However  imperfect  the  Socialist  view  of  the  limita-
tions of  State  authority  as  revealed  by  the  war  may
have  been,  this  at  any  rate  we  can  say,  British
Socialism  never  imagined  that  the  political  State,  work-
ing from  a  bureaucratic  centre  by  political  agents,  could
control  the  factories  and  workshops.  It  is  therefore
not  precluded  by  past  declarations  from  considering
proposals  of  workshop  control  on  the  Guild  plan.
Our  conception  of  the  Socialist  State  must  provide
for  a  great  measure  of  industrial  control  in  the  indus-
trial organisation  of  society.  The  central  authority  of
the  State  must  be  used  for  the  co-ordination  of  produc-
tion and  distribution,  of  supply  and  demand.  It  must
issue  general  laws  providing  for  national  standards  of
pay  and  conditions ;  it  must  be  the  final  arbiter  on  all
otherwise  unsettled  questions  of  demarcation  and  of
disputes  between  industrial  organisations ;  it  must  be
the  unifying  influence  dealing  with  sectional  aspects  of
problems  and  with  relationships  and  interests  wider
than  those  which  these  industrial  combinations  can  be
expected  to  consider;  it  must  organise  and  be  respon-


SOCIALISM,  THE   STATE,  AND  PARTY     21

sible  for  the  great  national  services,  though  always
working  in  co-operation  with  the  Guilds  of  labour  con-
cerned— in  a  sentence  it  should  deal  with  the  general
obligations  of  citizens  to  each  other.
