=Source.=--_The Times_, January 31.
_Industrial Remuneration Conference._
Yesterday the delegates held their concluding sitting at Prince's
Hall, Piccadilly, when the subject set down for discussion was:
Would the more general distribution of capital or land, or the
State management of capital or land, promote or impair the
production of wealth and the welfare of the community?...
The discussion on the papers was begun by Mr. Williams (Social
Democratic Federation), who said that if they left all the
machinery, all the railways, and all the mines in the hands of the
rich capitalists, the working classes would still continue to be
oppressed. They must either say that the Government had no right
to interfere with anything, or they must admit that the State
must equally interfere between the landlord, the capitalist, and
the labourer. He compared the part played by politicians like Mr.
Chamberlain, who directed their attacks exclusively against the
landlords, and spared the rich capitalists, to that sustained by
the Artful Dodger in "Oliver Twist."
Mr. B. Shaw (Fabian Society) said he had no desire to give pain
to the burglar--if any of that trade were in the room--or to the
landlord or the capitalist, pure and simple; all he could say was
that all three belonged to the same class, and that the injury each
inflicted on the community was precisely of the same nature.
[NOTE.--The Social Democratic Federation had been founded in 1881;
the Fabian Society, a few weeks before this conference met.]