The New Germany Part 8

The Councils movement in Germany, at first, followed much the same course at much the same pace as it did in Russia. In Germany, as in Russia, the Councils, after reaching at a bound the sole power during the days of revolution, relapsed under a re-a.s.sertion of Parliamentary and Party government; then recovered, and, in the case of Russia, realised the second revolution. The German movement was last spring (1919) in the early stage of recovery. Its development is of special interest to us, in that eventually the German movement will probably take a middle place between the Russian and our own.

Before the revolution the Labour movement in Germany was very much in the same condition as with us. The attempt to combine on a patriotic platform all productive forces, and to concentrate Capital and Labour on winning the war, had only superficially smoothed over the distrust between Employers, a.s.sociations and Labour organisations, or the dissension between heads of unions and the bodies of workers. When the revolution broke out on November 9th it was carried through first by committees of sailors, then of soldiers, and finally of workmen, that sprang up simultaneously and a.s.sumed supreme authority. The advent of this new authority, however, brought about an alliance between the previous authorities thus put on one side, the Employers' a.s.sociations and the Trades Unions.

The employers, who had hitherto been resisting claims for an eight-hour day and a share in control, found themselves threatened with expropriation. Under the leaders.h.i.+p of a Captain of Industry, Hugo Stinnes, they at once opened negotiations with the Unions led by Legien; and by November 15th reached agreement on the eight-hour day and the establishment of Labour a.s.sociations (_Arbeitsgemeinschaften_) equivalent to our Whitley Councils, and Labour Chambers (_Arbeitskammern_), for dealing with wages and welfare, in which employers and employed would have equal representation.

As Dr. Reichert, spokesman for the metal industries, has pointed out to his supporters, these concessions looked more than they were. For the eight-hour day would have to be abandoned unless, as was unlikely, it became general in Europe; and as to the a.s.sociations, it should always be possible to get in and bring over a "Christian"

representative of one of the Labour organisations under the influence of the Catholic Centrum. It is this agreement, none the less, between the Trust and Trade Union bosses that is the basis of the present Coalition Government's Labour policy, and that is embodied in the new Const.i.tution.

But, since the revolution, the real Labour movement of Germany has pa.s.sed to the "Councils" (_Rate_), as we must call them for want of a better word. For "moot" is too archaic and "committee" suggests either a party of bores and busybodies or a _posse_ of Bulgarian brigands; while Soviet, which is only the Russian for Council, would mean branding the movement as "Bolshevist."

Of these Councils then, the three main divisions in Germany are Workmen's Councils (_Arbeiterrate_), or Industrial Councils (_Betriebsrate_), Soldiers' Councils, and Communal Councils. Of these, the first only seem to have a const.i.tutional future in Germany.

The Communal Councils have not yet been fully admitted to the Council system, and seem to have but little vitality.

The Soldiers' Councils, which played the more prominent part in the revolution, and still form part of the organisation, have not succeeded in making headway against the efforts of the Government to demobilise them. Thus a regulation of January 19th reduced them to welfare committees and restricted their right of deposing officers to a mere recommendation. Attempts of the more revolutionary corps to resist authority in December, January and March were put down by the Frei-Corps with excessive and progressive severity; and the large bodies of revolutionary troops that survived the demobilisation, as "Republican Guards," "Public Safety Guards," "People's Naval Division," &c., &c., have been gradually dispersed by the Government's Frei-Corps.[F] So that the Soldiers' Councils as the political organ of the revolutionary fighting forces are losing their importance. Now that the British Admiralty have recognised "welfare committees" in the Navy, it is safe to a.s.sert that the Council movement in Germany so far as concerns the armed forces is no longer in advance of ours.

Returning, therefore, to the Industrial Councils, we find that in the early days of the revolution the movement spontaneously developed an organisation consisting of a national Central Council, elected by a national Congress of Councils, in its turn elected by local Executive Councils. These were all political inst.i.tutions, which for a few days enjoyed entire political power. This power pa.s.sed back to the old political Parties and Parliamentary system, owing to the Council accepting as "Commissaries of the People" Parliamentary politicians, whose sole idea and secret intention it was to reconst.i.tute a Cabinet and reconstruct a Chamber on reformed but not revolutionary lines. The capital error was in trying to realise the revolution by only establis.h.i.+ng revolutionary bodies--the Councils--in supervision of, instead of in subst.i.tution for, politicians and officials of the old _regime_. This was the cause of the relapse into reaction.

The real revolutionaries realised this mistake and Liebknecht, after accepting office, withdrew and joined the Communists and "Spartacists." The Communists were and are, of course, "whole-hoggers"

in the Council movement, whose war cries are, "All power to the Soviets" and "Down with the a.s.sembly." The Independents ranged from men like Ledebour, Daumig and Richard Muller, who saw in the Councils the salvation, not only of the revolution, but of civilisation, to men like Haase, Cohn and Breitscheidt, who believed that Parliamentary democracy and proletarian dictators.h.i.+p could be co-ordinated. The Social-Democrats ranged from members of the Council organisation, who believed that the Councils should have economic functions, and who were last summer coming over to the Independents, down to men like Legien, who would abolish the Councils as a revolt against the Trade Unions, or Noske, who would abolish them as rebels against authority.

The Democrats included intellectuals, who recognised the political utility of the Councils, but consisted mostly of Liberals with no appreciation for them: though many of these latter had been coming over to the idea, as, for instance, the veteran economist, Brentano, or the internationalist, Schucking.

Owing to a tactical blunder of the Independents, the Central Council, as well as the Cabinet of Commissaries, came under the sole control of the Social-Democrats, the Trade Unions, and Moderate Socialists.

Consequently, the Central Council, instead of being the citadel of the Council system, became a salient from which the enemies of the system could undermine its whole position.

The Central Council, pursuing the Government's policy that all power in the hands of revolutionary authorities must be surrendered to the parliamentary inst.i.tutions, in February publicly and formally recommitted its mandate, whatever that might be, to the a.s.sembly. One might have supposed that this solemn suicide of its central authority would have been the end of the Council movement. But exactly the same surrender of the Central Council occurred at a similar stage of the Russian revolution, with the result, not that the movement collapsed, but that control of it pa.s.sed from the Socialists to the Communists.

This seems likely to be the result in Germany. The first consequence of the abdication of the Central Council was that leaders.h.i.+p pa.s.sed to the Executive Council of Berlin, where the Independents and Communists were already in a majority. The Executive Council proceeded to press for a convocation of the Congress of Councils, and thereby a re-election of the Central Council. The latter procrastinated, but gave way on the Executive Council threatening to convene the Congress itself, but even then succeeded in having it postponed more than once.

Now, while the Opposition was moving to the Left in attempts to realise the revolution, the Government was moving to the Right, and rapidly restoring the old Police-State behind a facade of parliamentary inst.i.tutions. The consequence was a growing dissatisfaction with the Government, which, for want of proper expression through the Council organisation, broke out in periodic strikes and street fights. These were exploited by the Government as excuses for repressive and reactionary measures, which all contributed to reinforcing the Council movement. It was the vicious circle that we in England have come perilously near more than once.

The defection of the Central Council also resulted in depriving the whole Council movement of any stability and solidarity, and drove it into local offensives or "_putsches_," which were beaten in detail.

First Bremen and the coast ports, then Dusseldorf and the coal area, next Saxony and the industrial districts, and finally, in the first week of March, Berlin itself, all declared general strikes in which recognition of the Council system was the princ.i.p.al demand. And the Berlin strike, following close on that of Saxony, did frighten the Government into what might have been a considerable concession.

As late as the end of February the Government had declared semi-officially that no member of the Government had the slightest intention of having the Council system incorporated in the Const.i.tution either legislatively or administratively; but two days after the outbreak of the Berlin strike, early in March, the Government announced, not only the socialisation of mines but the sanction of the Council system in the Const.i.tution.

The first Government scheme for organising the Councils was of much the same character as the socialisation that it promised at the same time--an elaborate organisation of Factory Councils, Industrial Councils and Labour Chambers with "economic functions"; which all boiled down to little more than the "Whitley Council" principle previously proposed and rejected by the workmen. Since then the Government has had to concede more, and Art. 165 of the Const.i.tution as signed in August, recognises the Workmen's Councils without representation of the employers, though they have to a.s.sociate themselves with employers' representatives in order to discharge their const.i.tutional functions. Thus a.s.sociated they can intervene in social and economic legislation through a Central Economic Council. But it was clear that neither this nor any other concession likely to be made by the a.s.sembly would satisfy the workmen. A bi-cameral system might have done so, but this the Coalition Government could never have imposed on its Centrum and middle-cla.s.s supporters.

The best chance of arriving at a compromise between Parliamentary and Council government was through the Congress of Councils which at last met in Berlin in May.

This Congress had also another function of the first importance. It afforded the only gauge available as to the velocity and volume of the revolutionary revival. The a.s.sembly at Weimar was in this, as in most respects, useless. The Press was so coloured by cla.s.s and party feeling as to be quite unreliable. While owing to general disorganisation of the country and the disintegrated nature of the revolutionary movement the leaders of it themselves did not know what their forces were. All that was known was that there had been a steady defection from the Majority Socialists supporting the Government and the Parliamentary system to the Independents, in opposition, who advocated a combination of Parliament and Councils; and from the Independents to the Communists, who were for "all power to the Councils."

So steady had this leftward flow been that probably the Congress, if left to itself, would have reflected it by coming together with a majority for the Opposition. It would then have been able to begin at once its function of elaborating a suitable compromise between Parliament and Councils. For it is to be a.s.sumed that the Communists and the right Majoritarians would have been each in a small minority, with an absolute majority for delegates representing the Independent position. That this was, at the time, the prevalent opinion in the movement is suggested by the delegates from German-Austria a.s.sociating themselves with the Independents.

However, partly for the better preservation of party, power, and place, partly from the pressure of constant "officious" admonitions from us that peace would only be made with a parliamentary government, the German Government did their best to falsify the character of the Congress and get as many Majority Socialists into it as possible by hook or crook. The hook used was a new electoral arrangement prepared by the Central Council which most of the great towns rejected. In some, as in Breslau, the delegates first elected were recalled, and real workmen's representatives subst.i.tuted. And when the Government found its lost sheep weren't coming home, like Bo-peep, it took its little crook, determined for to find them; and found them indeed, but with the historical result. For if by hook and by crook you make workmen's delegates of country lawyers or country magistrates you cannot expect them to bring much of a working-cla.s.s tail behind them.

So when the Council came together it was distinctly rather parliamentarian than proletarian in its character. But if the Government's object was to cripple and control the Congress it failed.

Because the first result of their gerrymandering was that the Communists refused to take part, thereby greatly facilitating the subsequent _rapprochement_ between the two Socialist factions, the Majority and the Independents.

The Congress, when it met, was found to consist of 130 Majority Socialists, 64 Independents, 20 soldiers' representatives, and about 80 miscellaneous and absent; and of these quite a large number were not working men at all. But all the same the difference between the atmosphere of Parliamentary and Council government at once appeared when it got to work. For this much gerrymandered and very jerry-built Congress showed itself capable of adapting itself to pressures in a way that the National a.s.sembly could not. It showed itself to be a real deliberative body, capable of coming rapidly to a joint decision radically different from the several views subscribed by its individual members before its meeting. In other words, the Congress had vitality enough to make its const.i.tuents real representatives instead of merely instructed delegates. Its response to the general trend of opinion to the Left and against "Government by the Frei-Corps" was shown by its first vote which, by 199 to 81 called for the release of Ledebour, an Independent "intellectual" imprisoned for alleged complicity in the January disorders. This was followed by a vote of congratulation to Hungary; while a similar congratulation to Bavaria, where a "Council Republic" had just been proclaimed, was very properly postponed as prejudging the whole question of Council government that was before the Congress.

The first days were pa.s.sed in general debate, during which much negotiation between section leaders and a general alignment of forces were going on in the lobbies. A fict.i.tious interest was given to this work of "realising the revolution" by the Congress having met in the Herren-Haus, the old Prussian House of Lords, the shrine of reaction.

It was piquant to see a fervent Majority Socialist and a fiery Independent discussing whether Parliament and universal suffrage were not irretrievably reactionary, under the cold marble nose of a Prussian Princelet who had looked on them as the ultimate Chaos and Dark Night of Revolution. But as will be seen, the _genius loci_, won in the latter end.

The Congress took some days in making up its mind what line to take.

The Majority leaders did not know which way to turn, a.s.sociating themselves when they could with attacks on the Government, and when they could not, apologising. For though the Independents on one side and the small Democratic section on the other were disciplined bodies, the Majoritarian bloc was disorganised. When it came to a vote they obeyed the whip, but many slipped out, and the vote was very different from what was expected.

The Government's advisers in politics and in the Press, finding that so far from bringing over the Independents to the Government the Congress was fast drawing the Majority into opposition, strongly recommended the Government to close the Congress on the ground that it was only wasting time in futile and inflammatory agitation. The Independents countered this by forcing an immediate issue on the main question--the const.i.tutional recognition of the Council system.

The opening of the discussion showed that a majority of the Congress favoured a combination of Parliament and Councils in which the latter should have political as well as economic functions. Whether the Majoritarian leaders in the Congress were genuinely convinced of the necessity of giving the Council system recognition or whether they were forced to compromise in order to retain command of their followers, and through them control their following among the workmen, I do not know. Anyway, after a series of speeches, in which the Majoritarian leaders, Kalinsky and Cohn-Reuss, vied in concessions, a compromise was put forward that represented practically the position held by their opponents the Independents a few weeks before. The compromise between the Parliamentary system and Council system they proposed was probably workable; though arrived at from an unsound position--that of regarding the Central Council as a controlling authority over the National a.s.sembly; whereas it would really be supplying the driving power and the a.s.sembly the brake.

Now, although the Independents, for the same tactical reasons that had driven the Majoritarians to the Left, were now proclaiming the principle of "all power to the Councils" (which had been until then the position of the absent Communists) they were rather embarra.s.sed at finding themselves "Bolshevists," explicitly demanding the dictators.h.i.+p of the proletariat. The spring running of German politics to the Left had been so headlong that the parliamentarian leaders of the Left had had to sprint hard to keep ahead of their followers. But if they had kept one eye anxiously gauging the pace of the avalanche surging at their heels they had kept the other guessing no less anxiously at the position of the abyss of "Bolshevism" ahead.

And small wonder if they were a little bewildered and out of breath.

For as late as December they had been still accepting the a.s.sembly as the sole executant of the revolution, and looking on the Councils as practically extinct and politically eccentric. By January they had been forced to accept the Councils as a fact that had to be fitted in somehow. In February their periodicals were full of schemes for giving economic powers to the Councils, while reserving all political power, national and provincial, to the a.s.semblies. By March they had recognised that they must have political power as well and by April they had reached the compromise of a bi-cameral const.i.tution now adopted by their conservative opponents, the Majoritarians. And now, in order to clear the leftward road for the Majoritarians and keep pace with the Communists, old parliamentary hands, like Haase, Oscar Cohn and Breitscheidt, found themselves condemning their newly born and much beloved parliamentary democracy to be smothered in its cradle for the benefit of a Bolshevist changeling. No wonder they were ready to join forces with their Socialist comrades of the majority in a compromise which found a place for their firstborn the Weimar Parliament and for their familiar world of party politics.

Thus the Socialist parties, still hopelessly divided in that cold storage of faction, the Weimar a.s.sembly, had been re-fused and re-moulded by the volcanic fires of the Congress.

One Sunday afternoon, after the Congress had been a week at work, I heard that the leaders of these two sections had that morning privately agreed to reconst.i.tute the Central Council on a principle of parity, _i.e._, twelve Majoritarians and twelve Independents, with a few Democrats and soldiers.

This private agreement, unreported until after it had been repudiated, was a political event of an importance second only to the revolution itself. It reunited the Socialist party on a platform of realising the revolution through the Council system by const.i.tutional action. The Congress of Councils, for whose dissolution the whole Press were clamouring openly and every secret sinister influence was conspiring, had in six days gone further towards the reconstruction and re-orientation of Germany than Weimar had in six months.

But one obvious result of this new alliance between Majoritarians and Independents in the Council system would have been the jettisoning of Majoritarian Ministers, such as Noske, Landsberg and Scheidemann, compromised by their complicity with reaction and the brutalities of the Frei-Corps. It was therefore not surprising that the full force of party pressure and of administrative authority was brought to bear on the Majoritarian parties to the agreement. Under this pressure, like good citizens and genuine Germans, they buckled up and broke down, repudiating the principle of parity. They offered instead a proportion of fourteen Majoritarians to ten Independents in the Central Council or a representation corresponding to the numerical proportion of parties in the gerrymandered Congress. These offers were refused, the Congress came to an end, and the pusillanimity and place-hunting of parliamentary politicians had ruined the revolution a second time. The first was when the Independents, under pressure from the Left, withdrew from the Coalition with the Majoritarians in December. The second was when the Majoritarians, under pressure from the Right, now in their turn withdrew from the reconst.i.tuted Coalition in May.

The Council was reconst.i.tuted with Majoritarians, and the Independents were thrown back upon the Communists and "direct action." The only course then left to the adherents of the Council movement was to perfect their organisations and wait until parliamentary government was overthrown, either by reaction or revolution. The first essential for such organisation was a general electoral system which would put the Councils on a regular basis and prevent such interference and intrigues as had preceded the previous Congress. The last meeting that I attended of the Plenary a.s.sembly of Berlin Councils, the driving body of the movement, was occupied with discussing the crucial question as to who should be considered a workman and qualified to vote and stand for a Council. It was there tentatively agreed that a workman might have a few a.s.sistants without becoming an employer, and that scientists, experts, and such like connected with an industry, other than managers, directors and such, might count as workmen. On the other hand the a.s.sembly had to adjourn for a time in disorder owing to protests against the presence of a police official as a delegate of the Democrats. It was clearly going to be difficult to express in terms of an electoral law a disability obvious enough in each individual case. The German workmen were ready to admit to equality anyone with any industrial productive status, who was not in the service of declared enemies of the Councils--such as the captains of industry or the Coalition Government. And so important is this suffrage question as a gauge of the liberality of the Council movement in Germany and of its distinction from Bolshevism, that I append as a footnote the regulation of the Berlin Executive Council, published previous to the Convention of the second Congress of Councils.[G]

This work of making the Council system really representative has been much hampered of late by the growing reaction which is still trying to break the neck of the movement by arresting its leaders, and impeding its development in every way. At the same time, schemes are being continually put forward by the less reactionary elements for drawing the teeth of the movement by "diddling" concessions. Among such may be counted the clauses "anchoring" the Councils in the Const.i.tution. The word itself shows how rapidly the German politicians are picking up the devices of parliamentary democracy. Again and again, on the platform and in the Press, the workmen are a.s.sured that all is well with the Councils because they are "anch.o.r.ed" in the Const.i.tution.

What the workmen want is not to see them "anch.o.r.ed" so much as under way; but it is creditable diddling is that catchword, "anch.o.r.ed in the Const.i.tution." And another diddling device is the electoral law advocated by the Majoritarians that the Government are trying to impose on the Councils, which would penetrate the movement with propertied interests and part.i.tion it up into regional areas.

Of late, indeed, the Council movement proper--the revolutionary movement--has been almost driven underground. The Central office of the Berlin Executive Council has been repeatedly raided, its leaders are continually being arrested, and its meetings broken up. At a conference of the Industrial Councils of Germany recently held (August 26th, 1919) at Halle from which all Majoritarians were excluded, the general tone was pessimistic. It was recognised that the German workman was not as a whole revolutionary in sentiment, that the ma.s.s movement to the Left that had marked the first months of reaction had to some extent been checked and that the Government policy of compromising with the Council movement had had some measure of success. No agreement could be reached at this conference, even on such primary questions of policy as to whether the Government proposals should be considered or whether the Trades Unions should be co-operated with. Finally, centres of the revolutionary movement were established at Halle and Leipzig.

From this it would seem that the revolutionary Council movement is just at present pa.s.sing through a phase of depression due to the Government's diplomatic policy.

It will be seen that so far the German Councils are no political system, but only a surge of spontaneous self-government. If they can be really co-ordinated with the new political machinery, and if they can be concentrated on the economic reconstruction of Germany, it may be the salvation, not only of Germany but of Europe. For, though the years of war have accustomed us to looking on Germans as barbarians and better dead than alive, as a matter of fact this unattractive people is still, as it always has been, the st.u.r.diest and steadiest of the workers of the world; and Germany is still the centre of gravity of the European social system. There can be no stability in Europe if the Germans are on strike. The consequences of driving the Russians into extremes are before us now in the worst menace to the existing social order since the peasants' rising of the Middle Ages. It will take much pressure to drive the German revolution into extremes, but if Germany once develops a real Bolshevism of its own, it will not be long before the rest of the Continent follows its example.

It is a national characteristic of us English to fight new ideas and inst.i.tutions in principle abroad, while, in practice, we introduce them at home under different names. This has worked well on the whole.

While reaction is occupied with d.a.m.ning and downing the novelty as an absurdity and atrocity introduced by the brutal and barbarous foreigner, _real-politik_ finds that the same novelty, under some new name, helps production at home. Thus, while we fight the _Soviets_ with military expeditions and poison gas, and the milder _Rate-Republics_ of Germany with military missions and diplomatic notes, we work away at our Guild Socialism and our Shop Stewards'

Committees, extend Whitley Councils to the Civil Service and Welfare Committees to the Navy, and even admit employes to joint control of our railways.

There is an English revolution not only impending, but in progress, and those to whom revolution means barricades and "Bolshevism" will be relieved to hear that the course of events, both in Germany and Russia, suggests that our British revolution is so well advanced that these stimulants of a revolution, that has stiffened and stagnated, will not be required. England, not being wholly, at all events for long, run by London clubs and political cliques, manages to achieve its political revolution by way of economic reconstruction, and it is doing this on the same principles as Germany, though by a different procedure. That is why it was as foolish for the British to try to upset the Council movement of the Berliners as it was for the Berliners to upset it among the Brunswickers and Bavarians.

Moreover, if the Councils can still be killed, the Germans themselves will eventually kill them by diddling concessions or by diplomatic compromises. For such compromises as those already put forward in Germany show a fatal ignorance of, or indifference to, the fundamental facts of this revolutionary movement. I much doubt whether the German revolutionary workmen and their political leaders, whether Independent or Communist, can ever be got to accept the Labour Chamber (_Arbeitskammer_) with its parity of representation between employers and employed; at all events, until the employer is represented by the State. And such "nationalisation "is only valued by the German workman as a preliminary to "socialisation." The workers are attached to the Council idea largely because it attacks the capitalist, and gives the workmen protection against him in a way the Union cannot. If the Councils are to be widened into a democracy including all cla.s.ses, the power of private capital must first be broken or brought in bounds.

So desperate is the economic condition of the country that even the Employers' a.s.sociations of Berlin have declared in favour of a large measure of Council government. But this is an exception. The German ruling cla.s.s, and their middle-cla.s.s supporters, recognise that their cla.s.s supremacy is challenged. They retort by attacking Council government as cla.s.s government and, consequently, as undemocratic. The issue is represented as being between a Parliamentary democracy, as in England, and a Soviet despotism, as in Russia. It seems worth while, therefore, to the German ruling cla.s.s to fight the revolution with its own weapon of violence, rather than face the risks of Council government; and this same view would doubtless be taken in England if the question of principle were raised. In the recent railway strike our Government, by appealing for national support against a leading section of Labour, did, in fact, go far to create a cla.s.s war.

But, as a matter of fact, the demand for a dictators.h.i.+p by the proletariat is not an essential element in the Council movement. Such a demand is not the cause, but the consequence, of cla.s.s conflict.

Essentially and fundamentally the Council movement, so far from being less democratic than our Parliamentary system, is a revolt back to the purest and most primitive democracy from the artificialities and anomalies of modern Parliamentary representation. It is no more undemocratic than the Renaissance was inartistic, the Reformation unchristian, or the French Revolution anarchical. As the German Revolution best shows, the growth of Councils is the result of a revolutionary impulse in a modern community. Such an impulse uses any form of a.s.sociation between men and women for the urgent political purpose of appointing a spokesman and leader. The most widely spread and deeply rooted a.s.sociation nowadays is industrial--in the workshop.

Consequently, we find the Councils taking predominantly an industrial character and origin, as in our native embryo the Shop Stewards'

Committee. But any a.s.sociation will serve; and so, in the German Revolution, besides the Workmen's Councils there were Soldiers'

Councils, Communal Councils, and even Unemployed Councils. If this new system were to develop, so to say, in a vacuum, without opposition, it would theoretically provide a democratic representation for every human relations.h.i.+p. As it is, such representation is reduced, as in Germany, by political pressure, to a.s.sociation that is rooted in the most vital relations.h.i.+p; and we find the Unemployed Councils, Communal Councils, and even Soldiers' Councils being choked off, and only the Workmen's Councils surviving. This is why the practical process in Germany is, as said before, leading to the same conclusions as those come to by the _a priori_ reasoning of our own Guild Socialists when they divide the citizen into consumer and producer, and, in his latter capacity, give him representation through a Council system. I found, in fact, that my most useful function in Germany at one time was putting German Labour leaders in possession of the conclusions of our Guild Socialists.