Organization which exercises now very considerable influence over labour legislation and administration in every country, party to the League of Nations. That cannot possibly be managed if the responsibility is to be scattered over half a dozen partially interested and wholly unco-ordinated Government departments. If the labour sections of other Government departments were united with the Ministry of Labour, very great economies could be effected: factory and trade board inspectorates could be combined; health and unemployment inspectorates could also be amalgamated; in fact, one central inspectorate could well perform all the four kinds of inspection duties. These are but a few illustrations. The various labour duties performed by the different Government departments are so obviously one and the same that it is inconceivable why the overlapping which exists should be tolerated any longer. It is the one thing in our labour administration that passes the comprehension of foreign critics. Some of those who suggest the abolition of the Ministry of Labour propose to constitute in its place a National Industrial Council, consisting of an equal number of representatives of Employers’ Associations and Trade Unions with a chairman nominated by the Government, as recommended by the Report of the Provisional Joint Committee of Employers and Trade Unions to the Industrial Conference, convened by the Government on February 27, 1919, when the miners’ strike was threatening. The duty of the National Industrial Council would be to make recommendations in regard to controversial industrial matters. If the Unions _bona fide_ will undertake to use such a Council, or Parliament of Industry as it is sometimes called, for the purpose of promoting good relations between employers and employed, its creation would be of value. That implies the continuance in industry of the private employer. But, on the other hand, if the Unions intend to work for the elimination of the private employer from industry, as they declared their intention to do in the Memorandum (_see_ p. 59) annexed by the Right Hon. Arthur Henderson to the Report of the Provisional Joint Committee, then the creation of a Parliament of Industry would be a farce, and merely degenerate into an organized means to the Unions’ real end. In any event, the scope of a National Joint Council is limited. No Union will acquiesce in the judgment of other Unions on its domestic affairs—imagine boilermakers accepting the decision of plumbers, electricians and fitters on a question concerning the demarcation of boilermakers’ work. As it was, miners, railwaymen and transport workers absented themselves from the Industrial Conference in 1919. Moreover, employers and Trade Unions will always agree, to the serious discomfiture of Government, on reforms of which the expenses are to fall not on industry but on national funds, but the question of such expenditure is surely one to be reserved exclusively for Parliament.