Welsh Journals

LABOUR PROBLEMS XIV. RECONSTRUCTION ONE almost hesitates to use the word recon- struction." It has already suffered so much from wear and tear that it is in danger of having its original meaning blurred. It will pass from one to another like a defaced coin, tendered and accepted because it is a mere token, the value of which it is not worth while contesting. We have witnessed the degradation of the word efficiency to such a point that it seems to mean something, while as a matter of fact it is used to absolve one from thinking what one does mean. Reconstruction" and efficiency are alike in that they are purely secondary words. We have to find what is to be reconstructed just as we must know what is efficiently done before we can judge of the merits of a plan or of its execution. Just as there was a danger that the public would take too seriously the efficiency of the self-constituted expert, so there is now a danger that the plea that some busy-bodies are reconstructing will protect them against the criticism which would prevent them from doing more harm than good. I do not wish to belittle the efforts of our recon- structors." It is difficult to praise too highly the great number of memoranda, suggestions and recommendations that have been published within the last twelve months. We have seen the Athenceum transformed from a highly critical literary journal into the journal of reconstruction. We have a Ministry of Reconstruction with a considerable staff. Some of us have watched our academic colleagues (of the lower military categories), steal off silently, one by one to Whitehall, there to be employed in recording and tabulating facts for the great day of reconstruction. The machinery has become so elaborate that one may venture to say that a fuller account of our industrial system in its actual working now exists than Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Webb could have wished for in their wildest dreams. And all this is to the good. It is a pity that the War was necessary to convince our rulers that they needed to collect and consider these facts. But since the War has come upon us let us by all means use the occasion seriously to examine the foundations of our social life. The reconstructors find themselves compelled to go back to the decade following the battle of Waterloo for some kind of an historical example of reconstruction. Although the peace which will break out one of these days will present them with a still more complicated problem than that of 1815, it is as well that they should notice carefully some of the blunders of a hundred years' ago. If we do not already realise the tragedy of those years, we have it fully revealed in Mr. and Mrs. Hammond's recent book on the Town Labourer. Then the government could plead that material did not exist for a better solution. It did not do so because the dominant opinion held that solutions were not within the competence of governments. It neither had the will nor did it think it was its duty to interfere with the gross injustices of one of the darkest periods in our modern history. At the end of the present War the government will be in possession of the facts and, after the experience we have had of its power to interfere so extensively in many directions during the War, we are not likely to accept a modest plea that it cannot do something to give effect to the excellent recommendations now before the public. It is necessary, therefore, to formulate principles, and to secure such a general acceptance of them that there will be a strong driving-force behind the govern- ment. No one will deny that there is a growing consciousness that the conclusion of the War will present not only great difficulties but also great opportunities. The danger is that the difficulties will be allowed to strangle the opportunities. There is likely to be so much friction, so much misunder- standing and so much antagonism that reconstruc- tion will not have a fair chance. Reconstruction involves a plan of the future structure. Unless there is agreement about that all efforts will be in vain. The building of the Tower of Babel was frustrated by a confusion of tongues. It is not conceivable than any progress would have been made at all had there been a dispute about the original plans for the structure. The prospects of an agreed solution are not very bright. A solution imposed by one section on all others will not command that general accept- ance which our reconstructors postulate or demand. The example of 1815 is helpful in a negative way. Political power was then a monopoly of an oligarchy. Hence the immediate abandonment of the Income Tax and the imposition of the Corn Law to maintain War prices. Labour was not then organised; trade unions were illegal associations. Now the distribution of political power is different, the con- sciousness that it may be wielded is present, and the means of making it felt are to hand. The various sections of the community will enter into the period of peace much more evenly matched, and much more able to look after their respective interests. From recent discussion two facts seem to be emerging. There is not likely to be any effective reconstruction