If it is right to assume that the ordinary worker’s dominant desire is to obtain reasonable satisfaction of these three aspirations, and of the soundness of that assumption I entertain no doubt, for at my three thousand odd conferences and meetings with Labour during the war—at all of which accurate notes were taken of the subjects of discussion—these were the three foremost topics, two questions arise: Are these three aspirations proper ones to be satisfied? If so, how can they best be satisfied with due regard to the interests of the community? Can and Ought they to be Satisfied? There is in regard to unemployment but little difficulty in coming to a sound conclusion. Unemployment, and to a less extent under-employment, is on every ground—humanitarian, social, economic—a curse so great that no reasonable effort should be spared to reduce to a minimum the probability of its occurrence, and to mitigate as far as possible its dire effects when once it has supervened. Many will differ as to how far it is right to go in the provision of measures of alleviation, but that is a difference more in degree than in principle. In regard to the investiture of every worker in industry with “human status” there is a more radical cleavage in opinion. While few employers will contest the right of the workmen through their constitutional representatives to voice their demands for settling wages and conditions of employment, and such demands—backed up by the power to apply economic pressure—are effectively voiced by the Trade Unions, most employers will deny the right of the workers “to interfere in the management.” It would be quite impossible to have two sets of persons attempting to manage a factory, or to direct the conduct of the business on the commercial side. But between the fixing of wages and conditions of employment, in which it is admitted that Labour should have a real voice, and the actual executive direction of a business in which it is clear that Labour could not exercise a voice, if efficiency is to be preserved and discipline remain unimpaired, there is a wide sphere of matters which are proper to be discussed between employers and representatives of the workers, and which, when discussed and settled, can be left for executive action to the employers. There is ample room for compromise. The confusion surrounding the catchwords of “a voice in conditions,” “interference in the management,” wants to be cleared away before any more harm is done.