Excerpt from British Labor Conditions and Legislation During the War The subject of this monograph is one of wide public interest. Perhaps no one subject connected with the war, aside from those having immediately to do with direct military operations, has aroused a greater interest in the minds of the public than have changes induced in the labor situation. The editor requested Professor Hammond to take up the subject, believing that his years of study of labor questions, and his familiarity with innovations in Australia elsewhere, would enable him more quickly to understand and more justly to appreciate the importance of such radical changes as the war induced in the conditions of employment and life of the workers of the world. His treatment has justified this confidence. Aside from contributing to our information on the condition of labor in the war, professor Hammond's discussion will help the public to juster conclusions on many matters commonly described as a dispute between labor and capital, though more correctly described as between the systems of economic liberalism and social control of capital. Many of the critics of economic liberalism seem to show by their comments that their familiarity with the doctrines of liberalism are second hand. As in their theology they are presbyterians, perhaps, because their fathers and mothers were, so they are solidarists and critics of liberalism because their teachers were so. They bitterly assail Ricardianism, but have never read Ricardo. Many of the prophets fail to see, or seeing fail to admit, that the aim of the individual system of economic philosophy is precisely the same as that of the system of so-called social solidarity, the improvement of the economic life of the individual human being. Economic liberalism, as a system, has contributed, as shown by men like Hermann Levy, very largely to the progress of humanity. Its adherents, like those of the "new" social philosophy, believe that earth belongs to us all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.