"recognition and payment as a human being, and not merely as the mortal tenement of so much labour power for which an efficient demand exists." Once more we have to ask, would such a system of payment produce good work? I once heard this question raised before an audience that knows more than anybody else about the answer. It was when I was lecturing at the back of the front in Belgium in March 1918. My subject was National Finance, but in the discussion which followed, this point about wages and pay was introduced by a private who appeared to be a disciple of the Guildsmen. Why, he asked in effect, cannot wage-earners be paid just as soldiers are paid? I answered that it was not quite evident that in ordinary life we should get good work by this system. "Everybody knows," I said, "how you soldiers work when you are fighting, but when you go out to do fatigue work"—and a roar of laughter from the rest of the audience made the roof of the big hut ring, and left no more for me to say.
As it happened I had been reading Mr. Orage at home not long before, and had pointed out his remarks about the spirit of the Army to an officer just back from the front; he observed that anybody who had seen soldiers
