The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

xi FOREWORD

consideration of measures for joint or several action to anticipate and avoid threatened disputes ; (c) the consideration of actual disputes involving general questions; (d) the consideration of legislative proposals affecting industrial relations; (e) to advise the Government on industrial questions and on the general industrial situation; (f) to issue statements for the guidance of public opinion on industrial issues. There was to have been a standing committee of this body consisting of fifty members, twenty-five from each side, which was to act as a sort of executive body. The whole thing was to have been financed by the Government. In effect, it would have meant the creation of a large conference of employers and Trade Union representatives, meeting twice a year (oftener if emergency arose) to deal with questions brought before it by its Standing Committee, meeting at least once a month and oftener if necessary.

It is clear that those who framed this scheme of a National Industrial Council approached the question from a totally different angle from that of Hobson’s House of Industry. The advocates of a Parliament of Industry, which had a shortlived boom immediately after the War, were obsessed with the fear of industrial conflict; they talked of peace and their Industrial Parliament was conceived in this spirit; it was concerned with very little more than the regulation of industrial relations, though it might conceivably have developed on wider lines. It is still true to say that in the minds of many trade unionists, the