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Europe after the World War 663 net outcome of all this disturbance, accompanied as it was by disastrous and costly fighting, is difficult to measure. 1200. Question of the Role of Employees in managing Busi- ness. The new German constitution expressly declared that workers and clerical employees were entitled to take part, "with equal rights in cooperation with the employers," in the regulation of wages and labor conditions. The organizations of employers and employees were officially recognized. By a law later enacted in 1920 the German parliament, while not interfering with the regular trade-unions, provided a system of employees' councils in all factories of any size and gave them important powers in the determination of wage and employment policies, including the engaging and discharging of workers. In the same year Italian workmen in many cities joined in a revolt, seized the plants, and set up workmen's councils. The Italian government, instead of sending soldiers against them, negotiated with them. In a few days they saw how powerless they were, even when in possession of the factories, because they could not control the raw materials, the finances, and the markets necessary to successful business, even if they could have managed the factories themselves. The outcome was a compromise giving the workmen a certain voice in the management of industry. 1201. The English Labor Parties. In England the most im- portant socialistic group, the Labor party, developed a program quite different from that of the Russians or the Italians. Their program holds that the capitalist system has broken down, that it keeps industry in turmoil through constant quarrels over the division of profits, and that, besides being wasteful, it subjects the worker to capitalist control and is out of harmony with the ideals of democracy. The English labor leaders concentrate their fire on the profit system as such. They contend that under it the capitalist thinks principally of profits and the operative of wages, but that neither of them is primarily interested in turning out the largest amount of goods of excellent quality. By way of contrast they point to the guildsmen of the Middle Ages, who took a real interest in their work as such and put their