the Board of Trade that representative joint bodies should be formed on a less restricted basis than was contemplated in the first Whitley report. These interim industrial reconstruction
committees, as the joint bodies were called, were begun to be
established by the Ministry of Reconstruction in the beginning of
1918. They differed from joint industrial councils in that they
were not intended to be permanent, and in that they were often
formed in industries which had insufficient organization for joint
industrial councils. They resembled joint industrial councils in
being purely voluntary bodies and in the fact that their members
were representatives of organizations of employers and work-
people. The formation of these interim committees did not vio-
late the agreement as to policy contained in the joint memoran-
dum referred to above, since the committees were formed
primarily for special and temporary purposes, and were not
meant to be permanent. It was contemplated that in some
industries joint industrial councils would develop out of the
interim committees as organization improved and, where
organization remained weak, the existence of such a committee
or any other voluntary body could not prejudice the power of
the Minister of Labour to establish a trade board. A considerable
number of such interim committees were formed. Several of
these became joint industrial councils, some continued to operate
as interim committees, while others had by 1921 ceased to exist,
and in a number of the industries affected trade boards have
since been formed.
The joint industrial councils have, for the most part, been formed on fairly uniform lines. 'A council is usually formed of equal num- bers of members from the employers' associations and from the trade unions connected with the industry. The normal rule as to the ap- pointment of officers is that there should be a chairman and vice- chairman and two secretaries: if the chairman is a member of the employers' side the vice-chairman is chosen from the trade-union side and vice versa, and a change in the side from which the chairman is chosen is made each second year. The secretaries are chosen usually one from each side. The two-sided character of the council is reflected in the rule commonly adopted in regard to voting : that no resolution shall be regarded as carried unless approved by a majority of the members present on either side. Usually in practice this means that decisions have to be arrived at by agreement. The councils generally have adopted not only uniform procedure but also a somewhat uniform statement of functions. The general object of a joint industrial council is often drafted in terms which indicate that it exists, to quote the final report of the Whitley Com- mittee (Cd. 9153), to deal with all "matters affecting the welfare of the industry in which employers and employed are concerned," and to care for " the progressive improvement of the industry as an integral part of the national prosperity." In addition to such general statement of its functions, the constitution of a council usually includes, as more specific objects, the consideration of ques- tions falling under such heads as the following: (a) wages, hours, working conditions, regulation of employment, machinery for settle- ment of differences ; (6) improvement of health conditions in the industry, supervision of entry into and training for the industry; (c) extension of organization in the industry; (d) collection of statistics and information, encouragement of research and of invention, in- quiry into special problems of the industry and publication of re- ports; (e) the formation of district councils and works committees; (/) the representation of the opinions of the industry to the Gov- ernment and (g) cooperation with other councils in matters of com- mon interest. In idea, therefore, the joint industrial councils are differentiated from the pre-war conciliation boards, which were usu- ally confined, by their constitutions, to questions of wage bargain- ing and the like. The number of members on a council varies from as much as 130 in the building trades council (which is exceptional also in several other respects) to 13 on the wall-paper manufacture council. Other councils range between this latter figure and 70 in the printing trades council, about 30 being a common membership. A few councils are differentiated from the others in that they do not concern themselves with negotiations on wages or hours of work or with the settlement of disputes ; the sub-title (building trades parlia- ment) of the council of the building industry is meant to indicate the deliberative, as contrasted with the negotiatory, purposes for which this council was established. The conception of such trades parliament for the industry goes back to 1914.
The most important of the great national industries, which have attained the highest degree of organization, e.g. coal-mining, iron and steel manufacture, cotton manufacture, engineering and iron founding, had not adopted the Whitley scheme up to the early part of 192 1 . The industries in which councils have been formed vary from such national industries as those of building, printing, and wool manufacture to such small and localized industries as the manufacture of bedsteads, locks and latches, needles and fish-hooks.
A large proportion of the industries are local in character, and it may be doubted whether some are more than sections of the indus- trial units for each of which the Whitley Committee meant a national industrial council to be formed. (The Whitley report did not, how- ever, clearly define what it meant by an " industry.") Again, the trade or craft rather than the industrial basis has been adopted in one or two instances. The coopering joint industrial council is an example of this, the organization on both sides following craft lines and being on one side that of the skilled coopers and on the other side that of the employers of such coopers, whether or not master- coopers. The failure to form councils representative of industries rather than trades or crafts would appear to go further than this in so far that the interests represented on several of the councils are only the employers and the trade unions representing considerable sections of more or less homogeneous labour, but not all the occupa- tions in the industry. This failure to realize the completely repre- sentative character of an industry is of interest from more than one point of view. It relates the councils to the well-established forms of pre-war conciliation machinery which have developed generally on a craft or occupational basis. It is important also from the point of view of those wider functions of a character other than wage bargaining which the councils have been expected to undertake. For this purpose it would appear to be necessary to have a body more completely representative than a joint industrial council usually is of all the interests in an industry. The constitution of a joint industrial council commonly allows for the cooptation of expert mem- bers, and the building council has recently in this way made an addition of representatives of the associations of architects and architects' assistants. This, however, is as yet unusual. Though various associations of managerial workers and technical experts have shown a desire to be represented on the councils there has been practically no development in this direction by either direct repre- sentation or cooptation.
The Whitley scheme has been extended to services which are not ordinarily included under the term " industry." A joint industrial council has been formed for the local authorities (administrative, technical and clerical staffs), covering on the employees' side various grades of workers up to and including the higher officials, such 'as town clerks. For the civil service there is an elaborate scheme em- bracing all grades of civil servants in the administrative and legal departments. Various attempts, most of them unsuccessful up to the present, have been made by organizations of bank officers, in- surance clerks, and other "black-coated" workers, to obtain the formation of councils for their professions. This extension of Whit- ley council machinery to services and professions outside the in- dustrial sphere is a natural accompaniment of the growth of organi- zation among non-manual workers, other results of which are to be seen in the establishment of various other forms of conciliation.
The formation of district councils as subsidiary bodies to national councils appears to have been effectively carried out on the lines proposed in the Whitley report only in a very few industries; a considerable number of the effective district councils are connected with the national councils which deal with services under the control of local authorities. The Whitley report further recommended works committees as part of the machinery, and the establishment of such committees as well as district councils has been systemati- cally encouraged and assisted by the Ministry of Labour as part of the development of the Whitley scheme. Works committees were the subject of a separate report of the Committee on Relations be- tween Employers and Employed (Cd. 9085), and at the request of that committee the Ministry of Labour made an inquiry into existing works committees in the winter of 1917-8 (Ministry of Labour Industrial Report No. 2). The number of works committees in existence throughout the country is small in relation to the number of industrial establishments of suitable size. Several of the joint industrial councils e.g. those for the pottery and the iron and steel wire industries have taken active steps to have such com- mittees established in the works which were considered suitable, but little progress appears to have been made in some of the other industries which possess Whitley councils.
By far the largest bulk of the work done by the joint industrial councils has taken the form of the settlement of the rates of wages, hours of work, and similar questions. Agreements on such ques- tions, some of them national agreements, have been arranged on the majority of the councils, and the formation of the councils has meant the introduction for the first time into some of the industries of systematic methods of collective bargaining.
Some councils have made reports on education as affecting their industries, and others have dealt with such questions as conditions of safety in the works. The pottery council has conducted an inquiry into average earnings, costs and profits upon turnover. A report of the majority of a sub-committee of the building council, not adopted by the council, contained proposals for a radical al- teration in the economic basis of the industry.
Other Bodies. The name " Industrial Council " has been applied in two important instances to bodies other than Whitley councils. In Oct. 1911, following upon the transport and other strikes of that year, an addition was made by the Government to
