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Conciliation and Arbitration in Labour Disputes
Conciliation and Arbitration in Labour Disputes Author:James Stephen Jeans Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE PROBLEM OF TO-DAY. It is hardly likely to be disputed, by any one who has given consideration to the subject, that the great problem of the p... more »resent day, as we have argued in the previous chapter, is that of harmonising the relations of capital and labour. This problem has been before the world for centuries, and each succeeding century has but served to increase its urgency. The nineteenth century has brought the problem more prominently to the front than any other, simply because the modern constitution of industry and of society has forced it more directly upon public attention. Underlying this great fundamental problem of the distribution of the results of the products of industry, and the social amelioration of the masses, there are many minor problems that now and again find articulate expression in movements and demands on the part of great masses of the working population of our own and other countries. The movements known and distinguished as Socialism, Nihilism, Collectivism, and many others, are all the outcome of dissatisfaction with the industrial organisation of society, and especially with the general conditions and rewards of labour. The more beneficent and admirable movements distinguished as Profit-sharing, Co-operation, Industrial Partnership, and others, are the expression and the symbols of efforts on the part of the ranks of labour to emancipate themselves in some degree from the thraldom of labour, so as to enjoy the fruits of industry on a larger scale, if not in a different form. Unhappily, however, these fruits have been growing moreand more rare, and consequently more and more difficult to realise. The modern manufacturing system has introduced a revolution in all the essential conditions of industry. The small producers...« less