There can be little doubt that the principle of public ownership with democratic control has received a great impulse from the able advocacy of what has come to be known as Guild-Socialism. The work _guild_ in this connection is something more than a reminiscence of the mediæval institution; the present movement has quite definite affinities with its historical precursor, notably in the principle of combining all the members of a craft in co-operation. But the “national” guild goes beyond its forbear in two respects—in the fact of being national where the older institution was local, and in the account it necessarily takes of the more complex and specialised character of modern industry. “A national guild,” says Mr. S. G. Hobson, “is a combination of all the labour of every kind, administrative, executive, productive, in any particular industry. It includes those who work with their brains and those who contribute labour power. Administration, skilled and unskilled labour—every one who can work—are all entitled to membership.” This body of people will lease from the community the right and the means to carry on the industry with which it is concerned, always providing that it shall be under conditions which safeguard the interests of all the people in respect of the products of the industry. In the eyes of the guildsman, the “original sin” of the existing industrial system is production for profit. In his _Guild Principles in Peace and War_, Mr. S. G. Hobson puts side by side (_inter alia_) the following figures, (the particular year to which they belong is not given): Iron and Steel Railway Industries. Construction. Net output £30,948,100 £17,103,100 Persons employed 262,225 241,520 Net output per person £118 £71 Average wage per person £67 £67 Here are revealed two facts of great interest. The first is that in railway construction, which is chiefly for _need and use_, the disparity between the average output and the average wage per person is only four pounds, whereas the iron and steel industries, where production is for profit, the disparity is as high as fifty-one pounds. Railway construction represents output in locomotives, rolling-stock and so forth which the railway companies make for their own use; whereas the products of the iron and steel industries are destined for the market. Where product is for profit, the excess of average output over the average wage is more than twelve times as great as where the production is for use. This is connected with the fact that the iron and steel industries are chiefly concerned with the provision of dividends, whereas in railway construction there is no such _direct_ necessity.