Nevertheless, we must all desire to proceed along the lines of associating the pecuniary interests of the worker in the success of the enterprise, and if any one can suggest a way in which direct assistance to that end can be given by political action, as distinct from industrial, he will be doing a great service.  I may add that there is an argument in favour of profit-sharing which is of the utmost importance and which was recently expressed by a prominent industrialist:  who declared to me that at long last and after much opposition he has come round to believe in profit-sharing, because it enables him to show his men the balance sheet.  The solution adopted last year in the mining industry contains the sort of elements we wish to see adopted in principle.  The men are given, through their officials, the results of the industry.  They see that they cannot get more than the industry can pay, and though the present economic conditions are putting the men in a desperate state to-day, the miners, who were often regarded before the war as the most pugnacious in the country, are not burning their employers’ houses, but are studying how the economic conditions of the industry can be improved for the benefit of themselves and their employers.

INDUSTRIAL PUBLICITY

This brings me to the question of publicity, which is at the root of the whole problem.  We desire the principle of private enterprise to remain.  The one thing that can destroy it is secrecy.  We argue that the self-interest of the investor makes capital flow into those channels where economic conditions need it most.  But how can the investor know where it should go when the true financial condition of great industrial companies is a matter of guesswork?  Again, we rely upon our bankers to check excessive industrial fluctuations.  How can they do this if they do not know the facts of production?  The public should know what great combines are doing, but they do not know; and how can we expect the man in the street to be satisfied when his mind is filled with suspicions that can be neither confirmed nor removed?

It is of the utmost importance to seek for greater publicity on two main lines.  The illustration of the mines suggests one—­production and wage data.  There are only three industries in this country—­coal, steel, and ships—­in which production statistics exist.  I suggest that in many of our great staple industries a few simple data with regard to production should be published promptly, say every three months.  The data I have in mind are the wages bill, the cost of materials, and the value of the product.  It is desirable that this should be done, and I believe it can be done, for almost every great industry in the country.  These three facts alone will bring the whole wages discussion down to earth.