The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

THE ADVENT OF INDUSTRIAL CONTROL 17

assigned to the House of Industry is altogether alien to the House of Commons and beyond its scope. It is a task involving daily and perhaps hourly changes of method, monthly and perhaps weekly changes of policy. Its policy and methods must change in quick response to the world’s changing economy; it would have no time to wait for the deliberate and cumbrous stages of Parliamentary legislation. Government by an Inner Cabinet, however wide its powers, would be impotent; Parliamentary Committees, even if you multiplied them by ten and increased their powers by another ten, would be equally ineffective. The work, in fact, is, by an incalculable distance, beyond the compass of the House of Commons. For it is the function of the politician to think in terms of the universal ; the industrialist must work im concreto: must be ready with the accomplished fact, or with an alternative to an accomplished fact. Repetition is the soul of propaganda; therefore I repeat that the House of Industry must do its work in the spirit of good citizenship and under the ultimate authority of the citizen House of Commons. With the advent of the House of Industry the spirit of aggrandisement wilts and dies.