Industry as a whole does not appreciate the close relationship between itself and the community, nor its responsibilities to the community. In reality industry has to rely on the community for innumerable services, and for many facilities vital to its existence, and to its prosperity, and for a market for its product. Yet almost invariably strikes and lock-outs are called, regardless of the effect upon the consuming public. In fact, Labour claims the right to use its economic power in furtherance of its own interests, irrespective of the damage to the community. If, under compelling necessity, the community attempts to carry on the services for itself, or provide the commodities of which by organized strikes it is deprived, it is charged with anti-social conduct, and condemned for declaring a class-war against Labour, those who assist being stigmatized as strike-breakers and black-legs. Labour has gone even further in recent years. In a number of cases it has deliberately adopted the policy of depriving the community of essential services through strikes, in order to produce such social hardship as will drive the community to constrain employers to accept Labour’s industrial demands. There have also been recent instances of agreements between employers and Trade Unions—as in the building industry—by which wages have been forced up to unreasonably high rates simply because those industries were necessary to the community and, with the knowledge that whatever the resulting cost of the product might be, the community would have to pay. At the same time, the community is largely dependent upon industry, and if the whole of an industry, or each section of it, fulfils its obligations to the community, the community must perform certain duties in return. I speak more fully of these later. Industry and the Nation Industry will never progress to vigorous and healthy development unless our conception of the relationship between industry and the nation is radically revised. That conception to-day is mean, stunted, and utterly devoid of any power of inspiration. Industry I have defined, in the language of economics, as the production of commodities and services for the purpose of satisfying the wants and desires of men. On this commonplace process, which sounds so dull in definition, and on none other, the future well-being of our country and the practicability of further social improvements and reforms depend. Production ought, therefore, to be regarded as the principal means of advancing the happiness, social welfare and material prosperity of the nation, and industry, the chief instrument in that beneficent work, as the highest and the noblest form of national service. CHAPTER XXII THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP OF GOVERNMENT TO INDUSTRY