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Art. 6.-THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LEGISLATION.

IF international labour legislation possesses a social philosophy, that philosophy is to be found in the constitution and the activities of the International Labour Organisation, to which was entrusted by Part XIII of the Peace Treaty the chief responsibility for the encouragement of labour legislation on an international basis. Those who framed the Treaty may not have been explicitly conscious of any underlying philosophy in the instrument they drafted. Part XIII of the Treaty, like most parts of most treaties, was historically the resultant of forces sometimes co-operating, sometimes conflicting. In the Treaty as a whole, questions of principle were struggled over and compromised upon, while matters of less importance formed the subject of barter and crossbarter. To some extent, at any rate, the atmosphere in which Part XIII was hammered out was an idealistic one, where principles counted for more and expediency for less than is usual in diplomatic encounters. Even here, however, concessions had to be granted, allowances had to be made, exceptions had to be provided for. If in the minds of any of the delegates a social philosophy of international labour legislation existed, these concessions and derogations may well have seemed to affect its logical basis with a suggestion of inner disintegration.

A social philosophy, though it may choose an individual as its means of expression, is always the product of a social experience. And, historically, the international social philosophy to which we are trying to give explicit formulation is the product of the international social experience in which the world was living in the closing months of 1918 and the opening ones of 1919. The period of the peace negotiations was one in which the desire for social justice found unanimous acceptance. Labour legislation and labour regulation had assumed a very special importance during the war. In the prosecution of the war, governments had entered into engagements with the workers to remove the 'injustice, hardship, and privation,' from which in many occupations and in many countries the wage-earners

suffered. The workers themselves had realised, as never before, the essential rôle which they played in the national economy, not only in war, but also in peace, and they were determined that the importance and dignity of the functions of labour should receive practical international recognition. And over all and through all, in the hearts of all men of good will, stirred a generous and genuine desire for social peace. In this atmosphere of peace and good will, while the attitudes of all nations were not necessarily identical, nor even, within each nation, the interests of the Government, the employers, and the workers, there was a sufficient community of purpose, a sufficient harmony of spirit to make possible the adoption in Part XIII of the Peace Treaty of an instrument that was intended to be not a dead formula, but a living body with a life-giving soul.

It was in an era of action that Part XIII was drafted, with a practical purpose and as part of a Treaty that it was hoped would work. If any philosophy existed in it, it was nobody's business to make it clear. Action always precedes reflexion, for reflexion or philosophy, as we understand it, always involves the backward look, the attempt to analyse and understand the experience and action of the past. It may perhaps be objected that the past in this case is too recent for fruitful philosophic reflexion. 'You are too much immersed,' it may be said, 'in the new international life created by the Treaty, to permit you to attain to the completely dispassionate standpoint of the philosopher, the spectator of all time and all eternity.' In this objection there is, no doubt, a modicum of truth, but let us not exaggerate it. In some cases, indeed, the philosopher who seeks to interpret a movement may do his work better when he regards it like some lifeless specimen under the microscope, or, like the Greek city state, through the telescope of time. In other cases, however, interpretation may be facilitated, not impeded, when those who interpret, though standing at some distance from the focus, are still sufficiently within the circumference of the influences of the movement to be inspired by its spirit. To philosophise is to love wisdom, and it is hard to love the social wisdom which is social philosophy without having a part also in the social experience from which it comes. Without

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further apologia, therefore, we proceed to ask, What is the Social Philosophy of Part XIII of the Treaty ?

The main principle to be clearly discerned is the principle of synthesis. The importance of the principle of synthesis in Part XIII is immediately evident in the Preamble. 'Whereas the League of Nations has for its object the establishment of universal peace, and such a peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice. . . .' In the very first words of the Preamble the note is struck which is the key to the whole harmony. The two interrelated principles on which the whole edifice is built are universal peace and social justice. Now each of these is pre-eminently a principle of synthesis. 'Universal peace' obviously involves the overcoming of national differences, the supersession of national incompatibilities. 'Social justice,' which, we are told in the Preamble, is the basis of universal peace, is a supreme manifestation of the principle of synthesis. The fundamental idea in social justice is the conception of a synthesis of opposing claims. Justice does not involve simply the absence of conflicting points of view. This would be a negative conception. It is something positive, and implies the ultimate conciliation of differences, the unification of fragmentary aspects of the truth.

This conception is further exemplified in the second paragraph of the Preamble. We are there told that 'conditions of labour exist involving such injustice, hardship, and privation . . . that the peace and harmony of the world are imperilled.' To the idea of peace this paragraph, therefore, adds the conception of harmony. Social harmony is regarded as desirable: it is endangered by the conflicts, explicit or latent, involved in existing conditions of labour. Where hardship and privation exist, there is a fruitful cause of the conflicts of war. Few lessons of history are clearer than that the causes of war are often, if not usually, in part at least economic. When Napoleon urged his ragged regiments to the conquest of Lombardy plains he was appealing to one of 1 man's fundamental instincts. It is not only in the modern world that the economic causes of war are prominent. Modern war is not essentially different from the brigandage of the Homeric chieftains and the state

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piracy of King Polycrates. War as Aristotle described it is a means of acquisition' and 'a species of hunting.' Individuals who have been bargaining against foreigners in the market-place adjourn as soldiers to the battlefield to continue the debate. Whether this takes place in the simple conditions of a Greek city state or in the infinitely more complex field of modern international economy, the predisposing cause is often that 'hardship and privation' of which Part XIII speaks.

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In the philosophy of Part XIII it is therefore considered necessary to remove, so far as is possible, this hardship and privation. They must not only be removed, but conditions must be positively improved so as to produce a world of which we can say that it is a harmony. And what is a 'harmony'? It is, of course, a metaphor from music. The harmony of the world' regarded as desirable in the Preamble involves the fundamental conception of a positive synthesis. This conception of synthesis is further defined in Article 427 of the Treaty. It is there stated that the High Contracting Parties, recognising that the well-being, physical, moral, and intellectual, of industrial wage-earners is of supreme international importance, have framed, in order to further this great end' the International Labour Organisation. The 'great end' of the Organisation is, therefore, defined as 'well-being, physical, moral, and intellectual.' And this again is a synthesis. In itself the term 'well-being' is perhaps vague. It is, however, sufficiently inclusive, sufficiently synthetic. As defined by the three words which qualify it in the Peace Treaty, it becomes the harmonious unification of the various aspects under which the life of man may be regarded. Finally, the conception of synthesis receives further illustration in Article 23 of the Covenant of the League, inspired by the same guiding principles as Part XIII. It is there stated that the Members of the League 'will endeavour to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour for men, women, and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend, and for the purpose will establish and maintain the necessary international organisations.' While this declaration does not add any new conception to those which we have already

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examined, it emphasises once again that the fundamental basis of the movement of ideas from which the League and the International Labour Office emerged, was the desire to secure not merely an improvement in certain aspects of life, but the comprehensive establishment of a system of fair and humane conditions in every department of life. A new social synthesis was in view.

And how was this social synthesis to be established? It is possible to discern in the text of Part XIII as it stands, the traces of two points of view, two tendencies, if not diametrically opposed, at all events not completely consistent. The Biblical scholar has discovered that the text of the Book of Genesis as we now know it is a compilation, not always consistent, of two or more different traditions, each having an outlook and orientation of its own. So, in Part XIII there is a certain difference of attitude between Section I and Section II. In Section I the constitution of the International Labour Organisation is laid down, in Section II nine General Principles are enunciated. Between these two Sections there is a certain difference of spirit.

This difference of spirit, representing a diversity in underlying philosophy, is the result of the divergence in point of view which manifested itself in the Commission on International Labour Legislation. On that Commission, appointed by the Peace Conference to draft the Labour Section of the Treaty, two clearly differentiated points of view were represented. In the first place, there was the point of view of the British Delegation, which submitted the first draft of the Constitution of the Organisation. In the opinion of the British Delegation, as explained by Mr Barnes, the important thing was to establish a permanent organisation, not fettered by a system of definitely formulated principles, which would be able to work progressively for the betterment of industrial conditions in accordance with the changing circumstances of the time. According to this view, it was unpractical to expect that the Peace Conference should adopt and incorporate in a solemn instrument, to be valid for all time, principles to regulate conditions as rapidly changing as those in industry. It would be much more wise and much more desirable from the standpoint of all who have the welfare of the worker at

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