tives are hate, distrust and fear. The
modern policy of centralization and segregation has resulted in dealing
with men as groups and not as individuals. When, for example, iron-bound
cults (they are no less than this) meet as "capital" and as "labour,"
both merge the individuality of their members in a thing which has no
real or necessary existence but is an artificial creation of thought
operating under the dominion of ephemeral, almost accidental conditions.
As a member of an "interest" or a cult, where humanity and personality
are, so to speak, "in commission," a man does not hesitate to do those
things he would never think of doing for himself, knowing them to be
selfish, cruel, unjust and uncharitable. A case in point--if we need
one, which is hardly probable since they are of daily occurrence--is the
pending contest between the mine operators and mine workers in Great
Britain, where both parties, with Government thrown in, are guilty of
maintaining theories and perpetrating acts for which an individual would
be, even now, excoriated and outlawed. The Irish imbroglio is another
instance of the same kind.

In a personal letter from a consulting engineer who has had unusual
opportunities, by reason of his official position, to come closely in
contact with the conditions governing industry and finance both in
America and Europe since the war, I find this illuminating statement of
a matured judgment. "As a practical matter, and facing the issue, I
would preach the practice of de-centralization in government and
business which will in time develop the individual and accomplish the
desired end. * * * Decentralization should be carried to such an extent
that the units of business would be of such size that the head could
again have a personal relation with each individual associated with him.
* * * With the personal relation again established, unionism as at
present practiced would again be unnecessary, and the unions would
become once more guilds for the development and advancement of the
individual." It is this nullification of the human element, of the
person as such, the introduction of the gross aggregate with its
artificial corporate quality, and the attempt to establish a
correspondence between these unnatural things, the whole being
intensified by the emotions of fear, distrust and hate, which produces
the contemporary insistence on "rights" and the rank injustice, cruelty
and disorder that follow the blind conte