than it has ever been before in modern times, and never was it less true that the men out of work have mainly themselves to blame.  But it has meant far less distress, far less destruction of human vitality, and I will add far less demoralisation of human character than many of the bad years we had before the war.  That is due to the system of doles, the national and local doles; and in the circumstances I prefer that system with all its anomalies to the alternative of a substantially lower scale of relief.  We are still in the midst of that emergency; and if we are faced, as I think for this decade we must expect to be faced, with that dilemma which I indicated earlier, I should prefer, and I hope that every Liberal will prefer, to err by putting the scale of relief somewhat too high for prudence and equity rather than obviously too low for humanity and decency.

THE PROBLEM OF THE MINES

BY ARNOLD D. MCNAIR

M.A., LL.M., C.B.E.; Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; Secretary of Coal Conservation Committee, 1916-1918; Secretary of Advisory Board of Coal Controller, 1917-1919; Secretary of Coal Industry Commission, 1919 (Sankey Commission).

Mr. McNair said:—­Need I labour the point that there is a problem of the Mines?  Can any one, looking back on the last ten years, when time after time a crisis in the mining industry has threatened the internal peace and equilibrium of the State, deny that there is something seriously wrong with the present constitution of what our chairman has described as this great pivotal industry?  What is it that is wrong?  If I may take a historical parallel, will you please contrast the political situation and aspirations of the working-class population at the close of the Napoleonic wars with their industrial situation and aspirations now.  Politically they were a hundred years ago unenfranchised; more or less constant political ferment prevailed until the Reform Bill, and later, extensions of the franchise applied the Liberal solution of putting it within the power of the people, if they wished it, to take an effective share in the control of political affairs.

Industrially, their situation to-day is not unlike their political situation a hundred years ago.  Such influence as they have got is exerted almost entirely outside the constitution of industry, and very often in opposition to it.  Their trade unions, workers’ committees, councils of action, triple alliances, and so forth, are not part of the regular industrial machine, and too often are found athwart its path.  They are members of an industry with substantially no constitutional control over it, just as a hundred years ago they were members of a State whose destinies they had no constitutional power to direct.