The last important announcement was the _Manifesto on Unemployment_ issued by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the National Executive of the Labour Party after the Trades Union Congress at Cardiff in 1921, “for the information of the Government and the public.” It declared, in now familiar language, that unemployment is a national problem, and that the Government is wholly wrong in adopting measures of local treatment. No district, it is asserted, has any control over, or any responsibility for, its unemployment. To make districts responsible is to subject working-class areas of low rateable value to excessive and unjust burdens which they cannot bear and which ought in equity to be spread over the whole country. The Party expressed its strong objection to the limited advances made by the State to the local authorities in respect of relief works, especially to the necessity for so much expenditure being raised by local loans, by that method placing, it was said, the burden upon the backs of ratepayers of the very areas whose affliction was already the greatest. Once again the Trades Union Congress at Cardiff reaffirmed what was described as the fundamental principle—“the duty of the State to provide work or adequate maintenance for every willing worker.” Accordingly the Government was required to discontinue countenancing wage reductions, and to stimulate normal production by maintaining the purchasing power of the workers and thereby sustain the whole market. It is also affirmed that sufficient orders for work to relieve unemployment will not be forthcoming except on the basis of national credit. The Government Departments are urged to anticipate, and now place orders for, their future needs, and the Government itself is recommended to place substantial orders for staple commodities with manufacturers, at prices agreed after an examination of costs, and to export these commodities on credit to continental countries needing them, selling them either directly to the Governments of those countries or to Co-operative Societies or other organizations in them, and at the same time to arrange for the sale or other disposal at home of any remaining portions of the stocks of such commodities. In addition a 40-hour working week should be introduced. This, it is said, would result in (i) the maintenance of the morale and efficiency of the people; (ii) the maintenance of machinery in working order pending the return of normal trade; (iii) the maintenance and improvement of the home trade and the stimulation of foreign commerce; (iv) the saving of enormous sums on unemployment benefit and poor law relief. So, it was claimed, the problem of unemployment could be reduced to proportions capable of being adequately dealt with by public works. These formed the next consideration. The Government was requested to prepare a list of schemes of national works in the order of their demand for labour, giving