The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

APPENDIX III

political body can function as an economic factor in present society.

SAND IN MACHINERY

Even the most pious devotee of the existing Parliamentary system will admit that men and women, elected for purely political reasons, on a territorial basis, would never be elected for industrial purposes on an industrial basis.

It is significant that while the Government has done better than well in its political work, it has found nothing but economic sand in its political machinery.

The supreme and imperative task confronting us to-day is to disentangle the economic from the political factors and let each function in its own appropriate sphere.

Unless this be speedily done we shall find ourselves as a nation shrinking and sinking in the Exchange of the world.

FREE AND UNHAMPERED

No great political policy can be pursued except on a sound, economic foundation. The House of Commons must be free and unhampered to do its political work.

Let the House of Industry provide the means by a wise organisation of our economic resources, but always subject to civil policy expressed through the Commons.

This is a sketchy preface to an epic change in our constitution, in which the abolition of the House of Lords would be but a trivial incident.

The Parliament or Government that has the courage and wisdom so to change our present Constitution that the political and economic functions shall be separated, yet not rendered independent of each other, will live longer in history than Cromwell’s Commonwealth.