The Government are going to organise a new office, which
shall be as perfect an intelligence department in all matters that affect employment and the general interests of Labour as can be devised. On Tuesday, Mr. Mundella received a deputation consisting of members of the Co-operative Union of Great Britain and of the Trades-Union Congress, which urged on him the formation of a Labour Bureau, and to this deputation he expounded his scheme. The new office, though nominally a branch of the Board of Trade, and under the general control of Mr. Giffen, will virtually be independent. The Labour Department, which will occupy " separate buildings of its own," will have a Commissioner of Labour, -a Chief Labour Correspondent, three sub-correspondents (one of them a lady), and some thirty clerks. It will publish monthly a Labour gazette, containing all sorts of information useful to working men and women, and also monthly digests of the factory and mining reports submitted to the Home Office, and other official papers. It will cost ld. ; but free copies will be sent to all institutions. We see no sort of objection to the plan. One of the great solvents in what is called the strife between Labour and Capital, but which is really their active union, is information ; and the more facts are collected and set forth, the less likely we are to get into trouble. A trustworthy Labour thermometer is a real need. Just as no one can trust his feeling as to how cold it is, so it is impossible to tell by general impressions whether Labour is well or badly off at a particular moment.
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