Socialists, Liberals, and a large section of
Conservatives advocate Wages Boards for providing a statutory minimum
wage for farm labourers, State aid for building of cottages and a
resolute speeding up in the provision of land for small holdings. The
Fabian presentment of the case did not substantially differ from that of
the Land Report published a few months later under Liberal auspices, and
our Report, though useful, cannot be said to have been epoch-making.
Meanwhile the Enquiry into the Control of Industry was developing on
wider lines. The Research Department set up its own office and staff,
and began to collect information about all the methods of control of
industry at present existing as alternatives to the normal capitalist
system. Co-operation in all its forms, the resistances of Trade
Unionism, the effects of professional organisations, such as those of
the Teachers and of the Engineers, and all varieties of State and
Municipal enterprise were investigated in turn; several reports have
been published as "New Statesman" Supplements, and a volume or series of
volumes will in due time appear.
The problem of the Control of Industry had become important because of
the rise of a new school of thought amongst Socialists, especially in
France, where the rapid growth of Trade Unionism since 1884, combined
with profound distrust of the group system of party politics, had led to
a revival of old-fashioned anarchism in a new form.
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