The Connecticut labor press., 1919-12-13

sumers-the co-operators.
 Increased production is possible only under two conditions:
 First, 1t must be organized in such a way that the natural resources, the capacities of the people, the mechanical equipment of industry and the instru- mentalities of exchange shall be ex- plotted to the full, and that everybody shall participate in the labor which pro- duces the objects necessary to the life of the individual and of society.
 Second, it is necessary that the pro- ducers-whose interests have been hitherto denied or not fully recognized should have the certainty that their labor is for the benefit of all society and not for the benefit of private in- terests."
 INDUSTRIALIZED ACCUMULATION.
 The C. c. T. does not wish to be understod as advocating mere govern ment ownership-which might be gov ernment ownership on the Prussian or Japanese model:
 Tn adopting the principle of indus trialized naturalization the Economic Council of Labor does not by any means intend to perpetuate or to strengthen the present tendency towards govern mentalism-which has done nothing to justify the hopes that have been placed upon it. .-s:
 "The naturalization which the labor movement demands consists in putting into the hands of the combined pro- ducers and consumers the means of production and exchange of which they have been dispossessed to the profit of a few.",
 What are the prospects that the plan of French labor will receive fair hear ing and perhaps fair trial?
 These prospects are excellent because of the fact that France is in a more difficult economic position than any other country of Western Europe-and also because of the fact that the gov ernment has offered no plan whatever for dealing effectively with the situa- ton.
 The C. c. T. believes that France is headed towards bankruptcy and that the government has devised on method to save the country.
 "A year after the end of hostilities there has been no improvement in the economic situation of the country. The continued rise in the cost of living Is in itself sufficient barometer of the dis order throughout the industry of any country No measure has been proposed which might even be conceived as promising to put an end to this dis order and to face the terrible financial burdens of France; the only plan de- vised by the government IS the endless issue of banlnotes. No general plan for industrial reconstruction has been devised and there has been no serious effort to put an end to speculation and to tax the scandalous prohteering that foc tries" ss ~
 French labor is aware that its pro ject though constructive and demo cratic, Is also revolutionary:
 The organizations of producers and consumers which compose the new council, have weighed the immensity of the task to be accomplished, conscious as they are of the existence of a new society in the process of being born the establishment of which no obstacle can prevent. The new order must arise out of the disorder of the regime that is passing away; capitalism has now fulfilled it's mission, the work now to be accomplished passes its powers. "To disarm the state while making 1t evolve towards the time when it will no longer be anything more than the rep resentative of the collective organiza- I1OIlS or pTOQuCIlOll dIlu uISI 1DutlOlis " take away from it the forces of coercion which 1t now possesses, to take away from the hands of capital the direction of industry, and to give to labor the rights to which it aspires and the re- responsibilities which it is capable of assuming, such is the work to be ac- comp1ished." a.
 Here we come again to the revolution ary phrases with which every great democratic and constructive reform IS proposed in France But these phrases need not detain us. The real question is whether the proposed change is i'll the direction of Bolshevism or in the direction of industrial democracy
 The ultimate aim of the C. c. T. plan for social reconstruction may be revolu- tionary. The method proposed is evolu- tionary. The government is not to be overthrown; on the contrary, it is to be made to evolve towards that time when" it will meet the requirements of industrial democracy.
 The new project of the C. c. T. is to be compared not with the destructive plans of the Soviets but with the con- structive plans of British labor unions.