It was the Trade Unions themselves who represented to the Government that if anything was to be done in the direction of suspending trade customs, the Government would have to take the matter into their own hands. So, in March 1915, a conference was held at the Treasury, when the Cabinet made a direct appeal to the Trade Unions of the country, and concluded a treaty known as the “Treasury” Agreement which, had it been successful, would have secured for the war period a suspension of strikes and of all restrictions upon output. The treaty, however, turned out to be completely ineffective, and the cause is illuminating. At the beginning of March the cost of living had gone up, according to the Board of Trade statistics, to 15 to 20 per cent. above the July 1914 figure. There was a general outburst throughout the country against profiteering; Labour reprinted and circulated Mr. Bonar Law’s famous statement that “well-managed ships to-day are making simply enormous profits, and those profits come from the very cause for which the people of this country are making sacrifices in every direction and even giving their lives” (_Parliamentary Debates_, 1915, Vol. 69,793). The result was an immediate increase in strikes. The following were the stoppages of work reported to the Board of Trade: Number of disputes in progress at beginning of 1915, 10. During January 1915 30 fresh disputes. ” February ” 47 ” ” ” March ” 74 ” ” ” April ” 44 ” ” ” May ” 63 ” ” The Limitation of Employers’ Profits