Employment Policy and Technical Efficiency

Abstract

SOME further points in regard to the White Paper on Employment Policy were elucidated in the debate in the House of Lords on July 5 and 6. Welcoming an inquiry from Lord Barnby, Lord Woolton stated that the Government proposed to take statutory powers in order to get the statistics required. On the question of cartels and international agreements raised both by Lord Trent and Lord McGowan, Lord Woolton indicated Government concurrence in the proposal that there should be a Government inquiry on restrictive practices, and urged that the question should be considered on a factual and not an emotional basis, and from the point of view of the public interest. As was independently pointed out by Lord Wardington, such agreements embody principles identical with those enunciated in the Atlantic Charter, which advocates international agreements and co-operation and the creation of spheres of interest. On the point of technical efficiency stressed by Viscount Samuel as the most important point in the White Paper, Lord Barnby, who also raised the question of the Government's views with regard to trade associations, urged that if industry is to have efficient equipment, it requires a revision of the Factory Acts to permit the two-day shift operation of female labour. Expensive new equipment must, to carry overheads, run more than eight hours in the twenty-four. Lord McGowan referred to the growing emergence in British industry of a new social outlook, and also asked for more guidance as to the basis on which future international commercial relations are to be built. The question of controls was repeatedly mentioned, and Lord Woolton's statement that the Government is already considering the steps by which we could have an orderly unwinding of the controls reflected the practical temper of this debate, which showed a deep sense of the fundamental importance of a high standard of efficiency in British industry and that the realization of the White Paper proposals would come, as Lord Woolton said, by steady evolution and the application of modern scientific methods.