THE MINISTRY OF LABOUR : PARADISE BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
RUMOUR has it persistently that the Sir Erie Geddes Business Economy Committee intend to recommend the abolition of the Employment. Exchanges. But whether these institutions are to receive sentence of death from the august tribunal which is now sitting in state at Glenapp Castle is a matter of small moment. The verdict has long since been returned by the jury of common sense.
The Employment Exchanges were constituted in 1903 for the purpose as defined by Mr. Winston Churchill; their founder, of finding work for those who could not find it for themselves. They have done nothing of the sort. The last statistics published by the Ministry of Labour show that in a period of five weeks they received 650,292 applications by workpeoplo. and 92,069 by employers. In addition to these applications they had nearly two million outstanding applications. The efficiency and utility of the Ministry are well illustrated by the fact that the total number of vacancies filled amounts to 79,585, or less than 3 per cent. of the applications 1 The cost of the Labour Exchanges this year is £2,500,000. Some idea can therefore be formed—albeit an inadequate one—of the number of pounds it takes to get each successful applicant a job. We say an inadequate one for two reasons. First, these figures do not by any means represent the total sums expended on the unemployed ' • secondly, there is no means of gauging how long a man keeps a job when the Ministry of Labour takes credit for having found him one. For it must not be forgotten that the Ministry of Labour takes credit in its statistics for situations found for men who, " fed up " with waiting in a queue; have found jobs for themselves. Every man who is struck off the list for whatever cause figures in the Ministry's, return as a man for whom it has found a job.. The Labour Exchange has generally had as little to do with it as the man in the moon. Again, the Y.M.C.A. and other voluntary organizations have been successful in placing large numbers of the unemployed in employment. For their efforts the Ministry of Labour has not scrupled to take credit. Similarly, the Pensions Ministry was given authority to find jobs for ex-Service men only on condition that the Labour Ministry included them. on its returnsl That the Ministry should be so anxious to claim recognition for work it has not done is quite comprehensible when one looks at the statistics of the vacancies: filled. We believe that the taxpayer pays no less than £20 per head for the luxury of reading the name of each " successful applicant in the statistics of the. Ministry of Labour. A Trade Union can probably find the man a job for about 6d.
The statistics compiled by the Ministry of Labour are thus a monument to the futility and, gross extravagance of the Labour Exchanges. Realizing this, the Ministry deliberately camouflaged the cost of the Exchanges by making them the agencies for administering the Unem- ployment Insurance Act. As, on their own merits, they were incapable of justifying their existence, they had to be kept alive by artificial respiration. That Act saved the salaries of about 30,000 officials, which doubtless in official minds was sufficient excuse and justification for its passing. In less than a year, however, the Act has twice broken down. Contributions have twice had to be raised and donations decreased. Now that the Act has been a failure, some other device will have to be found if the Exchanges, which it was destined to buttress, are to remain standing. We venture to hold the opinion that even the bureaucratic ingenuity of the present Administration will not be found sufficient further to justify the existence of the Employment Exchanges. But it is not only in the face of the figures and the facts that the Employment Exchanges stand condemned. Theoretically they were destined to be a failure. Their essential weakness lies in the fact that the State machine cannot command a knowledge of vacancies. The Trade Unions will, naturally,_ not allow Labour Exchanges to compete with them as a market for skilled labour. Again, if the Exchange offers a man a job, it has no means of testing whether that job has been justifiably refused. A man sitting behind the counter of a Labour Exchange is not in the position of a doctor under the Health Insurance Act, who can certify from expert knowledge Whether or not a person is suffering from a disability which prevents work. The official at the Exchange is at the mercy of the applicant. The police-court cases show in the most glaring manner the abuses to which the Exchanges have been put. They have become the happy hunting ground of the humbug and the " lead-swinger." Their methods are an insult to respectable men in search of honest work.
Thus, by whatever standard they be judged, the Labour Exchanges cannot justify their existence. Finan- cially, they are a waste of money. In practice, they are inefficient. Theoretically, they are unsound. We go further, and we say that they must bear their share of responsibility for the present unemployment problem. They have been a sinister agency in accustoming the population to the belief that a dole is the right of all men who demand it. In one way or another, therefore, they must be cleaned away. Their abolition will make the way clear for the removal of the Ministry of Labour itself. The whole Ministry, indeed, suffers from the defects of its component parts. In public the Minister of Labour is apt to justify the existence of his Department en the ground that it is responsible for the training of q-Service men. It is one of the most unpleasing aspects 9f political life to-day that the ex-Service man's name is used as a prophylactic against attack. That name is made to cover more than it justifiably should, and a whole Ministry may escape warrantable criticism of its working on the ground that it has something to do with ex-Service men. The Department has two branches of training— one for ex-Service men whose apprenticeship was inter- rupted at the time of their enlistment, the other for the training of demobilized officers and men who desire to take up new occupations. The Ministry of Labour has, so far as we are aware, never informed the public what value has been received for the large outlays of money it has made. Certain statements, it is true, have from time to time been made, but the public has every right to know, with precision and accuracy, how many men have got into the trades for which they were trained, and how many have found it possible or been willing to stick to the trades for which the Ministry has trained them. It must surely have been possible for Dr. Macnamara to have obtained this information in the past two and a-half years since these schemes of training were started. I.Jnhappily, he has contented himself with giving certain figures which do not reveal the whole of the position. Our information is that very few men have taken advantage if the money that has been spent on them. If the money as been well spent, we shall be very glad to hear it. We ave consistently advocated the claims of ex-Service men in these columns. But the fact that money is being spent on ex-Service men does not necessarily give the Departments responsible for spending it immunity from criticism. That, however, is a small matter. Let us look at the figures of the Department itself.
On administration alone the Ministry of Labour spends £5,000 003 a year, whereas the total cost of the Ministry is £20,000,000. A Department which spends 25 per cent. of its total vote on officials is prima facie not being run on business lines. But what does it do for the money ? Apart from the training of ex-Service men, it exists for five purposes—for the settlement of trade disputes, for the maintenance of Whitley Councils, for the maintenance of Wages Boards, for finding work for the unemployed, for working the Unemployment Insurance A-ct. With the last two activities we have already dealt. In the others it has lamentably failed. In regard to trade disputes, the estimated aggregate duration of all disputes reported during the first six months of the present year was approximately 77,000,000 working days. That is a tribute to the promptitude with which the Ministry of Labour settles trade disputes I The total number of workpeople involved in all disputes in progress in the month of June last was 1,535,000, as compared with 1,152,000 in the previous month, and only 128,000 in June, 1920. In the few cases in which the Ministry of Labour has been known to settle a trade dispute, the results have been disastrous to the taxpayer and the consumer. In regard to Whitley Councils, the rules governing these bodies have been drawn up so carefully as to exclude from review matters that both sides are afraid of talking about. During the five weeks ending July 3rd there were only thirty-five meetings of Joint Industrial Councils, fourteen of District Councils, and five of Interim Industrial Reconstruction Committees. The Ministry of Labour has been of no use in trade disputes. The Trade Unions themselves are jealous of the Councils. They prefer to meet the employers direct and settle the questions ad hoc. In any case, it does not require a Government Department to run Whitley Councils. It does not require a Govern- ment Department to proclaim with a blast of trumpets that two sides to a dispute may meet if they so desire. If employers and employed want Whitley Councils, they will keep them without the assistance of the Ministry of Labour.
We therefore welcome the rumour that the Sir Eric Geddes Business Economy Committee is to recommend the abolition of the Labour Exchanges. It is certain that we should have to wait until Doomsday for the Ministry of Labour to recommend their abolition itself. Government Departments are at all times reluctant to reform themselves. There was, therefore, never much to be hoped from the " 20 per cent. circular." Salutary improvements must come from outside pressure. We hope that the Sir Eric Geddes Economy Committee will not stop short at recommending the " scrapping" of the Labour Exchanges. We hope that it will recommend the " scrapping " of the Ministry of Labour itself. The Committee has a great opportunity. It can destroy once and for all the notion that Government Departments can do for people what they should do for themselves, and that Paradise can be brought to earth by Act of Parliament.
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