I 16 1] 
provided by a short study, entitled Towards Industrial Recovery,* which appeared 
in May of this year, and it is against the background there depicted that the 
movements and changes recorded here should be judged. The electrical industry 
is not alone in the series of modifications and adjustments which have character- 
ised its return to active competitive conditions ; all industries of fundamental 
importance, exposed to the most bitter and the most ruthless competition, 
have undergone or are undergoing the same changes, but, owing to its enormous 
diversity of product and the wide range of demand, the electrical industry comes 
more rapidly into conflict with economic forces, and bears, perhaps first of all 
industries, the shock of trade depression and excessive competition. In the work 
of adjustment, where practice invariably precedes theory and the needs of the 
moment, the long-held doctrines inculcated by an older industrial regime, the 
industry may incur hostile criticism, and suffer from misconception of what it has 
actually achieved and what it has now to face. 
The problem of maintaining in constant and profitable employment a great 
army of workers is much more urgent than the acquisition of abnormal profits, 
and it is time that the critics of “rings” and ‘‘ combinations ”” should devote 
attention to this aspect before proclaiming aloud the victimisation of the *“ con- 
sumer ”. Apart from the sheer impossibility of defining the ultimate consumer 
of any product, the introduction of catchword psychology into the consideration 
of industrial movements can only result in chaos and strife. There is room for 
the elaboration of a new body of economic theory which will overtake, at least 
in part, the teachings of practical experience and introduce an element of sound 
common-sense ; economics, whether understood as a political, a philosophical, 
or a purely historical science, must come back to reality sooner or later, and the 
fact remains that much of the criticism levied against industrial combinations 
has been derived, directly or indirectly, from the writings of those who, living 
and working in the present, still tirelessly draw their opinions from a dim and 
distant past. 
It is not the function of any industrial association to educate the public 
into the nature of important industrial and economic changes other than those 
which affect the industry it represents, but we feel that, in this matter of organisa- 
tion, the most effective protection an industry can have against mischievous and 
ill-informed criticism lies in a description of what has been achieved elsewhere, 
with special reference to the alignment of forces arrayed against it in the main 
competing countries and markets. It should be possible to decide then, without 
prejudice and with some degree of accuracy, whether an industry, in this case 
the electrical industry, has been justified in forming amalgamations, trusts, or 
central associations for price regulation and the control of production, or whether 
* Towards Industrial Recovery ?, by Hugh Quigley. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd.