On March 21, 1919, the Labour Party brought to second reading in the House of Commons their “Prevention of Unemployment Bill,” which embodied only the old principles that Labour had been advocating since 1900, to meet seasonal and cyclical unemployment. The Bill in no sense met the present abnormal trade depression, and was rejected. It proposed to vest in the Minister of Labour all powers and duties in regard to unemployment insurance, the prevention of destitution, and the relief of the able-bodied poor. It provided that the Minister should advise the Treasury how the various Government works and services should be organized and apportioned over different seasons of each year, and spread over different years, so as “to regularize” the national aggregate demand for employment, including both public and private employment, as between the different seasons of the year, and as between the good and bad years of a trade cycle, and so, by maintaining at an approximately constant level the national aggregate demand for labour both by private employer and by public departments, prevent irregularity of employment. It also put the Minister under an obligation to establish and maintain such institutions as he should deem requisite, in which he was to provide for able-bodied persons entitled to public assistance under the Act, and for whom no suitable situation could be found, such employment of an educational character and such physical and mental and technological training as he should think fit. All persons admitted to such institutions were to be provided by the Minister with proper maintenance. The Bill in addition proposed to constitute as the local unemployment authority, who were to act through an unemployment committee, the London County Council in respect of the Administrative County of London, and the council of every borough and urban district of a population of 20,000 or over, and the county councils in respect of the rest of an administrative county. Each such council, acting through the unemployment committee, was to be bound to organize all work—manual or clerical—under its control, so as to maintain the labour demand in its district at a constant uniform level. In addition, each such council was to be put under obligation to provide every person, for whom suitable employment could not be found, with such maintenance as its medical officer of health might certify to be necessary to maintain such unemployed person and his dependents in a state of physical efficiency. All the expenses of the local unemployment authorities in carrying out the Act were to be met out of the local rates to the extent of a 1_d._ rate; all expenses over the proceeds of a 1_d._ rate were to be recovered from the Treasury. There was no limit whatever to the charge under the Bill[9] upon national funds. Labour’s Recommendations to the Industrial Conference, 1919