Ever since the Armistice conciliatory spirits have been working for
peace in the shipbuilding industry which, since the boom, has been more and more depressed until its records of employment are the unhappiest in Great Britain ; and yet no industry has clung more obstinately to pedantic restrictions. Last week the draft of an agreement between the Federations of employers and workmen was published and gives good hope for the future. It is still to be followed by efforts to draw up a wages agreement, but we derive our hope from the reasonableness and desire for peace which must have prevailed on both sides throughout the negotiations. The last resort to the strike or lock-out is not eliminated, but these become really impossible where there is honest good will. Every dispute is to be considered without delay in the yard where it occurs (and can best be settled). If agreement is not reached there it moves up expedi- tiously by other stages, at each of which it may be settled, to a final court of arbitration with an independent chairman. On neither side has any fault been found • with the draft. The only hitch in ratification may lie in obstruction from certain unions to which belong certain men employed in shipyards but which have seceded from the main Federation. They were invited to attend the negotiations, but held aloof, and thus lost any real right to criticize the results.
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