The next important declaration in 1919 by Labour in respect of unemployment is contained in the _Joint Report of the Provisional Joint Committee presented to the Meeting of the Industrial Conference, Central Hall, Westminster, April 4, 1919_ (_Parliamentary Paper_, 1920, Cmd. 501). It will be remembered that on February 27, 1919, the Government called together, under the shadow of a miners’ strike, a Conference consisting of representatives of employers and Trade Unions to consider the industrial situation. That Conference, after expressing its opinion that any preventible dislocation of industry was always to be deplored and in the then existing critical period of reconstruction might be disastrous to the interests of the nation, resolved to appoint a Joint Committee to consider, amongst other things, the question of unemployment and its prevention. A unanimous report was presented by the Joint Committee, signed by the employers’ representatives and also by the Trade Unions’ representatives, the latter representing all the great Trade Unions, with the exception of the railwaymen, the miners and the transport workers. In their Report the Committee stated that they had not had sufficient time at their disposal to investigate thoroughly the problem of unemployment, and therefore would only indicate briefly some of the steps which might be taken to minimize it or alleviate it. As aids in this direction they recommended organized short-time, the working of overtime only in special cases, postponement, until bad times, of Government non-urgent contracts, prosecution without delay of a comprehensive housing programme, State development of new industries such as afforestation, reclamations of waste lands, development of inland waterways and, in agricultural districts, the development of light railways and/or road transport. In addition the Committee recommended that the normal provision for maintenance during unemployment should be on a more adequate scale, and be wider in its application than was provided by the then existing Unemployment Insurance Acts, and advocated the extension of the National Unemployment Insurance Scheme to underemployment (i.e. workers on short-time or casual employment for less than a full working week). They also recommended the provision of facilities whereby workers while unemployed and in receipt of unemployment benefit could obtain access without payment of fees to opportunities for continuing their education and improving their qualifications. Child-labour, they advised, should in times of unemployment be limited, and sickness and infirmity benefits increased, the age of qualification for old age pensions reduced and the amount of the pension increased. The Right Hon. A. Henderson’s Addendum