The Government scheme for the strengthening and improv- ing of
the existing official machinery for settling and shorten- ing labour disputes was announced by the Board of Trade on Tuesday night. It is proposed to establish an Industrial Council, representative in equal numbers of employers and workmen, with Sir George Askwith as chairman. The employers' representatives are Sir Charles Macara, President of the Federation of Master Cotton Spinners Associations (who is understood to have taken a leading part in suggesting the council), Sir Hugh Bell, Sir T. Ratcliffe Ellis, and Messrs. G. H. Claughton, W. A. Clowes, J. H. C. Crockett, F. L. Davis, T. L. Devitt, F. W. Gibbine, Robert Thompson, M.P., Alexander Siemens, and J. W. White. The representatives of the workmen are the Right Hon. Thomas Burt, M.P., and Messrs. T. Ashton, C. W. Bowerman, M.P., F. Chandler, J. R. Clynes, M.P., H. Gosling, Arthur Hender- son, M.P., John Hodge, M.P., W. Mosses, W. Mullin, E. L. Poulton, Alexander Wilkie, M.P., and J. E. Williams. The council will not have any compulsory powers, but is esta- blished to consider and inquire into matters referred to them affecting trade disputes, and especially with a view to "taking suitable action in regard to any dispute referred to them affecting the principal trades of the country or likely to cause disagreement involving the ancillary trades, or which the parties before or after the breaking out of a dispute are themselves unable to settle." The persons chosen are all of high character, and we have no complaint to make against them. We do think, however, that some effort should have been made to obtain representatives of the non- union labourers. Considering bow vastly they outnumber the trade unionists, it is surely unfair that the council should be confined to the employers and unionists.
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