wages rates, but included also interpretations of agreements on working conditions, the fixing of rates of pay for sample or exhibition work, and decisions as to whether non-unionists should be represented on works committees. Summaries of proceedings under the Acts are published monthly in the Ministry of Labour Gazette under the heading "Industrial Courts Act, 1919, and Conciliation Act, 1896: Recent Proceedings."

Arbitration.

(a) Industrial Court.-The work of the Court has continued under the Presidency of Sir Harold Morris, K.C., with a few changes of personnel arising out of the expiration of the appointments of the members nominated to represent the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Civil Service cases.

During 1927 there were issued 82 decisions on cases referred to the Court for determination under the Industrial Courts Act, 1919, making a total of 1,354 decisions since the establishment of the Court.

About one-half of the cases dealt with during 1927 had reference to the emoluments and conditions of employment of classes of Civil Servants. These cases consisted mainly of claims for improved salary scales of classes common to the Service as a whole. or of classes special to the several Departments. Among other questions submitted were the amount of annual leave, the increment within a scale, the terms of assimilation on transfer from one scale of pay to another, and allowances.

One of the awards given by the Court dealt with the manipulative grades in the Post Office, that is to say, sorters, counter clerks, telegraphists, telephonists, paper keepers, postmen, porters, messengers, cleaners, &c. Five unions submitted claims for increased pay and allowances on behalf of their members in this service, whilst the Postmaster-General submitted a counter-claim for reduced rates of pay for new entrants to certain classes. Over 140,000 workers were involved, and the hearing of the evidence and arguments of the parties occupied the Court 39 days.

Several other cases affecting considerable numbers of employees in the Civil Service were also submitted to the arbitration of the Court. On behalf of 19.600 clerks in the established Civil Service a claim was made for an addition to the starting pay of entrants to the Clerical Classes from certain competitions open. to temporary staff. An application for increased rates of pay involved 3,100 temporary copying typists and shorthand-typists; while 16,600 clerks were concerned in a claim that the scales of pay of temporary men and women clerks should be extended by three increments. Improved salary scales were asked for by the Departmental Class clerks of the Ministry of Labour, numbering about 3,300. Another case related to members of certain classes common to the Service as a whole employed in the provinces, on

whose behalf a claim was submitted for a reduction in the amount of differentiation from the London rates of pay by which their salary scales are reduced because of their employment in the provinces.

Other Civil Service cases, which did not involve such large numbers of employees, related to the pay of legal assistants in the various Government Departments; the pay of office keepers and deputy office keepers; and the travelling allowances of certain officers of the Customs and Excise Department.

Among industrial cases coming before the Court may be mentioned the claim of the Metropolitan Water Board employees, numbering about 4,150, which directly involved questions of rates of pay. Wages were also dealt with in the cases of-the Glasgow and West of Scotland building trades, where the question submitted to the Court was the applicability of a national agreement to the building trade labourers affiliated to the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives who are employed by members of the Scottish Building Contractors' Association in Glasgow and the West of Scotland; the farm employees working with patients at the London County Council Mental Hospitals, where the point at issue was whether such employees should be subject to the recommendations of the Provincial Joint Industrial Councils for Local Authorities' Non-Trading Services or upon what other basis their rates of pay should be determined; the classification of a sewerage contract of St. Anne's-on-the-Sea under the working rule agreement of the Civil Engineering Construction Conciliation Board; and the question of the true construction of an agreement made between the Amalgamated Engineering Union (Tees-side District Committee) and the Synthetic Ammonia and Nitrates, Ltd., members of the Chemical and Allied Employers' Federation.

The Court was also asked to deal with the pay and conditions of service of various grades employed by Trinity House in the lighthouse service in England, Wales and the Channel Islandsincluding the lighthouse keepers; the masters and crews of the light vessels; the masters, officers and crews of the steam vessels; the depot staff; and the storekeepers.

The Court dealt with and determined outworking allowances in the electricity supply industry (South Coast area); the claim of certain electrical fitters employed in the Manchester Corporation electricity supply undertaking on shift work for extra pay beyond the scheduled rates of the North Western District Joint Industrial Council for the Electricity Supply Industry; and the right of railway companies to place off duty on Christmas day and/or Good Friday, without payment, shift workers employed in railway electricity generating stations and sub-stations.

As in previous years, certain cases came before the Court aris ing out of the application of award No. 728, which standardised

the pay and conditions of employment of railway shopmen. These involved the grading of employees, claims for an allowance for dirty and/or dangerous work, the question whether the supervising staff came within the main award, the effect of an agreement between a company and a union, and other conditions of service. It may be recalled that award No. 728 suggested that the parties should set up some negotiating machinery whereby industrial questions affecting the companies and the employees, whether of a national or local character, might be considered without undue delay. After protracted negotiations such machinery was agreed during 1927 between the companies and the unions, both for the railway workshops and for the railway generating stations. The scheme provides that where the parties concerned are prepared to submit to arbitration a matter within the scope of the scheme and in which agreement has not been reached, the reference is to be to the Industrial Court.

In addition to being summarised monthly in the Ministry of Labour Gazette each award of the Court is printed and published shortly after the date of decision, and an annual issue of all awards is made in volume form.*

(b) Single Arbitrators and ad hoc Boards of Arbitration.-During the year six cases were referred to Single Arbitrators and in one case an ad hoc Board of Arbitration was set up to determine a dispute in the iron and steel trade.

Conciliation Settlements.

Five cases were settled under Section 2 (1) of the Conciliation Act, 1896, three of these being in the boot and shoe trade; in nine cases, of which four were in the textile trades, agreements were concluded with the assistance of officers of the Ministry.

None of the cases dealt with under the Acts appears to be of sufficient general interest to require more detailed record in this volume.

* Decisions 1169 to 1272. given in 1926, are contained in Vol. VIII of the Industrial Court Decisions (1927), published by H.M. Stationery Office. Price 6s.

CHAPTER II.

EMPLOYMENT.*

GENERAL.

During 1927 the average rate of unemployment among insured persons was lower than in any year since 1920, the annual figures for Great Britain having been

Per cent.

16.6

14.1

11.6

10.2

11.0

12.3

9.6

The average number of insured persons actually in employment was greater than in any previous year.

Two main causes were operating to produce this result. There was a substantial carry-over of work from the previous year when production had been interrupted by the coal stoppage; this produced a high rate of activity in almost every trade during the first half of the year. But more important and, it is to be hoped, of more permanent value, there was a growing steadiness in some of the chief factors affecting industrial production, and there was in various directions an improvement in the conditions of export trade. The end of the coal dispute marked the removal in one of the basic industries of an artificial position which had reacted upon other industries and upon export trade generally. The number of trade disputes causing stoppages of work and the number of working days lost by these disputes were the lowest recorded during the 40 years for which statistics are available. In previous years some reluctance had been observed on the part of foreign customers to place large orders here even when prices were favourable, from a fear that delivery dates could not be guaranteed owing to the unsettled industrial atmosphere.

In several respects therefore the year 1927 may be regarded industrially as that which has made the nearest approach to normal since the war. There is some ground for thinking that the problems of employment and unemployment which have revealed themselves during the year ought to be considered, not merely as residual

* As regards Juveniles see Chapter IV.

difficulties of the war period, but as the problems of a new industrial and commercial era.

Of these problems undoubtedly the most serious is the continued irregularity in several of the basic industries, notably coal, iron and steel, cotton, and to a less extent shipbuilding, heavy engineering and wool.

In the coal mining industry there was naturally at the beginning of the year considerable activity in all areas. By May the number of wage-earners on the colliery books had risen to 1,031,444, and the percentage of wholly unemployed was 9.1. But the figures fell away during the second half of the year. By December the number of wage-earners on the books had fallen to 975,710; and the percentage of wholly unemployed had risen to 11.9; in that month out of 1,198,990 insured persons in the industry 142,156 were wholly unemployed, and 65,100 on temporary stoppages, the total percentage of unemployment being 17.3.

The output of coal for the year was 251,000,000 tons, an average weekly output of 4,830,000 tons as compared with 243,000,000 and 4,670,000 tons respectively in 1925.

The distribution of unemployment among the various coalfields has been irregular. At the end of the year, against a percentage for the whole country of 17.3, Scotland showed a percentage of 13.5 of which 12.9 represented wholly unemployed, Durham 22.0 with 21.2 wholly unemployed, Wales and Monmouth 31.4 with 19.1 wholly unemployed, Yorkshire 6.8 with 4.0 wholly unemployed, Northumberland 18.8 with 18.4 wholly unemployed. Nottingham and Leicester 5.1 with 2.3 wholly unemployed, Derbyshire 15.1 with 4.5 wholly unemployed, Lancashire and Cheshire 16.2 with 7.5 wholly unemployed.

It is now generally recognised that an appreciable number of those wholly unemployed in the Northern coalfield, in South Wales, and in parts of the Scottish coalfield are unlikely to obtain regular employment in their own industry in their own district; the same is probably true of a smaller proportion in some of the other coalfields in which the percentage of wholly unemployed is high.

This situation involves the difficult question of transfer to other industries or areas, a matter to which attention was called in the Report for 1926, pp. 22-3. It is primarily in connection with this position in coal mining that the Industrial Transference Board has been appointed (see infra p. 18). The operation of Section 18 of the Mining Industry Act, 1926, (see infra p. 21) will also have its effect upon the problem.

In the pig iron industry, after a substantial improvement in the early months, there was a decline until at the end of December 14.1 per cent. of the insured workpeople were out of work, and 149 furnaces out of 437 were in blast as compared with