ference of Trade Union delegates, representing 1,400,000 members,
approves of the establishment of Labour Exchanges on a national basis,
under the control of the Board of Trade, provided that the managing
board contains at least an equal proportion of employers and
representatives of Trade Unions." The Central Unemployed Body for
London, by a Resolution in June 1908, declared in favour of a national
system of Labour Exchanges. Economists as divergent in opinion as
Professor Ashley, of Birmingham, and Professor Chapman, of Manchester,
have all approved and urged the project publicly in the strongest
terms. Several of the principal members of the late Government have,
either in evidence before the Poor Law Commission or in public
speeches, expressed themselves in favour of Labour Exchanges, and the
Report of the delegates of the Labour Party to Germany strongly
approves of the system which they found there, namely: "the
co-ordination and systematic management of Public Labour Exchanges."

The British authorities which I have mentioned are reinforced by the
example of many foreign countries; and as early as 1904 the Board of
Trade, in its reports on agencies and methods of dealing with
unemployed in foreign countries, drew attention to the very
considerable extension of Labour Exchanges in the last three years in
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, and Belgium. Since then Norway
has been added to the list. Mr. W. Bliss, in the Bulletin of the
_Washington Bureau of Labour_ for May, 1908, in the course of a survey
of the whole field of unemployment and of possible remedies, says,
"The most important agencies for providing work for the unemployed
who are employable, but have no prospect of returning to their former
positions, are the public employment bureaux. These are largely
developed in a number of European countries, and especially in
Germany, where they have grown rapidly in the last twenty years, both
in numbers and in efficiency." So that the House will see that we have
behind us this afternoon not only a practical consensus of opinion
among authorities at home in favour of the policy, but the spectacle
of its successful practice on an extensive scale, and over a period of
years, in the greatest industrial community of the Continent, and its
extension in various degrees to many other countries.

I do not, therefore, propose to occupy the time of the House with any
elaborate justification of the merits of the Bill.