ABSTRACT
In many labour quarters there exists a disposition to lump together for wholesale condemnation, without examination, all proposals which appear to be designed to make industry more productive. The tangle of cross-issues and appeals can only be safely traversed by labour taking new soundings and accommodating its policy to the new situation. Since the trades comprise a very large proportion of the best organized employments, the whole labour situation will be transformed thereby. The bargaining for improved conditions of employment will no longer be between trade-unions and private employers, but between trade-unions and the State. Even where the industries are left in other respects to private enterprise, an increasing tendency for the State to intervene in labour contracts, and in matters of hygiene and accident, for the protection of the interests of labour, will certainly be manifested.
