One most encouraging circumstance is the extent to which concluded agreements are faithfully observed by the farmers. The Committees have no direct power to enforce their decisions; they may send their agreements to the Minister of Agriculture for confirmation and then under the Act payment of the agreed rates becomes recoverable at law. As yet five Committees only have asked for confirmation of their agreements. On the whole, employers are opposed to confirmation, and the workers do not demand it. Although the agreements are in the main observed by employers, the workers’ representatives complain that this is not so in every case. If there were any serious tendency towards non-observance the employers on the Conciliation Committees would agree to submission of agreements for confirmation; they would not allow some employers to evade payment of the agreed rates while others paid. The absence of any such general demand indicates that, substantially, the agreed wages are being paid. Agriculture and Unemployment Insurance The Labour Party makes the singularly disingenuous complaint that the Government does not apply the National Unemployment Insurance Scheme to persons engaged in agriculture. The true facts are that on December 2, 1920, the Agricultural Wages Board appointed a Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Rew, K.C.B., comprising representatives of employers and also representatives of unions whose members were engaged in agriculture, to report upon the extent to which the Unemployment Insurance Acts could practicably, and with benefit, be applied to agricultural workers. The Report of the Committee (_Parliamentary Paper_, 1921, Cmd. 1344) was unanimous, and to the effect that there was general opposition both by employers and workers to the inclusion of agriculture under the provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Scheme. One of the workers’ representatives, a signatory to this finding, appended a note to say that he believed in some districts there was an undoubted desire of the agricultural workers to be included under the Act—notwithstanding that, neither his finding nor that of the other workers’ representatives recommended the extension of the Unemployment Insurance Acts to agriculture. No one who is aware of the difficulties, especially in the agricultural industry, of successfully introducing methods of collective bargaining, could fail to appreciate the soundness of the policy of Joint Conciliation Committees, or fail to rejoice at the steady progress which the Ministry of Agriculture is making. CHAPTER XVII GOVERNMENT POLICY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT 1. State Unemployment Insurance—The Present Scheme of 1920—Emergency Provisions—Temporary Act of March, 1921—Temporary Act of July, 1921—Temporary Provision for Dependents’ Act of November, 1921—Temporary Act of April, 1922—The Efficiency of the State Scheme.