The Memorandum on Unemployment after the War, 1917 There was also issued, in 1917, a Memorandum called the _Problem of Unemployment after the War_, adopted by the Joint Committee on Labour Problems after the War, representing the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, the Management Committee of the General Federation of Trades Unions and the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee. Its proposals for the prevention of unemployment are worthy of analysis. It maintained that unless prevented by concerted action there would be considerable unemployment after the war, and from these specific causes, namely, the discharge of munition workers, delay in works changing over from war to peace production, congestion of ports, demobilization of the Army and Navy, difficulties in securing adequate industrial capital. Again the remedy recommended was the maintenance from year to year of a uniform national demand for labour by the Government and local authorities giving out their orders “in such a way as to make them vary inversely with the demands of private employers.” The public works that were to be executed were much the same as before: housing schemes, water and drainage works, parks, schools, public libraries, works planned by the Development Commission and Road Board and held up owing to the war, the development of agricultural and rural industries on a national and co-operative basis, afforestation, and the execution of Government printing postponed during the war. The Government was also pressed to encourage works of which the output, like bricks and cement, were necessary for the carrying on of other work, for example, building. There could be nothing plainer than this sentence in the Memorandum: “It may be urged that no such action would keep up the demand of other countries for our products, and thus the export trades might fall off; it may be assumed, however, that the principal export trades will certainly be busy (coal, machinery, shipbuilding, constructional iron and steel and all woollen goods) and the home demand for cotton goods is also expected to be brisk.” It is obvious, therefore, at this date that the Labour Party never contemplated the present depression in our export trade.