came in as the supply department, which, by reason of its intimate association with employers, could effectively supplement the statutory duties of the Home Office. It is doubtful how far the Ministry had any statutory basis for the important duties they discharged in this direction. But they had a power greater perhaps even than that of statute the power of the purse. When the Department urged upon employers the provision of suitable can- teens, rest-rooms and welfare superintendents, they could hope that their recommendations would be (as they generally were) accepted because they had power to write off the firms' expenditure in this respect against excess profits. But here again the interesting point that emerges is that the experiment of the Ministry of Munitions for meeting a war need has profoundly affected the attitude of em- ployers generally to these problems.
Finally, so far as housing is concerned, the first point of interest is that by assuming direct responsibility for the provision of houses, the Ministry foreshadowed or perhaps even pointed the way to the great responsibility for the general housing of the population assumed after the war by the Ministry of Health. The State had admitted that for certain war purposes it had obligations in respect of housing ; it was difficult to deny these obligations in the face of the even more clamant demands of peace.
Before leaving the subject of housing, a brief reference should be made to the Billeting of Civilians Act of 1917. When it became apparent that housing difficulties were proving a real obstacle to the production of munitions, and that it was hopeless to expect that new houses could be built in time to meet the need, the Government decided on the drastic step of introducing an Act, under which they took power to billet munitions workers compulsorily, if adequate accommodation were not forthcoming. A central billeting board was set up to carry the Act into effect, and billeting officers were appointed. In fact, the principal value of the Act proved to be the threat of compulsion. In place of making orders, the general procedure was to hold conferences in the most congested districts, which generally resulted in the provision of increased accommoda- tion without the need of a resort to compulsion. Though figures could not easily be obtained to support the view it is probable that the Act had a considerable success.
(5) The Handling of Wages Problem. Any account of labour regulation would be incomplete which did not indicate the degree to which success or failure in handling the wages problem may affect the whole labour situation. During the war, wages did not have quite so predominant a share in moulding the point of view of workmen to industrial questions as during peace. Questions such as dilution, and compulsory military service, took their place side by side with wages as topics of first-class importance to labour. But none the less a failure to deal with wages would have constituted a failure to regulate labour. Clear above all the conflicting considerations that remain when the general Govern- ment policy is considered there stand out the two great experi- ments in handling wages (a) compulsory arbitration, and (A) fixing of wages by administrative orders.
Compulsory arbitration had long formed the subject of controversy, and had long been repudiated by labour opinion, on the plain ground that such arbitra'ion necessarily destroyed the right to strike. Labour opinion, though fully conscious of the economic wastefulness of this desperate resort, regarded it none the less as the ultima ratio. The right to resort to it had been finally consecrated by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, and any interference with or reduction of the extreme right was regarded as a vital attack on the general liberties of labour. But the war proved in the end too strong even for this view. For the first few months, in the general engineering and shipbuilding trades, wages did not play any very considerable part. Overtime to an unheard-of extent was being worked, and unemployment was non-existent for any man who cared to work ; so that rates of wages could safely be left to look after themselves. But as the shortage of labour grew more and more pronounced, a sharp change came over the situation. Employers began to bid against one another; and disparities between one factory and another, and between one district and another, began to have an effect on the minds of the workpeople. Moreover, at the beginning of 1915 an old-standing difficulty between employers and employed in the Clyde reemerged, and the atmosphere began to be charged with a certain liveliness. But over and above this there was a genuine reluctance among workpeople to put themselves in the position of striking, and thus ceasing to produce the munitions of which their brothers in the field were so urgently in want. It was principally this factor, though the others were also material,
that made it possible, when the Treasury agreement forbidding strikes and lockouts was concluded, to couple with that provision the institution of arbitration, which by the Munitions of War Act, 1915, became compulsory.
It cannot be pretended that at any time the strongly organized part of the labour world welcomed or approved of compulsory arbitration, but equally it cannot be denied that the principle was legally accepted. The statistics of strikes and lockouts during the war period indeed show that the principle was by no means universally accepted, but in weighing the statistics account must be taken of the fact that all the most considerable strikes were uncon- nected with wages. But, even allowing for a considerable body of strikes on wages and even against decisions of the compul- sory tribunals, the experiment must be considered to have been successful. It is therefore the more surprising that labour opinion should have been so little converted to its use.
The reasons for this are not far to seek. In the first place it is one thing to abandon the strike weapon during war, when it operates as much against the strikers as against the employers. It is quite another thing to abandon or even to restrict its use during peace. In the second place, from the labour point of view, compulsory arbitration during a period of acute labour shortage and rising prices resolved itself into a question of determining only how much wages should be advanced, and never how much they should be reduced. And finally there existed the order- making powers of the Ministry of Munitions, which could be, and indeed constantly were, resorted to, as an alternative to, and as a means of evading, compulsory arbitration.
On the general effect of compulsory arbitration it may fairly be said that, though its compulsory character was abandoned with the termination of the war except in so far as it was kept alive for a strictly limited period by the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Acts, it had familiarized great masses of workpeople to the principle of arbitration, whether compulsory or not. In this way, by pointing to a central settlement of labour questions without resort to industrial warfare, the system of compulsory arbitration has had enduring effects.
Side by side with the awards of the arbitration tribunals, and only too often conflicting with them, there came into existence the direct power of the Ministry of Munitions to make orders. As between awards and orders it is f de " . f sufficient to say here that, while there is a great deal tl of ' to be said for orders, whether direct or through a Munitions. trade organization, in respect of unorganized trades, it is difficult in theory to defend orders in respect of organized trades. But theory in war-time has a habit of being ineffective. The critics who point scornfully to what they regard as the dis- aster of the repeal of Section 7 and the granting of the 12%% bonus, have this advantage over those responsible for these measures. They see what happened as a result of their introduc- tion: they do not, however, see what was avoided. They are therefore ready to assume that the difficulties avoided are negli- gible in comparison with those created. Nothing can controvert them, except possibly the fact that in spite, it may even be as a result, of measures such as these in face of unspeakable strain and anxiety, the working classes remained resolutely, loyally, and with but trifling interruptions, at work till Nov. n 1918.
The origin of the order-making power is to be found in the prosecution of the Government's proposals for dilution. The principal stumbling block at the end of 1915 was the fear that the introduction of semi-skilled men and women upon work hitherto performed by skilled men would depress the level of the wages. The trade unions demanded that the Government should take powers to prevent that depression. These powers were taken under Sections 6, 7 and 8 of the Munitions of War Act, 1916, which enabled the Minister of Munitions (i) to make orders concerning the wages, hours of labour and conditions of employ- ment, (a) of women employed on munitions work in establish- ments subject to the provisions of Section 7 of the principal Act, and (b) of certain classes of semi-skilled and unskilled men em- ployed in controlled establishments; and also (2) to constitute
