rkmen--holidays, change, and rest, and the meeting of men of their own
class whose very company is an intellectual joy, so that the worst off
your employer of labour as a human being may be he is far better off
than the average workman. Think of the housing conditions of so many
thousands, hundreds of thousands, of workmen, and how intolerable it
would be for you to live under those conditions, how discontented you
would be, how discontented the rich would be were it their fate to drag
on an existence in some of those places which are commonly described by
the term "houses." Why, the very waiting room of the employer's ordinary
office is a much more cosy and pleasant place than the homes of many of
the most industrious workers of England. I plead that the elements of
the human order should begin to pervade the relations of the workshop,
that the workman should be less of a drudge and more of a human asset
than he has been, that he should be brought into partnership in the
undertaking and in the management; that incidentally he should have a
more secure remuneration and not have to bear the penalties and ordeals
of employment as he has had alone to bear them during times of trade
depression and unemployment in previous years. The human side of the
workshop has, therefore, to be built up, and you cannot hope to build it
up upon any foundation of drudgery such as the workmen in the main have
had to live under, and, as I have said, it will pay the country to
conciliate the men on these terms. It is a high ideal, but it is
attainable. I believe it is attainable because we have seen it in
another sphere of sacrifice where it has already been secured. The war
has brought all classes together. In the trenches, at sea, and in all
theatres of danger, men of all classes are now labouring shoulder to
shoulder. There you have had a sinking of individual interests. There
you have had a common sacrifice, a common endeavour for a common cause.
Surely, as all classes have been able to unite in their sacrifice and in
their resistance of the aggression of a foreign foe, it is, I hope, not
asking too much that when they come back and take their places in
peaceful pursuits again, and become masters, workmen, managers, and
foremen in our enterprises and businesses, when they return from danger
and come back to take their places amongst us,--surely it is not too
much to hope that those who are able to unite abroad will be able to
unite for the