The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

APPENDIX 105

and co-ordinate the industrial life of the nation. Further, it requests the National Executive of the Party to bring up a scheme embodying these proposals at the next Annual Conference after conferring with the Trade Union Congress.”’

Proposed by J. E. Woop. Seconded by H. W. SHAW.

In forwarding this resolution, which we earnestly invite your Executive to endorse, we are guided by the following considerations :—

I. The work that lies before the Labour Party, now and for many years to come, must deal mainly with the economic and industrial condition of Great Britain. It is therefore of vital importance that our legislative machinery should be so constituted that it will respond readily and without wasteful delays to our industrial demands.

2. The present Parliamentary machine, being devised for purely political purposes, with innumerable balances and counter checks, is hopelessly unfitted to carry out the industrial programme to which the Labour Party is committed. You will observe that if this programme is to be realised, it can only be achieved by a large control and co-ordination of all the economic factors in the country. Thus the passage into law of this or that industrial measure does not carry us very far, because the elements of control and co-ordination are missing. This control and co-ordination is only possible when confided to an industrial authority with full power to re-organise industry in all its branches from finance, credit and exchange to production and distribution. To expect the House of Commons to do this is to throw upon it responsibilities altogether incompatible with its political work. Itis evident to any unprejudiced observer that the political work of the Labour Government has so far been splendidly accomplished. In knowledge, foresight, imagination, it compares favourably with its