plied with material out of "surplus value." And, if there is to be any progress, risks will have to be taken with experiments, and some one will have to pay for failures. Capital, as always, will have to be paid its wage—or receive its pay.
Such is the tissue of inconsistencies and difficulties that is involved by the system of National Guilds as so far expounded. The evident sincerity and earnestness of its advocates cannot blind us to the fact that their scheme has not yet been thought out in a workable shape, and that, as they themselves acknowledge, it might lead to a lowering of the workers' standard of comfort, while it is hard to see that they would gain any real increase of freedom. That it might also result in serious disputes and disagreements, both within and between the Guilds, is admitted by its advocates; and the temper in which they flout the work and efforts of the older Socialists and others who are trying to improve the lot of the wage-earners by other methods makes one doubt whether they have it in them to put forward a great and sound reform. Such work is not often done in such a spirit.
