Some wage complexities due to the war urgently need adjustment. Flat additions as war bonuses on piece-work or tonnage-rates are unsettling anomalies; they should be incorporated in new piece—or tonnage—rates. Their existence hinders output. War advances and war bonuses; which, though originally different, are now in practice indistinguishable, should, so far as not withdrawn, be merged into the permanent rate or price—in one-half of industry they have already been merged—difference of treatment only causes unrest. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that high rates of wages do not necessarily mean high earnings—they frequently mean no earnings and no work. Increasing the productive efficiency of labour does increase the ability of industry to pay. Such alone is the one sure road to higher earnings. Other Essentials to Industrial Contentment There should be open to the workers in this country an opportunity of rising, that is, of transfer from the wages side to the salaried side of the staff as is afforded by American employers. Why there should be such reluctance among so many English employers to promote men from the wages side I have never appreciated. During the war I had a large number of workmen under me at the Admiralty, who, after the war, were appointed to responsible positions on the administrative side of industry in the establishments of some broad-minded employers, and have abundantly justified their selection. CHAPTER XXVII THE RIGHT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED 2. CO-OPERATION IN INDUSTRY The Workers’ Own Resort to Co-operation—The Marxian Argument against Co-operation—Some Workshop Applications—The Marxian Fallacy of the Origin of Capital—The Marxian Fallacy of Value—The Need of Sympathy in Workshop Life—The Need of Strict Justice—The Money Value of Sympathy in Industry—The Sympathetic Handling of Labour a Special Art—An Illustration of its Successful Application. The establishment of co-operation in industry between employers and employed is a matter almost entirely of the mind and spirit; it depends upon the elimination of the mutual suspicion that at present exists; it involves the creation of confidence; it entails the dissipation of certain economic fallacies that obsess the workers and also unprogressive employers. The Workers’ Own Resort to Co-operation