One outstanding advantage which would result from each industry effecting its own unemployment insurance would be the feeling it must undoubtedly engender in the minds of both employers and Trade Unions of their responsibility for the combined working of the industry, and the effect it is bound to have in producing a better spirit between the two parties and amongst the men, who will no longer feel that they are taken on and discharged merely as it suits the interests of the firm. A thorough investigation should be made as to what industries could undertake their own unemployment insurance, and whether it is better that they should do so, or come into a general scheme of insurance by all industries. The ordinary objection of employers and Trade Unions representing “good” industries, i.e. those with a low rate of unemployment, is that they are paying for the “bad” industries with a high rate, but is not that rather the essence of insurance? It may well be that only insurance by all industries acting collectively is possible. If such turns out to be the case, that plan should be adopted ready for carrying into practical operation on the approach of more normal times. Industries which rely mainly on casual labour are a more difficult proposition. Decasualization is essential, and that must be effected by some means of restricting the free influx of labour into the industry, as has been done in the Dock Labour Scheme in Liverpool. The efficiency of the Liverpool method is undoubtedly due to the co-operation between the dock labour employers and the Unions; it has been most strikingly successful. It affords a basis for procedure in very many industries. There must, however, I am afraid, remain a residuum of unemployment insurance to be handled by the State, in the absence of any other authority, on the lines presumably of the present National Unemployment Insurance Scheme, but it would be reduced to small proportions if all the great industries of the country were providing for their own unemployment. Reform of Present Out-Door Relief System In connection with unemployment, the present system of Poor Law relief wants overhauling. The provision of relief by the Guardians (in addition to, or substitution for, unemployment insurance benefit) on varying standards in different places throughout the country is extremely wasteful and disturbing to social harmony. If this is taken out of the hands of the Guardians, as has already been recommended by both the majority and minority reports of the Poor-Law Commission, and committed into the hands of some local authority—because local responsibility is essential for the spending of money raised by local rates—it would mark progress of no uncertain kind. Absolute standardization is impossible, because of the varying social circumstances and indeed social outlook in different parts of the country, but, after allowing for this, much greater approximation to uniformity could be secured.