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which a group of managers or technicians have to consider. They have
also to weigh its effect on their professional status. Will they have
as much freedom, initiative and authority in the service of the
community as under private ownership? How that question is answered
depends upon the form given to the administrative system through which
a public service is {168} conducted. It is possible to conceive an
arrangement under which the life of a mine-manager would be made a
burden to him by perpetual recalcitrance on the part of the men at the
pit for which he is responsible. It is possible to conceive one under
which he would be hampered to the point of paralysis by irritating
interference from a bureaucracy at headquarters. In the past some
managers of "co-operative workshops" suffered, it would seem, from the
former: many officers of Employment Exchanges are the victims, unless
common rumor is misleading, of the latter. It is quite legitimate,
indeed it is indispensable, that these dangers should be emphasized.
The problem of reorganizing industry is, as has been said above, a
problem of constitution making. It is likely to be handled
successfully only if the defects to which different types of
constitutional machinery are likely to be liable are pointed out in
advance. Once, however, these dangers are realized, to devise
precautions against them appears to be a comparatively simple matter.
If Mr. Justice Sankey's proposals be taken as a concrete example of the
position which would be occupied by the managers in a nationalized
industry, it will be seen that they do not involve either of the two
dangers which are pointed out above. The manager will, it is true,
work with a Local Mining Council or pit committee, which is to "meet
fortnightly, or oftener if need be, to advise the manager on all
questions concerning the direction and safety of the mine," and "if the
manager refuses to take the advice of the Local Mining Council on any
question concerning the safety and health of the mine, such question
shall be referred to {169} the District Mining Council." It is true
also that, once such a Local Mining Council is formally established,
the manager will find it necessary to win its confidence, to lead by
persuasion, not by mere driving, to establish, in short, the same
relationships of comradeship and good will as ought to exist between
the colleagues in any common undertaking. But in all this there is
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