to assure to the worker recognition and payment as a human being, and not merely as the mortal tenement of so much labour power for which an effective demand exists? Such, combined with the right "to make well or ill," was Mr. Cole's ideal, but Messrs. Hobson-Orage are only going to assure the worker payment, not even as the tenement of labour power, but as an honest and efficient producer of it. But they go on to strike a loftier note and to say that (page 147) "after all maintenance is not the only consideration in life." This is very true, but without a certain amount of it life is impossible. In fact they seem to expect that, under the Guild system, hard times may have to be faced and that nobody will mind. On page 111 we read: "Nobody doubts that the majority of wage-earners would be willing, any one of them at any moment, to exchange their position as wage-earners for the position of economic independence, even if this latter involved a permanent reduction of financial income;" and on page 113: "We may find ourselves, in fact, if we abolish wage slavery, worse off than we are now."
If the wage-earners got real freedom, probably many of them might be willing to be worse off. But it has been shown that
