stand uncontested.1 Recourse was had to a conference outside Parliament, and some part of its history may be told by the Labour Gazette.2 "The national conference summoned by the Government to consider the present industrial situation was held at the Central Hall, Westminster, on 27th of February. Invitations to send representatives had been issued to Employers' Associations and Federations, Trade Unions, Joint Industrial Councils, Interim Industrial Reconstruction Committees, Trade Boards and certain other important interested bodies such as the Parliamentary Committee of the Scottish Trade Union Congress, the Federation of British Industries, the National Alliance of Employers and Employed, etc. Altogether there were about five hundred workpeople and three hundred employers' representatives present. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Labour, the President of the Board of Trade, the Postmaster-General, the Minister of Food and other members of the Government were also present, as well as the principal officials of the Ministry of Labour. The Minister of Labour distinguished the meeting as unparalleled in history. 'It is representative,' he said, as no previous meeting ever has been, of the whole organised industrial life of our country.' 3 Its object was to separate the temporary from the permanent sources of discontent' of the time. The upshot of some hours' talk was the election of a Provisional Joint Committee of sixty, thirty from the Employers' organisations, and thirty from the Workers' organisations, to examine and report upon three groups of questions: (a) relating to Hours, Wages and General Conditions of Employment; (b) on Unemployment and its Prevention; (c) the best methods of promoting co-operation.

66

1 It was the year in which Direct Action by workers' organisations, and a kind of state of siege" through the Emergency Powers Act, 1919, seemed to be the dominant characteristics of English polity.

2 March 1919, P. 78.

3 Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Industrial Conference, 1916 (H.M.S.O.), p. 5.

between Capital and Labour.1 Sub-Committee No. 1, with Sir Thomas Munro in the chair, concerned itself with making recommendations concerning, among other things, "the method of negotiation between employers and Trade Unions, including the establishment of a permanent industrial council to advise the Government on industrial and economic questions with a view to maintaining industrial peace.

"2

On April 4 the Conference met to consider and vote the Report of their Committee, and prominent in that Report is the question of a standing National Industrial Council. The Report said: "For the purpose both of carrying on future investigation into matters now affecting the industrial situation and of keeping such matters under continuous review in the future and advising the Government on them, it is the unanimous view of the Committee that there should be established some form of permanent National Industrial Council."

(Their recommendation appeared below.) "It is sufficient at the present stage to record the conclusion of the Committee that such a Council should be instituted, and to point out that in their view matters in which this Committee themselves have been unable to make recommendations would be appropriate subjects for consideration by that Council." 4 The Minister of Labour read a message from "the Prime Minister welcoming the Report, and promising that if the recommendations of the Committee were approved by the Conference, they would receive the immediate and sympathetic consideration of the Government." 5 After some discussion a motion of Mr. Henderson's was carried. It ran: That this Joint National Industrial Conference, representative of employers and trade unionists, welcomes the report of the Provisional Joint Committee, and agrees to submit

1 Minutes of the Proceedings of the National Industrial Conference, 1916 (H.M.S.O.), p. 58. 2 Labour Gazette, March 1919, p. 79.

3 Industrial Conference, Cmd. 139, 1919. 4 Cmd. 139, p. 6.

5 Labour Gazette, April 1919, p. 125.

it for the acceptance of its constituent organisations immediately the Government officially declare their readiness to proceed at once with the legislative and other steps necessary to carry the report into effect; and the Provisional Joint Committee remain in being until the National Industrial Council and the Standing Committee have been brought into operation.' "' 1 The Chairman replied that "he believed that the principles of the Report would receive without delay the favour of the Government. It had always been their intention to endeavour to set up some permanent body to advise the Government on industrial matters, and they entirely agreed with the suggestion of a National Industrial Council and its objects." Meanwhile there were strikes and Royal Commissions at home, and the Peace was being made abroad.

In May, the Provisional Joint Committee met to get the Government's intentions in relation to their proposals. The Minister of Labour read them a letter from the Prime Minister, who was making the Peace abroad. "On the Continent," it ran,2 " as I have good reason to know, your work is being closely watched. Foreign countries are looking to Great Britain to give them a lead in the foundation of a new and better industrial order, and this report marks the beginning of such a foundation." Many of their solutions, the letter continued, would be accepted, in principle, but needed some modification in certain particulars. Lastly, “I cordially welcome your proposal to set up a National Council, and hope that you will take steps to bring it into being as quickly as possible, as I am sure that it will be of great value in assisting the Government to improve industrial conditions." The Committee then adjourned in order that both sides might have an opportunity of considering the reply and deciding upon their attitude.

Months passed, the Government legislated, the Com2 Ibid., May, p. 176.

1 Lalour Gazette, April 1919, p. 125.

mittee, the Conference and the Report, even the Prime Minister's letters, were apparently ignored or forgotten, save for occasional mention in the House of Commons.1 The Peace was made and widespread distress came over the country. Then in July 19212 the Provisional Joint Committee met at the Ministry of Labour to consider its position. It plainly had none. Its effort to stimulate the Government in the direction of carrying its Report had been fruitless; and then, it being evident that further efforts would be fruitless, the Committee resigned.

The last scene in this history was in the House of Commons on August 4, 1921,3 when, during the Debate on the Ministry of Labour Vote, Mr. Clynes complained of the passing of "a body for which there never was and indeed is not now any substitute of a national kind," a "Labour Parliament, labour in the sense that it is representative of the joint and collective interests engaged in labour, whether on the side of the wage-earners or on the side of the employers."4 In a juxtaposition in nowise strange, and yet prophetic, it was the voice of Viscountess Astor, a few minutes afterwards, which called out in relation to sweating" scandals, "It is ignorance, not malice on the part of members, that allows these things to continue." 5

We ought not to ignore the economic crisis which compelled the Government to have recourse to the conference but neither should we pass over the permanent realities in our social system which called, and still call, for something in the nature of an Industrial Parliament.

In an article in the Times of April 25, 1922, called 1 E.g. Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, vol. 115 (55), vol. 116 (2280), vol. 121 (97 and 1061).

2 See Labour Gazette, August 1921, p. 395.

3 Parliamentary Debates, 5th series, vol. 145 (1680 et seq.).

4 Appendix I. gives the Recommendation of the Committee and the method of composition of employees' representation.

5 Ibid. col. 1720.

"A Parliament of Industry," Mr. Henderson returned to the old charge once more and advocated a parliament of industry, based upon trade unions and employers' organisations, on a parity-" to provide industry as a whole with a mouthpiece and an organisation through which it can express itself," and act as advisory and scrutinising agent in relation to all legislative proposals affecting industry as a whole. And his thesis is supported by Lord Milner, who, after a brilliant survey of our economic and social situation,1 concludes that the first steps towards salvation in industry lie in the creation and development of the Joint Industrial Councils for each industry, and then at the centre a Parliament of Industry. His judgement, emerging from quite a different line of reasoning from that adopted here, is worth quotation: 2 "Finally, if this system grows and National Councils are established in all or most of the principal trades, they may pave the way to a further development of great importance. There are many questions affecting the welfare of any given trade which can only be properly settled by the people who are themselves engaged in it and have practical experience of the difficulties to be overcome. But there are other questions affecting the relations of one trade with another, or involving regulations which, if they are to be equitable, must apply to national industry as a whole, that cannot be dealt with by a number of separate and unco-ordinated authorities. These problems may in the last resort require the intervention of the legislature. But Parliament is a very bad arena for thrashing out the complicated details of industrial organisation. Even if its ultimate intervention is necessary, it can only intervene successfully after the matters with regard to which it is called upon to act have been thoroughly discussed by

1 A series of four articles in the Sunday Observer, on Jan. 7, 14, 21 and 28, 1923, entitled "Towards Peace in Industry."

2 January 28, 1923.

D