So here we have the majority of a body of practical men, who care nothing for socialist theories, proposing to establish "organized Public Service in the Building Industry," recommending, in short, that their industry shall be turned into a profession. And they do it, it {109} will be observed, by just that functional organization, just that conversion of full proprietary rights into a mortgage secured (as far as efficient firms are concerned) on the industry as a whole, just that transference of the control of production from the owner of capital to those whose business is production, which we saw is necessary if industry is to be organized for the performance of service, not for the pecuniary advantage of those who hold proprietary rights. Their Report is of the first importance as offering a policy for attenuating private property in capital in the important group of industries in which private ownership, in one form or another, is likely for some considerable time to continue, and a valuable service would be rendered by any one who would work out in detail the application of its principle to other trades. Not, of course, that this is the only way, or in highly capitalized industries the most feasible way, in which the change can be brought about. Had the movement against the control of production by property taken place before the rise of limited companies, in which ownership is separated from management, the transition to the organization of industry as a profession might also have taken place, as the employers and workmen in the building trade propose that it should, by limiting the rights of private ownership without abolishing it. But that is not what has actually happened, and therefore the proposals of the building trade are not of universal application. It is possible to retain private ownership in building and in industries like building, {110} while changing its character, precisely because in building the employer is normally not merely an owner, but something else as well. He is a manager; that is, he is a workman. And because he is a workman, whose interests, and still more whose professional spirit as a workman may often outweigh his interests and merely financial spirit as an owner, he can form part of the productive organization of the industry, after his rights as an owner have been trimmed and limited.