maintain them until such time as work was found for them to
do.
H. H. Schloesser (Fabian Society Local Government
Group), seconding the resolution, said that the proposals of
the Minority Report in regard to Unemployment had been
embodied in the redraft of the Right to Work Bill of the
Labour Party, and there was no fear of any conflict between
the two sets of proposals.
H. Quelch moved and A. A. Purcell (Amalgamated
Society of French Polishers) seconded an amendment, the
object of which was stated to be “To take the Unemployed
out of the Capitalist Labour Market altogether,” and this
amendment was defeated and further amendments moved by
Frank Smith, L.C.C., and Louis A. Hill (Amalgamated Union
of Bakers), the purport of which was to advocate the legisla
tive restriction of the hours of labour, demanding the creation
of a Ministry of Labour, and the granting of facilities for the
immediate passing of a Right to Work Bill, were accepted by
the mover of the resolution.
On a further amendment being moved by Alex. Gossip
and seconded by F. Bramley (Furnishing Trades Association),
George Bernard Shaw said he thought they had better
stick to the carefully worded resolution before them. Unem
ployment was a necessary condition of industry, but suppose
they brought about the measure which they were advocating
in the resolution, and all men waiting for work would be
maintained honourably at the public expense, it would go
further than some of them yet appeared to see, because there
were a great many private employers who only kept people
permanently employed because they did not like to face the
inhumanity of throwing people out between one job and
another.
If they relieved that difficulty and made it no longer
an inhumane thing to take a man on casually, there were a
great many employers who now kept men on permanently who
would begin to employ labour intermittently. Did they
realise that the great thing the Unions were doing to-day was
insuring the employer against unemployment? Did they not
see that one of the first results of the putting into operation
of the proposals made in the resolution would be that the
great Trade Unions would give up that department of activity
and would throw the unemployed on the public resources ? In
this sense their measures would create a good deal of unem
ployment. They wanted to get continuous production and
continuous purchasing power face to face. It was said, “Why
not organise men outside the Capitalist System?” That was
not possible. They would not be able to work out the system
28