This does not mean that a hundred years ago every working man wanted the political vote, nor that now he wants to sit on a committee and control his industry.  It meant that a substantial number of the more enlightened and ambitious did—­a large enough number to be a source of permanent discontent until they got it.  The same is true to-day in the case of many industries.  Many men in all classes of society are content to do their job, take their money, go home and work in their gardens, or course dogs or fly pigeons.  They are very good citizens.  Many others, equally good citizens, take a more mental and active interest in their job, and want to have some share in the direction of it.  This class is increasing and should not be discouraged.  They constitute our problem.  The Liberal solution of a gradually extended franchise has cured the political ferment.  Political controversy is still acute, and long may it remain so, as it is the sign of a healthy political society.  But the ugly, ominous, revolutionary features of a hundred years ago in the sphere of politics have substantially gone or been transferred to the industrial sphere.

THE LIBERALISATION OF INDUSTRY

The same solution must be applied to that sphere.  This does not mean transferring the machinery of votes and elections to industry.  It means finding channels in industry whereby every person may exercise his legitimate aspiration, if he should feel one, of being more than a mere routine worker while still perhaps doing routine work, and of contributing in an effective manner his ideas, thoughts, suggestions, experience, to the direction and improvement of the industry.  We have satisfied the desire for self-expression as citizens, and we have now to find some means of satisfying a similar desire for self-expression as workers in industry.  That is all very vague.  Does it mean co-partnership, profit-sharing, co-operative societies, joint committees, national wages boards, guild socialism, nationalisation?  It may mean any or all of these things—­one in one industry, one in another, or several different forms in the same industry—­whatever experiment may prove to be best suited to each industry.  But it must mean opportunity of experiment, and experiment by all concerned.  It must mean greater recognition by employers of their trusteeship on behalf of their work-people as well as their shareholders; greater recognition of the public as opposed to the purely proprietary view of industry; and recognition that the man who contributes his manual skill and labour and risks his life and limb is as much a part of the industry as a man who contributes skill in finance, management, or salesmanship, or the man who risks his capital.