this voluntary body and one that has been set up by the
Government--the Industrial Fatigue Research Board, which works as a
branch of the Medical Research Council. Roughly speaking, the
Industrial Fatigue Board initiates work and undertakes experiments
which are likely to have fruitful results and be of interest, though
unremunerative in themselves. Your Institute spends private money,
and it obtains support from among those who stand to benefit by the
results of your investigations, but who are undoubtedly attracted to
the work of the Institute through the interest which they take in the
problems you are attacking. The Institute, so far as I have been
able to learn, is surveying the vast realm covered by the operation
of the Factory Acts, and it is striving to introduce into that realm
improvements--not improvements which require legislation, but
improvements in mental and bodily conditions of work. The study of
such things as lighting, heating, ventilation, movement of the body,
cultivation of interest, the avoidance of fatigue, occupational
guidance--in other words, the study of the whole human factor in
relation to the machine and the job--that, as I understand it, is the
field of study of the industrial psychologist.
A movement of this kind has this in common with the League of
Nations: it has two principal obstacles to encounter--the prejudice
of people who think it can do nothing, and the support of people who
think it can do everything. In the first place it met, not
unnaturally, with the resistance of those who thought that, in spite
of its name, it was another capitalist dodge to rivet the chains of
the wage slave more firmly than before. I think it is now clear, not
only among the leaders of the employers and among the leaders of the
men, but also among the men themselves, that in this Institute they
have a real friend.
The fundamental question is how to make the most of the individual,
with all his idiosyncrasies, in his work. If you consider the matter
in the realm of sport, there seems really much less to wonder at in
the work of the Institute than if you regarded it in the realm in
which they are now working. Consider what is meant by training for a
boat race. It means nothing more nor less than true co-operation of
effort, rhythmic movement, distribution of energy in the proper
place, and at the right time, with the minimum fatigue and the
elimination of wasted effort. That is all. And there you have a
very suggestive parallel with industry. It is quite true that the
changes which accompanied the Industrial Revolution have been far
more costly in human life and human wear and tear than they would
have been had our ancestors been as wise as we sometimes think that
we ourselves are. But these depressing features of the Industrial
Revolution, whatever they have brought in their train inside
workshops, have had a tendency to bring in their train outside
workshops one very bad thing, and that is a dislike of work itself.
If work can be presented in a palatable form, I am not sure that the
ordinary human being does not like it, provided that he gets a
reasonable amount of play. The real enemies are overwork,
under-payment, insecurity and bad conditions. These are the real
evils, to the assuaging of which the work of this Institute, as I
understand it, is directed, and in that we wish more power to its
elbow.
We must not exaggerate what is possible. You cannot abolish
repetitive work; you cannot, even in a Socialist State; and, after
all, the monotony of the workman's life is very much due to the
monotony of the consumers' demands. If a man wants the same thing
every day, the man who provides it will have a monotonous task.
I am no mathematician, but I believe a straight line is, or was, the
shortest way between two points, but I am told that curved movements
are preferable to straight lines--whether on grounds of aesthetics or
comfort I am not sure--and there is no doubt, as Mr. Myers has
discovered, of the economic importance of rhythm, which has been
gradually recognised in industry, I understand, and made use of.
There must be something in rhythm which appeals to human nature.
Witness the popularity at present of dancing, and witness also the
vogue of the Volga Boat Song, which always makes me want to run along
the bank and pull the barge.
Under the aegis of the Institute I am told that the miners, some of
them, have been able to pick coal with greater regularity and have
gained happiness thereby. That opens up a new field, and I am
thinking seriously of asking Mr. Cook to bring in that which Mr.
Thomas knows so well--that Welsh gift of music--and to set his men
swinging their picks to the tune of "The Men of Harlech" or, better
still, "The Rising of the Lark," and give us an output that will defy
foreign competition.
But, seriously, if solutions can be found along these lines--if
anything can cause the man, the woman, the boy and the girl at the
heavy or monotonous job to find ways of doing that job with as great
or with greater efficiency and with less strain, more comfort, more
happiness--you will add more, perhaps, to a combination of human
efficiency and human happiness than we politicians can hope to do by
anything that lies in our power.
And there is another line on which you are working. You are always
paying attention, I understand, to boys and girls who are leaving
school in finding suitable occupations according to their fitness.
This is a matter of tremendous importance, and involves practically
what so many of us talk about--equality of opportunity. But I expect
even this Institute has got a good deal to learn in that direction.
One's first inclination is to smile at the idea of testing
intelligence and vocational aptitude. I should be extraordinarily
sorry at my age to have either of those things tested by anyone. We
must not expect from this Institute infallible results, but I shall
watch the results with intense interest, not only because I believe
you may do a great work among the young people, but because I see an
infinitely lighter task before my successor when he is able to apply
the tests of this Institute to candidates for the Cabinet. If I can
only draw on the resources of the psychologist to test the
suitability of all candidates for Cabinet rank in initiative and
self-control under criticism, intuitive insight into what Lancashire
is going to say to-morrow, and when trade is going to revive, how
much easier it would be; and if we could only test also their
physical qualifications for all-night sittings, and how long they can
speak without boring an audience, then, indeed, Mr. Myers, you will
rise up, and we shall call you blessed.
THE GOSPEL OF HATE
FROM A SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
16_th February_, 1923
One word about the speech delivered last night by the hon. Member for
Motherwell. (Mr. Newbold.) I have always been a student of history,
and I learned from him several things that I had not known before.
There was only one remark of his on which I wish to comment. He said
that when the Labour Party had been in power, and failed, he was
coming in. I believe that the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J.
Jones) expressed dissent. I am myself of that somewhat flabby nature
that always prefers agreement to disagreement, and I welcome the
opportunity of recording the fact that I find myself in hearty and
uncompromising agreement with the hon. Member for Silvertown. When
the Labour Party sit on these benches, we shall all wish them well in
their effort to govern the country. But I am quite certain that
whether they succeed or fail there will never in this country be a
Communist Government, and for this reason, that no gospel founded on
hate will ever seize the hearts of our people--the people of Great
Britain. It is no good trying to cure the world by spreading out
oceans of bloodshed. It is no good trying to cure the world by
repeating that pentasyllable French derivative, "Proletariat." The
English language is the richest in the world in thought. The English
language is the richest in the world in monosyllables. Four words,
of one syllable each, are words which contain salvation for this
country and for the whole world, and they are "Faith," "Hope,"
"Love," and "Work." No Government in this country to-day, which has
not faith in the people, hope in the future, love for its fellow-men,
and which will not work and work and work, will ever bring this
country through into better days and better times, or will ever bring
Europe through or the world through.
_ON POLITICAL LIFE_
SERVICE
AT THE LEEDS LUNCHEON CLUB
13_th March_, 1925
I want to begin by going back a few years and trying to voice to this
room thoughts that perhaps have not been expressed in public, but
which were common to a vast number of thinking men during the years
of the war. I am one of those (of whom there are many here) who when
the war broke out were too old for active service, but who were
possessed in those days of the war with a consuming desire to do
something for our country, and to look round to find where we could
most usefully give service.
I think probably everybody here, members of such a club as yours,
found their vocation at that time. But as the war went on, the
effect of it psychologically was curious. Many of the things that
had played a large part in our lives before shrank into
insignificance, and we felt that the world could never be the same
again to us who had grown to maturity in the years of peace. I think
some of us found that we were getting to cling much more loosely to
material wealth, and to realise that wealth was made to be a servant
and not a master--that as a servant it had a most useful function to
perform, that as a master it meant damnation.
I think, too, we felt this: we were not peculiarly impressed with
speeches that talked of the glorious time that was coming after the
war. We realised what the war meant in the world. We felt the
foundations of civilisation in Europe cracking. We knew as business
men that for a generation this country and the world would be as a
whole far, far poorer, and we realised early the struggle that must
result to repair the cracks in the foundations of our civilisation
and to restore to the country that level of prosperity which she had
enjoyed before the war. I think, too, many of us had little faith in
supermen. I think that our experience in business had taught us
that, as a matter of fact, there are no such things as supermen, and
that we should have to rely on the innate common-sense, integrity,
courage and faith of the common men and women of this country if we
were to make good.
I think probably those thoughts which I certainly had, and which, I
gather, you had, were pretty common throughout the country. It was
for that reason, feeling as I did, that I was driven into the course
which I embraced in December, 1916, when I accepted Mr. Bonar Law's
offer to serve as his Parliamentary Secretary. I did that
deliberately, because I believed that at my time of life, having
already sufficient means to be independent of the active business in
which I had passed my life up to then, I had the opportunity of
giving my services to the country without any feeling that it was
necessary to be remunerated for them.
There is nothing singular in that. There must have been millions of
men who felt as I did. I have never said, or believed, that that
service which I had the opportunity of rendering was one whit higher
or better than any other. All service ranks the same, according to
the spirit in which it is performed.
One of the sources of the great strength of our country in every part
of the kingdom is that there are men who have no personal ambition
for themselves to get where the limelight is brightest and publicity
is greatest. And as long as our country can go on producing that
type, which I am thankful to say it is producing from all classes of
the community--so long as that is the case, I should never despair of
England.
There is another observation I would like to make about the war
before I pass on. It became evident to me long before the war was
over that the effect of it, which would hit this country hardest in
the years immediately succeeding, was the tragedy of the loss of the
men who were just qualifying and getting ready to be the leaders of
our younger men--the men who had already been at work in the factory
and the mill, in all kinds of business and in the professions, who
were just beginning to be masters of their own work--men of about
thirty years of age, who by now would have been qualified to be
leaders in their respective spheres.
There is nothing in the first twenty years after the war that can
make good to this country the loss of so many men of that age. And
that was an additional reason why we men who were middle-aged already
when the war began should have banded ourselves together by the time
the war ended under a vow to our better selves that we would give for
the rest of our lives, as a thank-offering to the dead, nothing but
the best services we could render to our country. It has become our
lot not to seek the ease that we might legitimately seek, but to
carry on to the end and help the next generation that is coming
along--the generation that was too young to fight--help that to take
its place as and when the time comes. It is, and it will be, a
tremendous burden on the older men, but it is their proud
contribution--the giving of the best they can to help a broken and a
shattered world.
Among the problems that we have to face to-day there are some with
which you are peculiarly fitted to deal, and where your advice,
knowledge, understanding and enthusiasm may be of the greatest
service to your country. In few things is it more difficult to make
sufficiently rapid progress than in the problem of housing, and that
problem in the big towns and cities of our country is linked up with
kindred and greater problems of the planning of our cities. I spoke
last night (not for the first time) of the rapidity with which the
change had transformed our country, the change wrought by the growth
of our industrial system. It was so unexpected, so unforeseen, and
so incalculable in its effects that men were unable, and they had not
the imagination, to plan and to look forward. If they had only done
so how much easier our task would have been! But we to-day not only
have to devote ourselves to undoing the evil effects of things left
undone by those who went before us; we in our time must look ahead to
plan that we do not leave problems for our descendants as grave as
have been left for us.
In the growth of our big industrial centres to-day let us, while
there is yet time, look forward and plan to see where the factories
of the future are to be, and where the houses of the future are to
be, and where the open spaces and the playing fields are to be, and
how people are to be got to and from their work--that complicated
system of transport. All these things need thought, sympathy,
imagination and vision. In a gathering like this there are men who
are capable of doing most useful work of this kind.
One centre after another of the big populations in this country can
make its own plans and contribution to the common stock of knowledge
and enter into a glorious competition to make in the progress of
years their city more beautiful, more convenient, more commodious,
and happier for the human beings who live in it.
In the same way in a city like this, where the intelligence and the
moving spirits of industry meet round this table, what an opportunity
you have for making your contribution to the solving of the most
difficult problem we have to face to-day! There are few here,
probably, who believe that the industrial system is static and here
for all time. You are all mainly engaged, as I have been, in
industry, and have gone through the mill, and we have to move on and
realise, as I do, that so far from industry being static it is
dynamic. We have to move on into a state of things that has yet to
be a better one both for efficiency and in its spirit than anything
else that we have yet come through. There will have to be much hard
thinking on the part of all who are engaged in industry, whether they
be masters or whether they be men; and it will be impossible for the
change that I believe to be necessary in the future to come about
until there is a very different atmosphere in which to discuss and
negotiate those changes than has been the case in the last twenty
years.
The atmosphere in those years has been, in many parts of the country,
poisoned. I do not wish to say anything here about where the faults
may lie. But I do want to say that I realise, as you do, that a
great deal of the propaganda which has been done during the last
twenty years--the propaganda of a kind that teaches class hatred--has
in many places done its evil and its poisonous work.
I am thankful to say that I see signs throughout the country to-day
that those who believe that permanent progress can be made by that
method are not an increasing number, but the work that has been done
in that direction cannot be undone in a moment. And it will mean the
utmost goodwill, the utmost force of example to bring about, to any
great extent, something better and something on which we may erect a
permanent and stable building. In industrial matters I believe in
publicity. I believe, in spite of much that we fear, that the
agreement that was made in the mining industry has taught the country
a great deal. As you pass away from the days of small businesses
into the days of big limited liability companies, your problem is
completely altered, and what we have to do--and here nothing can be
done without your help--is to humanise the system of limited
liability. That is an extraordinarily difficult thing to do, but
after all, let us remember publicity. Where there is ignorance there
is always suspicion, and until you on your side--I will say we on our
side--get the men who work for us to understand our problems, as they
do not understand them to-day, you can never hope for progress.
I have often said I regard it of the greatest importance for workmen
in industry, and particularly their leaders, to have what some of
them already have, a knowledge of the industry that they are in--a
knowledge of the finances of that industry, a knowledge of the costs
of that industry, a knowledge of the costs of that industry abroad
(that they may understand what competition means), a knowledge of the
methods of marketing those commodities abroad. It is far more
important for them to have that knowledge than to have even the
amount of knowledge that may be accumulated after six weeks' sojourn
in a foreign country of the language of which they are ignorant.
I am catholic in my views. I would exempt no class to-day from
working hard at their own problems. I think those who lead Labour
and those who lead the employers have got to work harder at their
task of comprehension and of explanation than they have ever worked
before.
There is one thing that I have always felt as an employer, and it is
this. A good employer is very apt to devote his whole time to his
own works, and to refrain from coming out into public life, because
he has not time for it, and it perhaps does not attract him, and for
some reason he is often reluctant to leave his own place of work.
There is one cause in which he should be prepared to sacrifice
himself--and it is a sacrifice. I want to see the ranks of employers
throw up a man who will lead his men, making it the principal task of
his life to be the mediator in all subjects affecting their work,
whilst standing up, as he is entitled to do, for the order he
represents. There can be no finer career for a young man than to go
into business, not with the object only of making a fortune, as he
probably would--for any man is worthy of his hire--but with the idea
of making his contribution towards getting the whole of these
relations on a firmer footing.
There can be no finer work for men who, as boys, went out to France,
and learnt what a British regiment was, than to try to get something
of the spirit of the British regiment into their industry.
DEMOCRACY AND THE SPIRIT OF SERVICE
FROM A SPEECH AT THE ALBERT HALL
4_th December_, 1924
The responsibility for progress rests not only on the Government, but
on every man and woman in the country. The Government can go no
faster in progress than the people will allow them to do. Willing
co-operation in new methods is essential, and without the will to
work progress is not possible, and with constant stoppages of
industry progress is not possible. Progress can be obtained by the
people of this country if they have the will to obtain it. But just
as it can be helped by them, so it can be impeded and retarded and
stopped altogether. The ultimate responsibility is with the people
more even than with the Government. It is a testing time for
democracy. Many are those who would pay, and do pay, lip service to
it. But I remember that democracy is after all but the government of
the people by the people through their freely elected
representatives, and unless the responsibility for that government is
felt throughout the length and breadth of the country, from top to
bottom, by men and women alike, democracy itself will fail.
Democracy, democratic government, calls for harder work, for higher
education, for further vision than any form of government known in
this world. It has not lasted long yet in the West, and it is only
by those like ourselves who believe in it making it a success that we
can hope to see it permanent and yielding those fruits which it ought
to yield. The assertion of people's rights has never yet provided
that people with bread. The performance of their duties, and that
alone, can lead to the successful issue of those experiments in
government which we have carried further than any other people in
this world. Democracy can rise to great heights; it can also sink to
great depths. It is for us so to conduct ourselves, and so to
educate our own people, that we may achieve the heights and avoid the
depths.
Closely akin to that comes the subject of our great Empire, on which
I would say a word or two. When we speak of Empire, it is in no
spirit of flag-wagging. What we feel, I think, is this: we feel that
in this great inheritance of ours, separated as it is by the seas, we
have yet one home and one people, and we want the realisation of that
to be so vivid to our own people that men may ask themselves, as they
come to manhood, "Where, in this great inherited estate, can I do
best for myself? Where have I a better opportunity of bringing up my
family? Where can I do best for the Empire?" When the answer given
is "overseas," let us do everything we can to see that the path is
made easy for those who desire it, that we may help to spread the
peoples of our Empire, the ideals of our Empire, the trade of our
Empire from one side of the world to the other. After all, great as
the material benefits are, we do not look primarily to them. I think
deep down in all our hearts we look to the Empire as the means by
which we may hope to see that increase of our race which we believe
to be of such inestimable benefit to the world at large; the spread
abroad of people to whom freedom and justice are as the breath of
their nostrils, of people distinguished, as we would fain hope and
believe, above all things, by an abiding sense of duty. If ever the
day should come when an appeal to that sense of duty falls on deaf
ears among our own kin, that day indeed would be the end of our
country and of our Empire, to which you and I have dedicated our very
lives.
And, if I may, a few words in conclusion to you workers from all over
the country and to the new members of Parliament who sit behind me.
We have to-day perhaps the most magnificent opportunity of service to
our country that has ever been given to any party. You who have just
been elected to the House of Commons are, by the testimony of your
fellow-countrymen, their natural leaders for the next four or five
years. It is your duty, your primary duty, to educate that great
democracy of which we are all a part. Let me put this to you, to all
of us who have passed through the experience of the recent election.
Can there be anything that stands before us more clearly or
poignantly than the groups of our fellow-countrymen who listened in
faith to what we had to say, who trusted us and have given us their
confidence, and who believe in their hearts that we have come to
London to do what we can to right those things that are hard and
difficult for them, and to help them in what is always the difficult
struggle that they have in life? Don't ever lose touch with your
constituency; don't ever mistake the voice of the clubman and the
voice of the Pressman in London for the voice of the country. It is
the country that has returned you; it is the country which will judge
you.