From ‘The Essential Need’, The Spectator, 12 June 1915:
UNLESS we beat the Germans they will bleed us to death, and grind their heels upon our faces. Those who in their hearts nourish a secret feeling that if the worst comes to the worst we can always break off the war, and acknowledge ourselves conquered, but not utterly destroyed, and still able to hold our own as an independent nation, even if on a lower plane, are utterly mistaken. The Germans have come too near defeat ever to risk our continued existence as a free nation. If they win, they will ruin us completely. But the Germans will win if we have not enough shell and not enough of the other necessaries of war. Shell, remember, though the need of the hour, is by no means our only need. How are we to get more shell? We can only get it by abolishing root and branch during the war all those Trade Union restrictions that limit, or tend to limit, production. We are not going to argue whether in peace time it is good policy for labour to restrict production by elaborate rules as to skilled labour and the use of machinery. We will even assume that it is good policy, and in the interest of the workers to insist on such restrictions. What we are sure of, and what every sane man is sure of, is that it is madness to restrict the production of shells in time of war. We cannot have too many. It is virtually certain that we shall have too few. Therefore unless we are content to perish we must get rid, lock, stock, and barrel, of the Trade Union policy of restriction as applied to munitions of war. At present if a Trade Union rule is broken men making shell will throw down their tools as light-heartedly as if we were at peace. The thought that they may be killing men by failing to provide war material does not seem to occur to them. The fetish of Trade Union principle outweighs all other considerations. That is terrible, but it is a fact, and one that must be faced.
Just as wages must be “stabilized” for the men at existing rates, so all additional profits due to war contracts must be credited, not to the individual employer, but to the State. The principle of no war rise in wages must be strictly applied to profits. Upon this foundation we could build up a sound organization for the increased production of shell and other munitions, and build it up without unfairness either to masters or men. Both would become the agents of the Government, and both would be fairly remunerated, but during the war neither would be able to take advantage of the needs of the State to increase that remuneration unduly.
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