THE WAR 

ON THE 

HOME FRONT 

By 

G. D. H. COLE 
LONDON 
THE FABIAN SOCIETY 


1 I Dartmouth Street S W I 

' 

. 


NOTE 

This pamphlet, like all P~tblications of the 
Fabian Society, represents not the collective 
view of the Society but only the view of the 
member who prepared it. The responsibility of 
the Fabian Society is limited to approvingthe p~tblications which it issues as embodying 
facts and opinions worthy of consideration 
within the Labour Movement. It is the 
aim of the Society to encourage amongsocialists a high standard of free and 
independent research. 


THE WAR 


ON THE 

HOME FRONT 


Inter arma silent leges. The laws are silent amid the clash 
of arms. Surely there never was a falser statement. For, at any 
rate in these days, when war breaks out laws multiply at an alarming 
rate, and the ordinary citizen becomes much more conscious of 
his subjection to the ' law of the land ' than, unless he is an habitual 
criminal, he ever needs to feel in times of peace. We are all 
potential criminals now, liable to find at any moment the hand 
of the law descending upon us because we have broken some wartime 
regulation of which, very likely, we have never heard. For 
despite the legal fiction, very convenient to administrators, that 
the citizen is always supposed to know the law, today not even 
the lawyers know it ; and even the administrators are only finding 
out gradually the extent of the new powers which they have 
acquired. We can hardly glance at our newspapers of a morning 
without discovering some new duty, prohibition or injunctionthat has been laid upon us ; and for every one we discover there 
are at least a dozen of which we remain, for the moment, mercifully 
ignorant because they have not yet begun to be enforced. · 

This proliferation of laws, orders and regulations is inevitable 
under the conditions of modern war, especially if it be waged 
against a totalitarian enemy. For nowadays war penetrates 
into every nook and cranny of men's lives : there is literally 
nobody who can go on unaffected by it. Conscription, which 
came in only in the third year of the last war, is today taken as 
a matter of course. The Government is already empowered to 
control civiliar: employment ; and, even outside the factories, 
more people are being enrolled as air-raid wardens, fire-fighters, 
emergency policemen and so on than are being enlisted as soldiers. 
Already the entire population is being registered : ration books 
for food as well as petrol are on the way; evacuated populations 
and soldiers are being compulsorily billeted ; private premises, 
as well as factories and public buildings, are being commandeered. 
By order, we are carrying around our publicly supplied gas masks, 
and learning the geography of air-raid shelters and first aid posts 
in the neighbourhood of our work and of our homes. By order, 
we .are groping our way about in the dark, changing our habits 
so as to stay at home instead of going out at nights, and in general 
readjusting our ways of living to the conditions of a beleaguered 
country.

We are doing all this, on the whole, with very little grumblingbut with a great deal of bewilderment. We are prepared to accept 
the fact that this war must interfere much more than any before 
it with the lives and habits of the civilian population, not only 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

because we are all now in the line of fire, but even more because 
wars are fought in these days fully as much by the civilians who 
make things as by the soldiers. But, in accepting the necessityof finding ourselves ordered about, we are bewildered because 
we are conscious of a contradiction between the imposed discipline 
to which we are being made subject and the democracy for which 
we are alleged to be waging war. We are asking ourselves-those 
of us who are at all in the habit of political speculation-whether 
it is possible to fight against an undemocratic and totalitarian 
enemy without becoming undemocratic and totalitarian ourselves. 

Democracy and the Disciplinarians 

That war, and above all modern war on the grand scale, 
involves severe discipline, is plain to all. The individualist who 
asserts his right as a free citizen to illuminate his house during a 
black-out is evidently a public enemy. When each side in the 
war is endeavouring to blockade the other rationing is unavoidable, 
and the individualist who claims more than his share of what 
is going has to be suppressed. When mass armies have to be 
raised, conscription, provided that it is sensibly administered, 
is fairer than ' voluntary' service which employs economic pressure 
as one of its principal recruiting sergeants. In face of the pressure 
of military and civilian needs on the resources of production, it 
is indispensable to ensure that factory-owners shall make what 
is most needed and not merely what they are used to making 
or what would profit them most. It follows that labour too must 
be apportioned to the most urgent tasks, and that no one who 
can do anything useful has the right to loaf. 

In all these and in many other respects, war sets up standards 
very different from those to which we have been accustomed. 
It restricts at many points-at how many we have not yet had 
time to realise-the traditional 'liberties of the subject'. Certain 
of these restrictions are fully in accord with what we Socialists 
have been advocating all along. We have insisted-it is, indeed, 
of the very essence of Socialism-that the resources of productionand man-power ought to be applied to making what is most needed, 
and not in accordance with the dictates of the profit-motive. We 
have denied the right of a rich man to loaf upon his unearned 
income and, for that matter, the right of a poor man to loaf upon 
charity or public assistance. We have urged that bread for all 
should have precedence over cake for some; we have demanded 
the ' democratisation of the armed forces' ; we have stood for 

' planning' as against the chaos and wastefulness of privateenterprise. 

And yet, now that ' planning ', of a sort, is coming upon us 

with a rush, we do not feel happy about it. Nor are our misgivings 

out of place. For we are very conscious that the persons to whom 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

authority is being given to order us about are for the most partthe very persons who, in the past, have denounced 'planning' 
most energetically, except when they could exact in its name 
some form of State assistance for their own profit-making enterprises. 
We know too that there are a great many persons in highplaces who value the power to plan the lives of the people, not 
because they can be so planned as to advance the common welfare, 
but because their augmented authority can be used for keepingthe lower classes in order with a firm hand. In addition, we realise 
that planning for war is necessarily a very different matter from 
planning for peace, and that war is apt to throw to the top a 
mixed assortment of martinets, adventurers and embusques who 
can by no means be relied upon to plan for the purposes for which 
the people has been persuaded to acquiesce in the increase of the 
State power. 

If we Socialists and democrats are to uphold democracy in 
the present crisis, and to make ' planning for war' serve the 
purposes for which we have long been advocating ' planning for 
peace', we must at the outset do our best to clear away the confusions 
which are bound to beset our minds at the first onset of 
the new conditions. We have to think out the measures which 
are indispensable in order to preserve the foundations of democracy 
and secure the effectiveness of democratic criticism and control. 
We have to get our own clear ideas of the right way of organising 
war services so as to ensure both the fullest possible participationof democrats in their conduct and the easiest possible convertibility 
of them, when the war ends, into useful instruments of peace-time 
control and public service. While the war is going on, we have 
to do all we can to build foundations for a democratic Socialist 
system, and to fight against all tendencies that lead away from 
democratic Socialism. 

What is Socialism ? 

As a first step towards this clear thinking, let us consider 
for a moment what we mean by ' Socialism'. Is 'National 
Socialism '-for that is Nazism's official title-Socialism, or is 
it not? If Socialism means merely the extension of State control 
over the resources of production, so that all the vital productiveagencies, men and things alike, become instruments of the omnipotent 
State, then ' National Socialism' is Socialism, and we 
have no need to worry; for the world is rushing towards Socialism 
at a headlong pace. But I imagine that no Socialist will be able 
to find comfort thus easily. 'National Socialism' is not Socialism; 
for Socialism is a system of welfare, and Socialists want the social 
control of the means of production only because and in as far as 
such control is necessary in order to bring about the welfare of 
the whole people. The Nazis, on the other hand, do not give a 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

brass button for welfare. They want the State control of the 
instruments of production simply because such control is necessary 
in order to make the State strong for war and conquest.

Public control, or even full public ownership, of the means 
of production is not Socialism. It is simply an instrument which 
Socialists require to use in order to advance human welfare. It 
is an instrument which can be used equally for entirely different 
ends. The struggle between Socialism and Nazism is a strugglebetween two forces aiming at different objectives for the control 
of the economic instruments which must be in the hands of whichever 
of them is to prevail.

Accordingly, the mere fact that war conditions compel the 
State largely to supersede the methods of private enterprise and 
to assume vast powers over industry and property and over the 
lives of men is no evidence at all that we are making any advance 
in the direction of Socialism. It is evidence that we are getting 
away from the forms of capitalism to which we have been accustomed 
-forms that were already undergoing rapid changes in the direction 
of State regulation before the war. But, in getting away from 
laissez-faire capitalism we may be moving towards either Socialism 
or Nazism, towards either of two extreme opposites which have 
this only in common, that they are both possible next stages in 
the development of society, because they are both, up to a 
point, consistent with the technical conditions of the twentieth 
century.

It is of the profoundest importance that Socialists should 
understand what this means. Laissez-faire capitalism is obsolete : 
it no longer squares with C1e technical necessities of production. 
It engenders unemployment and crisis, because the motive of 
private profit is no longer sufficient to keep the wheels of industryin regular motion. It restricts production more and more, because 
it sees in scarcity the only hope of maintaining profits. It destroys 
competition, which used to be the means of keeping the resources 
of production at work, because the vast units which are now 
required for efficient manufacture inevitably find it more profitable 
to combine than to compete. The old kind of capitalism has 
been disappearing fast ; and nothing on earth can possibly bringit back. 

The Evitability of Socialism 

Socialists used to maintain that the collapse of this kind 
of capitalism would of necessity clear the road for Socialism. So 
in a sense it does, if Socialists are strong enough and able enough 
to seize their chance. But Socialism is not the only immediate 
solution that can be offered. Fascism, or Nazism, has shown 
itself to be, at any rate in the short run, a workable alternative. 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

The problem set by the technical changes of the twentieth centuryis in essence that of keeping the instruments of production regularly 
at work so as to enable the people to earn a living. Socialism 
solves this problem by abolishing the restrictive power of the 
profit-seeker, and by planning production directly for the service 
of the people's needs. That is the perfect solution; for it makes 
an end of ' involuntary unemployment ' by removing all restrictions 
on the use of the instruments of production except the preferenceof the people for leisure over increased material supplies. It is 
the only perfect solution ; but it is not the only way in which 
the immediate problem can be met. For if the State is prepared 
to enrol in the armed forces or to set to work making implementsof war every factor of production which the private capitalistis not ready to employ, the problem of unemployment can be 
dealt with, albeit only at the cost of impoverishment for the people.
The Nazis have in fact handled the problem in this way; and 
those who prophesied the speedy collapse of their system from 
financial causes have been deceived. For the resources of financial 
manipulation in the hands of a despotically organised State are 
much greater than used to be commonly supposed; and the Nazis 
have also shown, on the grand scale, that it is practicable to eke 
out the resources of domestic production by armed brigandage-
if only one is armed more heavily than the owners of the things 
one covets. 

It may be objected that this Nazi solution is not a permanentsolution like Socialism, but only a self-destructive expedientbecause (a) there are limits to what can be secured by brigandageand (b) the people will not stand for ever being impoverished in 
the cause of military glory. But a solution that is impermanentin its nature may nevertheless last long enough to tear civilisation 
in pieces-for those in control of a brigand State will surely resort 
to war sooner than admit defeat without it. And, as for popularrevolt, what chance has the people in these days against tanks 
and machine-gunning aeroplanes; unless indeed the men who 
work these instruments of death desert to the popular side? The 
days of the barricades are over, as well as the days of laissez1aire 
capitalism. Modem great States are proof against popular revolution 
as long as they can command the loyalty of a small picked 
force of privileged warriors to man their aeroplanes and their 
tanks. 

Industrial Fascism-

These considerations are of importance not only in estimating 
the prospects of revolution in Nazi Germany, but also in estimatingthe outlook on our own home front. For Great Britain too is 
fast building up a great mechanised army, with tanks and aeroplanes 
as its principal weapons ; and Great Britain, in establishing 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

the war-time' controls' of industry and man-power, is using methods 
for the most part very like those which exist in Germany, though 
at the present stage in much less stringent ways.

How else, indeed, can Great Britain wage war under the 
conditions which exist? This country is under a Conservative 
Government, pledged up to the hilt to the defence of capitalistinterests. If these interests can no longer be defended by the 
methods of laissez1aire, or even by the moderate expedients of 
State authorisation of capitalist monopoly adopted in recent 
years, how else can they be defended than by the adoption of 
Nazi methods ? For British capitalism, the economic policy 
of Nazism is the obvious response to the conditions of actual 
war. 

What does this mean in practice? It means, as it has meant 
in Germany, that the capitalist groups accept the claim of the 
State to determine what they shall produce, and that the State, 
for its part, guarantees them in the possession of their propertyand the receipt of regular dividends and interest and, wherever 
it supersedes their private activities, appoints them to carry on 
the same activities as servants of the State. The capitalists promise 
to deliver the goods ; and the State promises to ensure their 
supplies of materials and labour, and to protect them against 
indiscipline on the part of their workers, including any attempt 
to make the shortage of labour an occasion for demanding improved 
conditions. To a great extent, this was what happened in the 
last war, subject to many frictions and inefficiencies in the course 
of gradual transition to the new system, and also to considerable 
and to some extent succes3ful kicking against the pricks by the 
Trade Unions and by such unofficial agencies as the shop stewards' 
movement. In 1914 we were all tiros in matters of this sort. 
The State begins today, not merely where it left off in 1918, but 
:vith_ the more recent lessons of Nazi economic organisation plainly 
m v1ew. 

-And How to A void it 

But for one thing, it would be inevitable that war should 
lead Great Britain a long way in the direction, not of Socialism, 
but of its direct opposite-the totalitarian State run by a despotic 
and militaristic hierarchy with the support of the capitalist classes. 
The one thing that can prevent this is the strength in this countryof democratic movements and of the traditions of tolerance and 
political liberty. If these forces can be kept organised under a 
leadership which sees and thinks clearly, it is practicable, not 
merely to prevent Great Britain from being spiritually conqueredby Nazism in the course of the military conflict, but even to ensure 
that the foundations of democracy shall be made stronger, and 
the prospects of Socialism more favourable, as a result of the 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

transformation of society which is bound to occur as the war 
proceeds. 

To begin with, in this country the tradition of parliamentary 
government is very strong. It could not be avoided that, in the 
first days of the war, the Cabinet should be given very nearly 
a blank cheque to pass through any emergency measures that 
it had ready, with but the barest minimum of parliamentaryscrutiny or independent criticism. To obstruct at that stage 
even ill-conceived measures or unreasonable demands for power 
was politically impossible for any group which supported the 
war-as almost the whole nation did. But it would be not patriotismbut the deepest disservice to the democratic cause to continue 
hereafter to allow the Government a similar licence. It is the 
duty of Parliament-and, of course, especially of the Opposition 
-to scrutinise most carefully all future emergency legislation, 
and all rules and orders issued under the laws already passed, 
in order to ensure that they are both well designed in the national 
interest and so drafted as to interfere as little as possible with 
the liberties of ordinary people. Nor is this all. The problemis much less that of restricting the powers which the State is to 
be allowed to assume than that of giving the exercise of these 
powers, in every practicable instance, a democratic form. This 
must be done chiefly by such methods as these :-entrustingthe administration of war-time services, wherever possible, to 
the popularly elected local government bodies rather than to 
bureaucratic ' controllers ' responsible only to the central Government; 
pressing for the statutary establishment of democratic 
advisory bodies which must be consulted in advance when new 
policies or enlargements of State control are being considered ; 
demanding that full use be made of the Cooperative movement 
in the working of war-time systems of rationing and consumers' 
supply; ensuring general recognition of Trade Unionism both 
by the Government and by all firms working under governmentcontrol; and, more generally, using every opportunity to getthe ordinary citizen enlisted, not merely for obeying orders sent 
down to him from above, but for playing his part, in those small 
matters which add up to great ones, in the actual devising of 
policies and expedients for meeting emergencies as they arise. 

Constructive Opposition 

This being the task of Parliament, it follows that it must 
continue to meet regularly and often, whatever difficulties maybe alleged. It should meet preferably in London ; but, if not 
there, it should meet somewhere often enough not merely to 
transact the Government's business but to give the Oppositionand the private member plenty of opportunities for constructive 
criticism and the ventilation of popular grievances. It is vital 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

to this task that there should be a strong Opposition, not for 
factious hostility to the Government's measures, but for the 
constant putting forward of democratic alternatives to undemocratic 
acts or proposals coming from the Government side. It would 
have been disastrous if the Labour Party had accepted Mr Chamberlain's 
invitation to be represented in the Government ; for this 
would have meant either that the Labour Ministers would have 
ceased to represent the Labour Party-thus dangerously dividing 
its forces-m that the Opposition would have been unable to 
carry on its public duty of democratic criticism. The time maycome when the Labour Party will have to form part of a Government 
pledged to a democratic conduct of the war and to the 
conclusion of a democratic peace. But, when that time comes, 
it will be the time for Mr Chamberlain and those who thhlk with 
him to constitute His Majesty's Opposition. Under no circumstances 
can an inclusive Coalition be the right policy ; for such 
a Coalition would mean inevitably a Government weakened by 
divided counsels, and it would also mean that constructive criticism 
of its misdeeds would be deprived of an indispensable means of 
concentrated expression. 

The Labour Party, then, is right to remain in Opposition 
until its turn comes to assume the real control of affairs. This 
involves that the party machinery throughout the country must 
be kept at full strength, despite the declaration of an electoral 
truce. If the Party in Parliament is to offer constructive and 
democratic criticism, it must keep constantly in touch with every 
movement of democratic opinion throughout the country. The 
Local Labour Parties must hold regular meetings-not only general 
meetings of delegates and officials, but even more importantlyward meetings and small gatherings for the continual discussion 
of events. There must be provided satisfactory channels for 
continually passing on what is being said and done in these little 
meetings to the national leaders and to groups in other places.
There must be the closest possible touch between the party members 
and supporters and their representatives on town councils and 
other public bodies, or on the numerous emergency committees 
and agencies that will be set up for the conduct of war-time services. 
It is a vital part of the Labour Party's task in this crisis to help 
to create a ferment of democratic discussion, and to ensure that 
its local groups are everywhere well informed and encouraged 
to be active in building democracy in their own towns, streets, 
factories and housing estates. 

Informed Opposition 

This matter of information is of very particular importance.
Amid the blizzard of emergency laws, orders and regulations, 
even the keen local Socialist is nearly helpless unless he is given 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

continual guidance. Summaries, carefully edited with hints for 
democratic action, of all important administrative measures and 
regulations ought to be got promptly into the hands of every 
party officer and committee member, of every Labour representative 
on a local council or war-time administrative or advisory body-
in short, of every active Labour worker. It is not enough to offer 
a service of this sort to those who are able and willing to pay a 
special subscription for it : at any rate in summary form, it oughtto be supplied free of charge as an essential part of the Labour 
movement's war-time campaign. I should like to see the Labour 
Party Executive undertaking this responsibility without delay;
and I am sure that if, for this purpose, they want the help of the 
Fabian Society, that help will be readily given. 

Akin to this question of information and of regular discussion 
throughout the Labour movement is the question of education. 
I am speaking, for the moment, not of the school-children, who 
present another very important war-time problem, but of the 
grown-ups. Such bodies as the Workers' Educational Association 
and the National Council of Labour Colleges, so far from allowing 
the number of their classes to decline, ought greatly to increase 
their effort, of course adapting their methods and courses to the 
changed conditions of war-time life and interest. Regular classes 
extending over long periods, such as the three-year Tutorial Classes 
of the W E A, will inevitably have to face special difficulties at 
a time when there will be much calling up of men for war service, 
and much movement at short notice from place to place. But 
the experience of the last war showed that even long courses can 
be maintained under these conditions, and that there is likely to 
develop a keen appetite for widespread shorter courses on subjectsclosely related to the issues which are now uppermost in the minds 
of most intelligent people-the sort of settlement that is to come 
out of the war, the ways of living for which we are to prepare 
ourselves in the post-war world, the changed terms in which we 
have to consider every branch of knowledge and speculation at 
a time when every human value and purpose comes up for judgment, 
and all of us need sorely to take counsel with others in 
finding out how to adapt ourselves to the continual jolts and jars 
to which our habits and our preconceived notions are subjecttoday. If, as we believe, we are fighting for cultural values, and 
not merely dog with dog, it is not the least form of national service 
to help those who are adrift from the 'moorings of habit to find 
new anchorage for their minds. To help men and women to think, 
to preserve them from hysteria and mental disease, is no unimportant 
sphere of service in the democratic cause. 

Well-informed about what is happening, and afforded plentyof opportunities for education and for diversion, the keen local 
Socialist will be able to play his part in waging the war for democracy 
on the home front. This will be partly a matter of keeping always 


12 THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

in the forefront of popular discussions the question of the coming 
peace. With the memories of the Versailles Treaty in our minds, 
we shall have to be constantly on our guard against attempts 
to pervert democratic phraseology to serve undemocratic ends, 
against the endorsement of war objectives which are inconsistent 
with the conditions of a lasting peace, and against that creepingparalysis of the mind which may be induced by a continued diet 
of censored news and doctored opinion. The creation and maintenance 
of a sane and balanced view of war objectives and of the 
possible terms for a federated settlement in a reconstructed Europeis among the most urgent of the duties which fall upon us Socialists 
today. For the moment, there is not much sign of any attempt 
to play on the popular passions in order to vamp up en~usiasm. 
But even a few air-raids may make a dangerous difference in the 
public's mood, and lay it open to appeals which would have little 
influence at the present stage. The weapons which we Socialists 
possess for fighting against such appeals are those of reason and 
education; and we can afford to lose no time if we are to reach men's 
minds while they are still in a mood to listen to common sense. 

Sense in Censorship 

If public opinion is to be kept well-instructed and sane under 
war conditions, it is indispensable that the press and the platformshall remain free. Censorship there must be, about military affairs; 
but we must look to the parliamentary Opposition and to the 
journalists as an organised profession to prevent this censorshipfrom being extended from military to civil news, and to ensure 
absolutely that there shall be no successful attempt to censor the 
publication of opinions. All of us must be free to say what we 
think about the Government and its policies, about the workingof emergency laws and regulations, about the mistakes of highlyplaced officials, and about every sort of popular grievance. A 
fully free press we cannot have while our leading newspapers 
continue to be owned by millionaires. But, even as they are, 
their freedom of uncensored expression of opinion is worth fightingfor; and we shall have to fight also for the freedom of the reviews 
and journals of opinion, and for the little papers by means of 
which Socialists seek to evade the limitations of a mass-producedjournalism involving huge capital outlays.

Nor is it less important to preserve the freedom of the spoken 

word. Evening meetings may be interferred with by the black


out in many places, but where this cannot be helped we must 

make more use of lunch-hour addresses, week-end gatherings and 

meetings held in mid-afternoon for those who are able to attend. 

We must tolerate no attempt to prevent the people from coming 

together to discuss. Where cinemas can open meetings can be 

held ; and we must be on our guard especially to preserve the 

right of open-air meeting, so as to be able to come together even 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

in places where all the available halls have been commandeered. 
At this very moment democrats all over the country ought to be 
pressing energetically the demand that enough places of meeting 
shall be left available, and insisting that the effective freedom of 
public assembly and discussion are vital to the conduct of a 
democratic war. 

Industrial Democracy 

The war-time organisation of industry presents problemsof a different kind, but calling for no less vigilance on our part. 
It is mainly for the Trade Unions to insist that military conscriptionand the ' control of employment ' shall not be suffered to undermine 
their power to negotiate on behalf of the workers, and that 
the ' dilution ' of labour and the substitution of women for men 
in the various industries shall be carried through both without 
damage to Trade Union standards and with an assurance of good 
wages and conditions for the new workers who are introduced. 
This, however, cannot be simply a matter of central consultation 
and agreement between the Government departments and the 
national Executives of the Trade Unions concerned. Now, as 
during the last war, it will be necessary for the workers to throw 
up their own delegates inside the factories and to secure recognition 
of their right to a say in the settlement of conditions in each 
particular establishment. If the Trade Unions profit by the lessons 
of the last war, they will arrange for the emergence of a shopstewards' movement, not in conflict with the official leadership, 
but in harmony with it and acting under its auspices. But they 
cannot do this effectively unless, like the Labour Party in the 
political sphere, they keep their independence and their freedom 

to criticise and to say no. 

Defending the Consumer 

The war-time organisation of industry, it goes without saying,
raises problems for the consumers fully as much as for the Trade 
Unions. In this field the Cooperative movement has a vitallyimportant part to play. Private traders will doubtless try to 
use schemes of rationing so as to prevent the Cooperative Societies 
from recruiting new members, or continuing to increase their 
share of retail trade; and they may try to prevent the movement 
from getting a share of the available supplies proportionate even 
to its existing turnover. It will be of the greatest importance to 
counteract promptly any moves of this sort; for, in a situation 
of all-round scarcity, the existence of a strong and expandingCooperative movement is the consumer's best safeguard against 
exploitation by the profit-maker. The battle for Cooperationwill have to be fought both by the Labour Party in Parliament 
and by Labour and Cooperative representatives on local councils, 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

Food Committees, and other bodies responsible for registrationand control ; and the struggle will have also to range over a wider 
field, so as to include the protection of the consumer against every 
exaction which threatens to raise the cost of living. Tenants' 
organisations, societies of house-owners and house-purchasers 
on the instalment plan, will find a greatly increased need for 
activity ; and community centres and social settlements of every 
kind will need to enlist themselves in the defence services for 
safeguarding the standard of living against the profiteer. 

Evacuation and Industry 

There are other questions about which it is rnb,re difficult 
to speak at present because the outlook is too uncertain for the 
appropriate methods to be clearly foreseen. When the Government 
put into force its plans of mass-evacuation from the congested 
danger-zones of our great cities, it seems hardly to have thought 
out at all what was to happen in the event of a long war. Mothers, 
even if they have babies to protect, cannot be expected to remain 
away from their husbands for long; and to suppose that they 
can reveals a total lack of understanding of working-class conditions 
of life. It is even very doubtful whether the arrangements for 
the billeting of school children can stand the strain of continuance 
for more than a short time. Certainly they cannot unless fully 
adequate arrangements are made in the ' reception areas' both 
for effective schooling and for emergency health services which 
will cost a great deal of money. Nor can the children who remain 
in the areas from which evacuation has occurred be left untaught. 

If, as the Government now tells us to expect, we are in for 
a long war, we must either begin to plan for a different sort of 
evacuation or give evacuation up as a bad job, and send the children 
home again to take their chance. They will drift home without 
being sent, unless more permanent plans are made. But what 
sort of plans can be made ? None, I think, short of beginning 
to evacuate the factories and the grown-ups as well as the children, 
so as to reunite families outside the congested areas, and set on 
foot a permanent movement towards the decentralisation of 
industry and the deflation of our inflated cities. It will be said 
that such a task is much too great to be even attempted in time 
of war. But to admit that we cannot do all is not to agree that 
we can do nothing; and unless we do make some attempt it can 
hardly be long before all our schemes of evacuation begin hopele 
slv to break down. 

·I raise this issue, not because I am certain of the answer, 
but because it indicates yet another group of problems about 
which we democrats will have to do a great deal of hard thinking.
We hall be fal e to democracy if, in our eagerness to prevent a 
disastrous international settlement, we keep our eyes fixed on 


THE WAR OK THE HOME FRO~T 

the ends of the earth and pay no attention to the problem of 
reconstructing our own country. For good and for evil, war shakes 
people out of their habits. It makes them readier to accept change ; 
it makes possible larger social transformations than are politically 
feasible in normal times. Hardly anyone now expects that when 
this war is over it will be practicable to go back to the conditions 
of 1939, even if we wish to. Men expect great changes; but theydo not know in the least what sort of changes to expect. 

Status Quo Ante ? 

Such a state of mind in men is one of infinite opportunity, 
as well as of danger. It may unloose terribly evil passions ; but 
it can also release generous impulses and act as a powerful stimulus 
to the constructive imagination. Evil, however, will have its 
way unless the forces making for good are organised and in possession 
of well-devised and practical plans. We have to ask ourselves 
now, n·ot only what sort of European settlement we want 
at the end of the war, but also what sort of Great Britain we want. 

London, for example ! Do we want to go on living, those 
of us who are Londoners, in so huge and misshapen a waste of 
buildings ? Or Manchester, or Glasgow, or any of a hundred other 
ugly and overcrowded tenements of profit-seeking industrialism ? 
Are we set on preserving them, and on building up again the ways 
of living of which they are the material symbols ? If not, we must 
begin now laying our plans for changing the face of Great Britain. 

Or again, when the war is over, are we to acquiesce in all 
the State-controlled, State-planned industries of this countrybeing handed back to the profit-makers as they were after 1918 ? 
Handed back in their previous condition they cannot be. Even 
in the last war State control left behind a legacy of trustification 
and monopoly; and we can be certain that the 'controls' now 
being brought into operation will result in a much closer integrationof capitalist interests. We, as Socialists, shall have no wish to 
perpetuate methods of war-time organisation which largely lead 
to the erection of capitalist monopoly into the accredited agent 
of tate power. We want public control of a very different sort 
-a democratic control in the interests of the whole people, and 
in which producers and consumers will alike be given an effective 
voice. If we are to get that, we shall need not only to get political 
power into our own hands through a change of Government, but 
also to have ready our plans for transforming State controls operated 
through capitalist agencies into public corporations subject to 
efficient democratic criticism and supervision. 

In this respect we are better equipped than in most ; for 
many of our plans for the public ownership and control of industryhave already been competently made. What is wanting is not 
the plan, but popular understanding of it and of the case behind 


THE WAR ON THE HOME FRONT 

it. Our task there is principally to criticise every perversion of 
war-time State control to serve capitalist interests, in such a way 
as to put forward our own proposals as the means of putting rightthe abuses which we expose. It will be surprising indeed, in view 
of what happened between 1914 and 1918, if we are not speedilyprovided with an abundance of ammunition for our attack. 

For Socialism and Democracy 

Here, then, are plenty of tasks crying out to be done. But 
they will not get done, or even attempted, without careful organisation. 
There are, up and down the country, thousands of men 
and women who are eager to work on the home frontL.for Socialism 
and democracy ; but these men and women cannot work effectively 
unless somebody is ready to give them a lead and to coordinate 
their efforts. This must be primarily the task of the Labour Party,
which possesses the mass-membership and the network of local 
organisation. But, in its smaller way, the Fabian Society, on 
whose behalf I have written this tract, means to do what it can; 
and in its name I appeal to all those who want the things I have 
spoken of to be done, and are ready to help within the limits of 
their means and opportunities, to join the Society or, even without 
joining it, to lend it their aid. For we Fabians are at once democrats 
and Socialists : we believe that real Socialism involves real 
democracy, and that real democracy is impossible without Socialism. 
That faith makes us the more suspicious of bastard ' Socialisms ', 
which deny democracy and set out to wield the machinery of the 
totalitarian State for such end3 as nationalgloryandaggrandisement, 
or for any end except the welfare of the common people. We 
are very conscious of the devastating perils of State control without 
democracy-very conscious that the development of modem 
technique not only centralises industrial power in the hands of 
great combines, but also vests the ultimate military power in any 
group that is able to wield the authority of the tank and the aeroplane. 
We Fabians contend that in this situation there is no 
way of preserving a shred of democracy except by makingdemocracy all-embracing, and therewith bringing the Leviathan 
of modem industry and the Juggemaut of mechanised militarism 
within the orbit of its power. Unless we can achieve this, civilisation 
is undone; for the gangsters will not fail to tear it speedilyto pieces. But the task, though formidable, is not beyond our 
powers : it demands clear thinking, determined action and the 
will to hold together even when we differ upon secondary issues. 
While men's minds are keyed up by suspense, the chance is ours 

to organise and re-direct the democratic forces. We must seize 
that chance while it is with us, or we shall deserve the fate which 
will surely be ours-and mankind's-if we allow Socialism and 
democracy to fail. 


PUBLICATIONS 


NEW FABIAN RESEARCH PAMPHLETS 

The Relations Of Central and Local Government W. A. Robson 2d 
Workers' Control and $elf-Government In Industry G. D. H. 
~ole and W. Melior ... . . . . . . .. . . . . .. . . .. 6d 
The Protection of Colonial Peoples A Study in British Colonial 

Policy ..• ... ... ... ... ... ..• ... ... 1/A 
Soclatist Budget Colin Clark . . . 6d 
Fli'ctl and Figures A Handbook for Labour Speakers 6d 
Rent Rebates (Revised and Enlarged Edition 1939) Geoffrey Wilson If-
Foreign Trade Harold Ba,rger . .. . .. 6d 
How Much Compensation l Ernest Davles 't The FOrty Hour Week Michael Stewart I State 
Education An Immediate Programme Edited by Barbara 

Drak~ LCC ... If-
Population Movements A Study In Migration L. Ginsburg 6d 
The CitY Today A Citizen... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1/·
Reform Under Fire Social Progress in Spain 1931-38 M. Stewart... 6d 
Milk J. Bulmer and P. Vinter ... ... ... ... ... ... If-
Living Wages The Case for a New Minimum Wage Act G. o: H. Cole 6d 
Parenthood and Poverty L. Ginsburg ... ... ... ... ... If-
Labour In the West lndles W. A. Lewis 1/A 
National Investment Board C. P. Mayhew 1/


FABIAN TRACTS 

~acts .for Socialists (Revised 1937) .. . .. . . .. . .. . .. 6d 
Parish and District Councils What they are and what they can do 
(Revised 1937) ... 
Urban Distri~ Councils Their Constitution, Powers and Duties ~ 

C. M. Lloyd 1936 + ld 
The Case Against Proportlenal Representation Herman Floer 
1935 2d 
:Personnel of British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service 18811929 
R. T. Nightingale 1930 2d 
The Limitations of the Expert H. J. Laski 1931 2d 
A New Reform Bill Mrs. Sidney Webb 1931 ... 2d 
What Happened In 1931 A Record Sidney Webb 1932 2d 

Cur~9Ji Cr~~~ ·~..the -~ne~~loy~~nt ~~isls ..~ilbe~-Slat~~ 2d 

'/li. .National Physloloslcal Minimum . Or Somerville Hastings 1934 ld 
Housing Principles lvor Thomas 1935 ... ... ... ... 2d 
Freedom In Our Time Olive and lvan Cruchley 1937 2d 
Indian Federation Bool Chand 1938 2d 
Our AJeing Population Aid. A. £mil Davies, LCC 1938 2d 
TheWar on the Home Front G. D. H. Cote ... 2d 


Also Bl~lcal, Local Government ~otherSeries 

BOOKS 

Studies in Capital and Investment by G. D. H. Cole and others 
(Gollancz) 12/6 
~clalhtation Studies : (I) Electrical Supply Industry
by G. H. ... (Gollancz) 3/6


(2) Iron and Steel by Ingot (Gollancz) 5/Publi4;' 
Enterprise edited by W. A. Robson ... (Alien & Unwin) 12/6
The People's Army by L. Clive, with an · Introduction by
C. R. Attlee ... ,.. (Gollancz) 7/6
The Machinery of Socialist Planninr by G. D. H. Cole 
(Hogarth Press) 2/6
Democratic Sweden edited by Margaret Cole and Charles SIT)ith
(Routledge) 12/6
Route to Bagdad International Section (Alien & Unwln) 10/6 
'•·•.!-·--'""~''"' Civil Service by H. Finer Cloth, 5/-Paper, 3/6 

Own Builneu by 1\. B. Suthers .. • f/61931 Edidon) ... ... ... 2/6 

r~~;r;.:=:=r~:~;;~by Sidney Webb ... ,,_

!!t l,ej:tures. 1939 (AHen & Unwln) 5/·