the
factories, but they will cease to be their masters and exploiters. But
in that case the capitalists will recognise that they only carry the
burdens and risks of the undertakings without receiving any advantage,
and will be the first to give up capitalist production and insist on
being bought out."[380] "The right to work is a charter of industrial
freedom, the emancipation of labour from capitalist tyranny. Till it
is obtained there can be neither social nor moral progress. When it is
obtained all other things become possible."[381]

The British Labour Party has drafted a Bill which, asserting the right
to work, makes provision of work for the unemployed compulsory and
enables the local authorities compulsorily to acquire land with a view
of setting the unemployed to work.[382] The Annual Conference of the
Independent Labour Party of 1907, going a step further, demanded the
erection of a national department for creating work and giving a
living wage to the unemployed. It resolved:

"This Conference welcomes the news that a Bill to secure the right to
work is to be introduced into Parliament by the Labour party,
expresses the hope that every effort will be made to secure its
passing into law, and declares in favour of the establishment of a
properly equipped and financed national department for dealing with
the whole problem of unemployment on the basis of putting useful work
at a living wage within the reach of every worker, and of training
such as require to be taught in husbandry, and other forms of work
upon the land."[383]

There is a great danger in these proposals.[384] Creating work for the
unemployed may not cure, but may aggravate, the disease which springs
not from private property in land and capital, but from an
insufficient outlet for British manufactures. If the disease is
wrongly treated, the unemployed may become an incubus which will
cripple both workers and capitalists.

A champion of the policy of _laisser faire_ argues: "The State cannot
make work, if by work is meant the doing of something that somebody
wants done. It is of course true that the State can take on new
functions, and do more of the work that is now left to private
enterprise. But that would not make additional employment; it would
only transfer employment from one set of men to another. When the
State or the municipality, instead of seeking to do the thing that is
wanted in the most economical and most efficient manner, delib