pions deal with the work of those who have gone before them in the effort to improve the lot of the wage-earner. Does it promise well for harmony and team-work on the part of the Guilds, if they should be established?
Like Mr. Cole, the writers attach great importance to the distinction between wages and pay. It is really very difficult for the uninstructed outsider to understand this fine metaphysical distinction. It would seem at first sight that as long as a man receives money, to be exchanged into goods and services, for work which he renders to the community, no very far-reaching revolution can be achieved by calling it pay instead of wages. However, there evidently is some really essential distinction since the high-priests of the National Guilds lay so much stress upon the matter. Let us quote these writers again (page 80):—
"The bulwark which protects surplus value from the wage-earner, which secures it to the entrepreneur, is the wage system. That is why it must be abolished. Now let us suppose that the work of the London docks were done, not by more or less casual wage slaves, but by a properly organized and regimented labour army, penetrated by a military spirit attuned to industry."
