildSocialists.

The story of the shop stewards is laid in the engineering trades—the machinists, as we know them in America; the munition-workers, as the war cast them in a new rôle. In that new rôle, the women workers have been their understudies; and the fortunes of the two are, willy nilly, bound up together.

Yet, in a sense, the shop steward is offspring of the "father" (or as we call him in America, chairman) of the printers' chapel, an institution older than unionism itself. By usage dating back to Caxton's time, the oldest journeyman printer has represented his fellows in taking up things with the management. Prior to the war, the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (A. S. E.) had established stewards in various plants. They were the men who looked out for the interests of the union

1 By Arthur Gleason. Survey. 41:417-22. January 4, 1919. Reprinted in "British Labor and the War" by P. V. Kellogg and Arthur Gleason. Boni and Liveright, 1919.

in the particular shop. They would ask a new man to show his union card and, if he had none and refused to join, then it would be made uncomfortable for him by the other unionists. The shop steward would get together temporary shop committees to take up some plant grievance with the employer. The shop stewards were often fired offhand by the employers if they found them out. While they were unremunerated save for perhaps a couple of shillings a quarter for turning in a report, and while they stood a chance of dismissal, the prestige of their position and their fidelity to the union made it characteristic of the stewards that they were usually the most responsible, biggest calibered men about the plant. Finally, the practice reached a stage when the A. S. E. undertook to guarantee these men their wages for a year, or until they found employment elsewhere, if they were discharged for union activity. This led to the multiplication of stewards.

Under war conditions the movement went forward even more rapidly. There were several causes for this. At the outset of the war many of the national unions (miners excepted) agreed not to strike and they agreed to waive all the trade union restrictions and regulations which for a generation had been built up to safeguard the status and income of skilled men. The effect of the agreement was to scrap old machines, introduce speeding up and dilute the labor force in the war trades with unskilled and semi-skilled men, women and youths. The effect was, also, to scrap the old negotiating and conciliating machinery between employers and employes just at the time that the abandonment of the rules and regulations and the influx of "dilutes" made local issues all the more real.

In view of the fact that under war conditions, these issues had finally to be settled, not by bargaining, but by decision of the arbitration boards under the munitions act, the district trade union committees tended to side-step them and pass them up to the nationals, and the nationals to pass them on to the government tribunals. Moreover, under the war conditions, the new workers sought representation and a chance to count. The result was the growth of shop stewardism as a spontaneous groping after local remedy. It has taken many forms -sometimes the selection of a single steward for all crafts and all grades of skill as the representatives of the men of a plant in meeting with their employers; sometimes the getting together of several stewards in a large plant; sometimes the