Politically they were a hundred years ago unenfranchised; more or
less constant political ferment prevailed until the Reform Bill, and
later, extensions of the franchise applied the Liberal solution of
putting it within the power of the people, if they wished it, to take an
effective share in the control of political affairs.
Industrially, their situation to-day is not unlike their political
situation a hundred years ago. Such influence as they have got is
exerted almost entirely outside the constitution of industry, and very
often in opposition to it. Their trade unions, workers' committees,
councils of action, triple alliances, and so forth, are not part of the
regular industrial machine, and too often are found athwart its path.
They are members of an industry with substantially no constitutional
control over it, just as a hundred years ago they were members of a
State whose destinies they had no constitutional power to direct.
This does not mean that a hundred years ago every working man wanted the
political vote, nor that now he wants to sit on a committee and control
his industry.
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