n
order that the proposals for Labour Exchanges which we are now putting
forward may be properly understood, and may not be underrated or
misjudged. We cannot bring the system of unemployment insurance before
Parliament in a legislative form this year for five reasons: We have
not now got the time; we have not yet got the money; the finance of
such a system has to be adjusted and co-ordinated with the finance of
the other insurance schemes upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer
is engaged; the establishment of a system of Labour Exchanges is the
necessary forerunner and foundation of a system of insurance; and,
lastly, no such novel departure as unemployment insurance could
possibly be taken without much further consultation and negotiation
with the trade unions and employers specially concerned than the
conditions of secrecy under which we have been working have yet
allowed. This business of conference and consultation of the fullest
character will occupy the winter, when the Board of Trade will confer
with all parties affected, so that the greatest measure of agreement
may be secured for our proposals when they are next year presented in
their final form.

It is only necessary for me to add that the pressure and prospect of
these heavy duties have required me to make a re-arrangement of the
Labour Department of the Board of Trade. I propose to divide it into
three sections. The first will be concerned with Wages questions and
Trade disputes, with Arbitration, Conciliation, and with the working
of the Trade Boards Bill, should it become law; the second, with
Statistics, the Census of Production, Special Inquiries, and _The
Labour Gazette_; and the third, with Labour Exchanges and Unemployment
Insurance.

One of the functions of the last section will be to act as a kind of
intelligence bureau, watching the continual changes of the labour
market here and abroad, and suggesting any measure which may be
practicable, such as co-ordination and distribution of Government
contracts and municipal work, so as to act as a counterpoise to the
movement of the ordinary labour market, and it will also, we trust, be
able to conduct examinations of schemes of public utility, so that
such schemes can, if decided upon by the Government and the Treasury,
be set on foot at any time with knowledge and forethought, instead of
the haphazard, hand-to-mouth manner with which we try to deal with
these emergencies at the present time.

S