and gun munition, machine-guns, small arms and small-arms muni- tion, trench mortars, bombs and stores, pyrotechnic stores, aerial bombs, or accessories of the above stores, aircraft and air engines, and the manufacture of explosives, should be reduced in the following ways: (a) all overtime should be immediately abolished ; (6) systems of payment by results may be temporarily suspended ; (c) where re- duced hours are worked upon a time-work basis, the number of hours worked must not be less than one-half of the hours in the present normal working week. If the earnings of workpeople fall below certain figures they will be made up to them by the State.
3. The adoption of half-time may cause discharges, but these should be spread out for as long a period as possible.
4. Free railway facilities will be provided for workpeople from the place of employment to their homes or to places where they have new employment.
At the same time, the first announcement was made of the institution of a temporary non-contributory scheme for un- employment which would remain in force pending the intro- duction of a general contributory scheme, the main provisions of which were that unemployed men were to receive 243. per week and women 205. (later increased to 305. and 255.), with additional allowances for dependants. Almost immediately afterwards instructions were issued in respect of war munition volunteers, war work volunteers, national service and war agriculture volunteers indicating that the schemes would be terminated at Dec. 14 1918. A notice was issued at the end of Nov. dealing with soldiers released from the colours, and army reserve munition workers.
These instructions indicated the methods by which the employment of these men under war conditions would be ter- minated. They followed to a large extent the lines of the recom- mendations prepared by the committees mentioned above; but it was felt by the Government that it was necessary to con- stitute a special department for dealing with problems of civil demobilization. Accordingly, at the end of Nov. a Controller- General of Civil Demobilization and Resettlement was appointed and his department was attached to the Ministry of Labour. This department was made responsible for:
(a) the actual machinery of the return both of the men from the forces and civilian workers to their previous occupations through the employment exchanges;
(6) attempting to remove from the labour point of view obstacles to the restarting of industry; and
(c) the administration of the Appointments Department which dealt, on a rapidly increasing scale as demobilization proceeded, with the training and placing of ex-officers and men of similar educational qualifications. To these functions were added later the responsibility for the Civil Liabilities Resettlement Scheme.
The first few months were a time of great difficulty and strain. On the one hand the machinery devised for demobiliza- tion of the forces was found to be too slow to meet the situation and a new scheme was introduced which enormously expedited the procedure. This led to a position when very large numbers of both ex-civilian workers and ex-service men were out of work at the same time. Immediately, therefore, protests were made, against the rapid closing down of factories engaged upon war work. Deputations were constantly received both by the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Munitions protesting against the closing of factories engaged upon war work, and during the end of 1918 and the early months of 1919 it was found necessary to keep certain factories engaged on munitions at work even though their products were not likely to be required. Every effort was made by the newly created Civil Demobiliza- tion and Resettlement Department to make the transition from war to peace work as easy and as rapid as possible. For this purpose at the end of 1918 it was decided to set up for each of the areas covered by the Ministry of Labour Employment Exchanges a divisional council, elected from members of the local employment committees to which reference has already been made. The business of these councils, which operated till the later months of 1919, was to coordinate the work of the local employment committee and particularly to help in the transition from war to peace. In order to assist the councils in their work a number of officers known as Resettlement Officers were appointed by the Minister, whose business was to travel round the country and investigate the causes which impeded the
turnover from war to peace. Such conditions as a temporary shortage of materials, shortage of rolling stock, inability to recover premises required for business purposes commandeered by the Government, housing difficulties, and many other matters of this type were investigated and dealt with by these officers under the directions of the Minister and of the divisional councils. At the end of the year, the Government set up a minister in general charge of reconstruction problems, with a council designed to review the position generally and give instructions to the various departments concerned in the work. This council terminated its functions upon the formation of the Lloyd George Government at the beginning of 1919.
(C.) THE FIRST Two YEARS OF RESETTLEMENT The success of the preparations which had been made, and of the method in which the machinery was worked, is indicated by the figures of re-absorption of men demobilized. For six months after the Armistice there was a steady increase in the number of ex-service men unemployed, and at the beginning of May 1919, when about 3,300,000 men had been discharged, over 400,000 were recorded as drawing out-of-work donation. From that date, although the numbers discharged continued to rise, there was an almost uninterrupted fall in the number unemployed, until, at the end of July 1920, when demobilization was practical- ly complete and over 5,000,000 men had been discharged, less than 150,000, or only 3%, were registered as unemployed.
These figures relate only to ex-service men, and in order to discover how far the ex-civilian workers had been reabsorbed, it is necessary to look at the unemployment figures for the same period. After the Armistice the number of civilian workpeople unemployed rose continuously until the beginning of March 1919, when nearly 800,000 were recorded as receiving out-of-work donation. After that date, however, there was a rapid improve- ment, and by the end of Sept. the number had fallen to about 100,000. Owing to changes in administration and in some cases to the exhaustion of benefit, the figures, no doubt, overstate the extent of the, improvement, but, even when due allowance is made for these factors, it is clear that there was a remarkable recovery after March 1919. The evidence so furnished is con- firmed by the statistics of unemployment among the members of certain trade unions which make regular returns to the Ministry of Labour. In these unions (mainly composed of skilled workmen) the proportion unemployed, which was 0^4 % at the end of Oct. 1918, rose month by month after the Armistice until it reached 2-9% at the end of March 1919. From that date, however, it fell, and at the end of Sept. 1919 it was only 1-6%. There was a further rise in the winter of 1919-20, due to the strikes in the railway service and in the iron foundries; but the percentage fell again in the spring of 1920, and from March to June of that year, when demobilization was almost completed, it varied between 0-9 and i 2 %, much below the figure for any month in 1913, which was itself a year of good employment.
The consideration of these figures indicates that the turnover from war to peace had been effected with surprising speed and with remarkable lack of trouble. But while in the first 18 months after the Armistice trade would have rapidly recovered, provision was urgently required for certain large classes of ex-service men which may be grouped as follows:
(a) the disabled who, although in receipt of pensions, required training to enable them to enter upon some occupation ;
(b) youths whose apprenticeships had been interrupted;
(c) women thrown out of work by the turnover from war to peace;
(d) the ex-officer who, as a result of the war, was either unable or, for adequate causes, unwilling to resume his old occupation ; and
() the large number of men who had had some small business or undertaking which had been seriously affected by the war.
So far as the first class was concerned two steps were taken the first to place men in immediate employment, the second to train them for employment later.
Placing of Disabled Men. During 1917 a scheme had been pro- posed by Mr. Rothband, of Manchester, for absorbing a proportion of disabled men in each industry. This scheme was fully canvassed during the later years of the World War, and finally, in Aug. 1919, was adopted by the Government. In that month the King's National
