The Statutes under which the Ministry of Labour acts are: Conciliation Act, 1896, and Industrial Courts Act, 1919, in relation to conciliation in, and settlement of, labour disputes; Labour Exchanges Act, 1909—establishment and administration of Employment Exchanges; Unemployment Insurance Acts—insurance against unemployment; Trade Boards Acts, 1909-1918—fixing of statutory minimum rates of wages. In addition, the Ministry has a number of temporary duties such as the training of men disabled in the war and of youths whose apprenticeship was interrupted by war service. Certain other branches of labour legislation are administered by other Government Departments as shown below: (1) The Factories and Workshops Acts and allied legislation dealing with the hours of employment of women and young persons, the health and safety of the workers, dangerous and unhealthy trades, etc., and the Shops Acts, regulating the hours of employment of shop assistants, by the Home Office; (2) Employment so far as dependent on the Education Acts, by the Board of Education; (3) The Mines Acts, regulating the hours and conditions of employment of persons employed underground in coal mines, by the Board of Trade (Mines Department); (4) The Health Insurance Acts, dealing with the insurance of workpeople against sickness, and the Workmen’s Compensation Acts, dealing with compensation in the event of accidents arising out of, and in the course of, a workman’s employment, by the Ministry of Health. Conciliation and Arbitration The general machinery for settlement of industrial disputes in this country by conciliation and arbitration is composed of (1) conciliation machinery within the industry, (2) State machinery. The former consists of voluntary machinery comprising (i) Joint Industrial Councils—these being bodies upon which organized employers and workpeople are equally represented, set up in a number of industries in accordance with the recommendations of a Committee appointed in 1916 and presided over by the Right Hon. J. H. Whitley, M.P., now the Speaker of the House of Commons; (ii) permanent voluntary conciliation boards—an older form of joint body equally representative of employers and workpeople, but differing from the Joint Industrial Councils in that the conciliation boards tend to confine their activities mainly to questions of wages and working conditions while the Councils take into consideration all matters appertaining to the industry; (iii) recognized procedure arranged by organizations of employers and workpeople, not having a formally constituted conciliation board, providing for the discussion of differences as and when they arise. Whitley Councils