Partly, perhaps, owing to this discredit into which the doctrines of State Socialism have lately fallen, increasing attention has been given to a body of theory that was already active before the war and advocates a system of what it calls Guild Socialism, under which industry is to be worked by National Guilds, embracing all the workers, both by brain and by hand, in the various kinds of production. Its advocates are, as far as I have been able to study their pronouncements, decidedly hostile to State Socialism and needlessly rode to some of its most prominent preachers, such as Mr and Mrs Webb, who at least merit the respect due to those who have given lives of work to supporting a cause which they believe to be sound and in the best interests of mankind. But in spite of their chronic and sometimes ill-mannered facetiousness at the expense of State Socialism and its advocates, the Guild Socialists, as we shall see, have to rely on State control for very important wheels in their machinery and leave gaps in it which, as far as disinterested observers can see, can only be filled by still further help from the discredited State. It is no disparagement of the efforts of these writers and thinkers to say that their sketch of the system that they hope to see built up is somewhat hazy. That is inevitable. They are groping towards a new social and economic order which, in their hope and belief, would be an improvement. To expect them to work it out in every detail would be to ask them to commit an absurdity. The thing would have to grow as it developed, and we can only ask them to show us a main outline. This has been done in many publications, among which I have studied, with as much care as these distracting times allow, "Self-Government in Industry," by G.D.H. Cole, "National Guilds," by A.R. Orage (so described on the back of the book, but the title-page says that it is by S.G. Hobson, edited by A.R. Orage), and "The Meaning of National Guilds," by C.E. Bechhofer and M.B. Reckitt.