Art. 4.-THE PRINCIPLES OF RECONSTRUCTION, II.*

1. Ministry of Reconstruction. A List of Commissions and Committees set up to deal with Questions which will arise at the Close of the War. [Cd 8916.] Wyman, 1918. 2. Ministry of Reconstruction. Committee on Relations between Employers and Employed: Second Report on Joint Standing Industrial Councils. [Cd 9002.] Wyman, 1918.

3. Ibid.

Supplementary Report on Works Committees. [Cd 9001.] Wyman, 1918.

4. Ministry of Labour. Industrial Reports, No. 2: Works Committees. Wyman, 1918.

5. Past and Future. By 'Jason.' Chatto & Windus, 1918. And other works cited in Part I of this paper (Q.R., April, 1918).

II. SOME PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE.

IN discussing the views of certain representative groups with regard to the policy to be adopted after the war, we suggested last April that the logical completeness of their proposals was in some measure a defect, inasmuch as a tendency was thereby created to lay the chief emphasis on the legislative regulation of national life rather than on its animating principle. It is impossible to deny the attractiveness of proposals so concrete and so wide in scope as those contained in, for instance, the Labour Party Report on Reconstruction; but our hopes of a national renaissance must be based on something which goes deeper than organisation, and the full and conscious participation of every citizen in the national life' is likely to be impeded rather than facilitated by the imposition of a rigid and uniform system.

The principles underlying our idea of a renaissance have already been discussed, but, when we turn to the practical application of those principles in the life of the community, there is bound to come a sense of anticlimax such as is not felt in the working-out of a political or economic theory. For in the former case it is not possible, as it is in the latter, to embody in a concrete

* For Part I of this article see Q.R. for April, 1918.

and comprehensive programme the conceptions we have formed. This does not mean, however, that we are to be content with a merely emotional appeal. We have not, it is true, any single specific of universal applicability by which to solve all the many and complex questions with which we shall be faced at the close of the war; but it should be possible to deduce from the principles we have discussed an attitude towards the more representative of those questions which will indicate the general lines of their solution.

In the first place, it is essential to distinguish between what may be termed the emergency problems arising immediately out of the destruction and dislocation caused by the war, and the problems of permanent constructive policy which arise from its reactions upon the minds of men. In the former category fall all questions relating to demobilisation and to the economic situation created by war losses and by the prolonged interruption of productive activity. In the latter are comprised many questions of public policy to which the war has given a new prominence or an altered significance, such as the nature and limitations of democracy, the part to be assigned to the State in the initiation and direction of industrial and social progress, and the means by which a minimum standard of material and social welfare may be assured to the individual citizen. The emergency problems are in the main questions of expediency. They relate to the practical methods of passing through an economic crisis with the least possible suffering and disturbance. The constructive problems are of a more fundamental character. They are questions of principle which derive their urgency from the growing conviction that the exertions and sacrifices made during the war can be redeemed from futility only if the conclusion of peace becomes a definite landmark in human progress.

It will be observed that the emergency and constructive problems are in many respects closely related. The provision of employment, either for returned soldiers or for those whom they displace, raises many questions which cannot be disposed of without reference to the claims of Labour to a larger share in the control and in the fruits of industry. The combination of abnormal

needs with inadequate supplies in the years immediately following the war will challenge the adequacy of the whole existing economic system.

In this connexion between the necessities of the immediate crisis and the requirements of the future there is an obvious advantage, since it may be possible so to frame the emergency measures as to lay the foundations of a more permanent reconstruction. At the same time, this connexion involves serious dangers. Preparation for the task of dealing with demobilisation and with the other problems of transition economy cannot be postponed until the end of the war. Already the Ministry of Reconstruction has published a list of eighty-seven commissions and committees which are taking into consideration subjects ranging from the reinstatement of demobilised workers to the Machinery of Government,' from the legal position with regard to ante-bellum contracts to the broad questions of future commercial and industrial policy. In respect of many of these subjects, considerations relating to the immediate and to the more remote future are inextricably entangled; yet the need for immediate action is so urgent that it will hardly be possible to defer the preliminary steps until the nation has become familiar with the issues before it.

Although the emergency problems themselves arise from abnormal circumstances which justify their being met by the application of unusual remedies, the measures adopted will inevitably be seized upon as precedents for future policy. Especially will this be the case with regard to the extension of State control over economic activities. It is obvious that the new powers and functions acquired or exercised by Government during the war cannot be suddenly dropped. The disorganisation of the ordinary economic life of the country has been so complete that traders and manufacturers would find it impossible to take up once more the threads of business activity, without some assistance from the State in restoring the machinery which has been dislocated by the State's own action and necessities. It is obvious, too, that the assistance of the State will be required in meeting the abnormal demands caused, as in the case of housing, by a long suspension of productive activity Vol. 230.-No. 457.

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due to the absorption of labour and material by war industries. But the State Socialists have already announced in the clearest terms their intention of seizing this opportunity to press their own programme of progressive State control and ultimate nationalisation of industry; and there are many indications of a prospective alliance between the Labour Party and the new bureaucracy, to secure this end. On the other hand, the evidence of certain weaknesses in our industrial position revealed by the war has been hailed in some quarters as an opportunity of insinuating, almost without discussion, a radical change in our whole fiscal policy.*

Whatever may be the merits of these and other proposals, there is a serious danger that the nation may find itself committed to revolutionary changes in its economic and social policy without having had sufficient opportunity to consider the consequences, or even to become fully acquainted with what is being done. This danger might be averted, and the quick passage of emergency legislation assisted, if it were possible to arrive at a general and genuine agreement that steps taken in connexion with the transition from war to peace should be treated on their merits as emergency measures, without prejudice to future policy. Emergency legislation and organisation have always, however, a tendency to become permanent. A precedent is created; the onus of proof is shifted; and the weight of inertia, previously opposed to the innovation, is transferred to its support. In these circumstances it is particularly desirable that what is done under the pressure of the immediate crisis should be restricted so far as possible to genuine emergency measures, designed to meet specific difficulties, and not to introduce new principles of general application. It is always much easier to effect changes in the political or economic structure of society than to undo what has been done; and the danger of premature commitments is much greater than that of a more cautious policy proving a stumbling-block in the way of future progress.

These considerations are the more important because

* See the Report of the Commercial and Industrial Policy Committee (Cd 9035) and press comment thereon.

the conditions of life and men's ideas with regard to it are alike in a state of flux. No one can as yet predict with certainty the manner in which the conditions and habits of life of the community and of the individual will be affected after the war by the consequences of its appalling cost both in lives and treasure. It is equally impossible, while public attention is concentrated on the war and discussion is fettered by the limitations imposed by military exigencies, to gauge accurately the force and depth of the disturbance of ideas to which the great upheaval has given rise. All we do know is that, whenever we penetrate a little behind the decent reserve of the press and the platform, we find a tendency to challenge, even with some impatience, the worth of every existing human institution.

In such an atmosphere we need to beware especially of the two besetting sins of reformers: the tendency to consider problems as stabilised, and the tendency to com pare the practical working of an existing system with the theoretical working of a proposed alternative. The desire to settle things once for all' is very strong and very pardonable, but it is a fruitful source of blunders. The life of men and of nations is not static but dynamic; and the conditions produced by their reaction upon each other and upon their environment undergo a perpetual change. The assumption of the stability of existing conditions in the pledges made to Labour has been the cause of endless disappointment and friction during the war. The grouping of powers or parties upon a basis of common policy is continually being shifted by the emergence of new forces which affect that policy itself. The attempt to fix permanently prices or wages is defeated by the perpetual fluctuation of money values. A rigid economic policy is liable to be stultified at any moment by the development of new markets, the discovery of new sources of supply, or the invention of a new process. Hence the policies and institutions marked by the greatest vitality are not those which are the most logically complete, but those which are most adaptable and capable of readjustment.

The temptation to confuse incidental errors of administration with the defects inherent to a system has been