I appeal to my hon. Friends below me not to delay this Bill. In the first place, the Bill is a great deal between the employers and the trade unions, and while it is quite true that there is a new point of view, I think the House would be wise in view of the existing circumstances of the industrial world to grant the Bill a reading without delay. I was one of those who appeared at the Treasury in 1915, and although at that time I was against the Treasury I subsequently supported the scheme and its incorporation in the Munitions of War Act. I have been talking to some of the employers who were directly affected by a Bill of this character, and I want to pay my need of credit to them. Everyone knows Sir Allan Smith, of the Engineering Employers' Federation, and he has declared that it would be a very grave act for the community not to accept the present agreed Bill. The employers have unanimously accepted it. I want to say at once that the Government are in no sense responsible for the delay in the restoration of pre-war practices. The delay has occurred because of negotiations that have been going on between the employers and the skilled workmen. There are few men in this House who ought to object to this Bill more than my right hon. Friend and myself. We have got a large membership of the male dilutee class and of women workers. While I am in sympathy with them, we ought not to overlook the fact that not a single trade union women's organisation has made suggestions for the Amendment of this Bill, and not a single one of the branches of the women affiliated to my National Federation has made suggestions with regard to the Amendment of this Bill. Our attitude of mind and our policy is that in loyalty to our skilled comrades who gave up their old trade union practices and privileges in 1915 for the purpose of winning the War more speedily, our unskilled workmen's unions and our trade union women's organisation are going to support this Bill. What we hope is, like my hon. Friend opposite, that the Bill in practice will become a dead letter. As a matter of fact I go so far as to say this, that I hope when this Bill becomes law both the employers and the skilled workmen and representatives of semi-skilled workmen's organisations and representatives of distinct trade union women's organisations may meet and endeavour to mitigate any particular asperi- ties or hardships that may be contained in this Bill against the general workers. That is why I plead that there should be up delay in passing this vindication of a pledge given by the Government which must be carried out.

Let me refer to some of the speeches which have been made. There has been the statement to the effect that trade union rules limit output. I thought we had got away from that point of mind entirely. I am one of those who have been engaged in setting up or framing the constitution of something like thirty-three industrial councils for industries in this country, and I am constantly up against this point of view which seems to me to be a more dangerous point of view than employers think or than pre-war trade union practices are. I still find there is a desire to get more out of the human factor than in the past. You can get no more in point of output from the human factor in industry but you can increase output very considerably, and everybody who knows anything about the matter will agree, but that can only be done by a more scientific organisation of industry than that which existed in pre-war times. I was speaking to an industrial reconstruction committee the other night on this point and I gave my experience in America in 1903. I pointed out how things there were organised and I gave an instance of a cabinet factory, where the timber went in on one side and came out at the other, the finished product ready to put on the railway truck. We hear about hustle. I never saw any hustle in the American factories. What I did see was that the skilled workman kept at his bench with a steady stroke all day long which told at the end. When he wanted a piece of timber, or anything else, instead of leaving the bench, and thus having the highly paid man going down for the timber to get it marked out, and thereby possibly losing three hours, an unskilled man, who was of course paid less, was sent for it, and in that way the time of the highly-paid skilled man was saved. I worked in a factory myself where, as a matter of fact, and the same practice obtains now, I had to go down four flights of stairs where the timber was cut and to go back those four flights of stairs again, and on every job lasting about ten days I lost three days because of a lack of organisation in that factory.

The other day we were setting up an industrial council in a certain industry which I will not mention, but the name of which I am prepared to give to any hon. Member. The employers said they were subject to foreign competition and that if they did not get a considerable output from the men with reduced hours and increased wages, their foreign competitors would knock them out of the market. We told this fact all over the Kingdom, that the industry must be saved by giving greater output. The men came along to the industrial council and they showed that they could give 25 per cent. increased output, although the hours had been reduced and the wages increased. The employers said, "That is not enough, we must have 30 per cent." The men declared in answer to that, "If you will organise your factory scientifically so that the men will not have to carry great loads along the workshop, or, in other words, if you will take the product when it comes out of the machine upon a kind of endless chain, you will save us men running about and we can give you a 35 per cent. increase in output if the employers will do that." They are still as they were, and apparently are going to remain as they have been for twenty-five years. I suggest to the House that if that trade is lost, as it will be under those conditions, the workmen are not responsible for it. I mention these matters in reply to what was said by my hon. Friend opposite and the hon. Member for Maccles field, and I emphasise again that I do not think you cart get any more out of the human factor in industry. But I am absolutely convinced you can get a considerably greater output if employers and workmen on the Whitley Councils will only set-to and scientifically organise the factories and workshops of this Kingdom. I hope that in that process, and as a result of the efforts of the Whitley Council, that the trade union practices that will be restored by this Bill will not unduly interfere, and I hope when this Bill becomes law that the representatives of the workmen upon the Whitley Councils and the trade unions will see the necessity if labour gets a square deal of considerably increasing the output and putting us on a fair footing with our world competitors.