collection of statistics concerning the conditions of labour, its products, and their distribution, and may call upon the other governmental departments for the data they possess. He is also empowered to act as mediator in labour disputes and to appoint commissioners of conciliation, whenever he deems it desirable for promoting industrial peace. There is also an assistant secretary and a solicitor of the Department of Labor, the latter acting as legal adviser to the Secretary and to the heads of the various bureaus.
The four original bureaus comprised (i) the bureau of labour statistics, charged with gathering and diffusing information about labour, especially its relations with capital, hours of labour, earnings of labourers, and means of improving their conditions; (2) the bureau of immigration, charged with administering the immigration laws, including the Chinese-exclusion laws; (3) the naturalization bureau, for administering the naturalization laws; and (4) the children's bureau, charged with investigating and reporting upon all matters pertaining to children and child life among all classes of people, including infant mortality, ma- ternal mortality, juvenile delinquency and diseases of children.
The exigencies of the World War led to the formation (1918) of a woman-in-industry service, or women's bureau, to safeguard the interests of the large number of women who replaced men withdrawn for war service. In the same year the U.S. employ- ment service, formerly a part of the immigration bureau, was made a separate bureau and became the medium for recruiting unskilled labour for war industries, excepting farms and railways. Between Jan. i 1918 and June 30 1919 employment was secured for 4,955.159 persons, and after the Armistice many discharged soldiers were placed in positions. As a temporary war emergency measure there were created also (i) a bureau of industrial hous- ing and transportation for labourers engaged on Government contracts; (2) an information and education service for creating, through publicity, a spirit of cooperation and mutual understand- ing between labour and capital; and (3) a national war labour board, for settling labour disputes and ensuring uninterrupted production of the essentials for war.
The Department of Labor is the outgrowth of public agitation extending over a long period. In 1884 a Bureau of Labor was created under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. In 1888 this bureau was converted into an independent Department of Labor, headed by a commissioner who, however, was not admitted to the President's Cabinet. In 1903, after the creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor, the old Department of Labor, thereafter known as the Bureau of Labor, was placed under its jurisdiction. For 10 years the interests of both labour and capital were entrusted to the same executive department. This proved un- satisfactory because these interests were often in conflict. Finally, in 1913, the Department of Commerce and Labor was changed to the Department of Commerce, and there was created a separate De- partment of Labor especially entrusted with the problems that concerned the welfare of the wage-earners.
LABOUR SUPPLY AND REGULATION.—During the World War the question of national " man-power " came to the front as never before. In a war engaging the whole resources of a nation its man-power must be distributed to meet four paramount obligations: (i) The maintenance at requisite strength of the fighting forces; (2) the supply to the forces of the necessary men for carrying on war; (3) the supply of the necessities of life for the civilian population, and (4) the maintenance of ordinary com- mercial work to the fullest possible extent in order to maintain financial credit. It is the business of Government to see that as far as possible the appropriate categories of men are drafted into each class. If there is a shortage of the gross supply it be- comes a duty not merely to attempt to increase the total from new sources, but to regulate the existing supply in such a way as to increase its productivity.
The problem of " man-power " in war-time is obviously dif- ferent from the outset in countries which begin a war with uni- versal compulsory service and those which begin a war on the basis of voluntaryism. In the case of countries such as France and Germany, the approximate size of the fighting forces was known in advance, and this fact, combined with universal com- pulsory service, at any rate canalized the problem. In the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, where the fighting forces were expanded sevenfold, and where there was no compulsion at the outset and never universal compulsion, the problem was of a completely different order.
I. UNITED KINGDOM ,
The history of labour supply and regulation in the United Kingdom during the World War is the history of how a system had to be improvised to meet the ever-shifting demands of the four predominant national needs. The problem for those con- cerned with the handling of labour throughout was to attempt, with an inadequate supply, to meet each of the four demands to the widest possible extent.
_ The first necessity in point of time was the recruitment of fighting forces on a scale hitherto unimagined. No attempt was made to limit the area of recruitment, nor would it have been possible in the early days to impose any such check. If limits had been imposed upon the patriotic enthusiasm which brought millions to the colours, serious obstacles would have been put in the way of building up the immense armies that were ultimately achieved; but the very impetus of recruitment of itself created in an acute degree the shortage of man-power, and accentuated it by reason of the fact that men were drawn largely from the very trades upon which the fighting forces depended for munitions.
To a certain extent the account of labour regulation and supply is an account of the long and difficult attempt to repair the ravages in the industrial ranks created by indiscriminate recruiting. The account of the handling of the problem may be approached from three points of view the first negative, and the latter two positive:
( A ) The negative, which consisted in the limitation of recruit- ment.
(B) The stage of increase of labour supply, (i) by drawing on to igaged on less vital work, (2) by bringing back
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from the forces skilled men to assist in the production of munitions, (3) by getting workers from new sources.
(C) The intensive use of the available supplies of labour by its regulation, (i) by increasing mobility, (2) by preventing wastage, (3) by removal of trade-union restrictions, including ultimately dilution, (4) by obtaining full value for hours worked (under which is included the prevention of strikes and lockouts, the regulation of hours of employment, the provision of workshop discipline, and the provision of satisfactory working conditions), (5) by the handling of wages problems.
(A) THE LIMITATION OF RECRUITMENT. So far were the Government and the country from realizing the probability that excessive recruitment might lead to grave shortage of man- power, with the result that instead of widespread unemployment there would be practically no unemployment whatever of able- bodied persons, that the first steps in the handling of the labour problem by the Government and by the engineering trades respectively were as follows: (a) The Government set up in the early days of Aug. 1914 a strong Cabinet committee for the prevention and relief of distress, (b) On Aug. 19 the executives of the Engineering Employers' Federation and the Amalgamated Society of Engineers met to discuss ways and means whereby the unemployment contingent on the national crisis might be minimized, (c) The attitude of the general business community was crystallized in the phrase " business as usual."
This early point of view was rapidly modified. As early as the end of Sept. 1914 it began to appear that the rate of unemployment was far from high; and from Oct. onwards, to the shell conference of Dec. 21, the outstanding feature of the labour situation which began to emerge was the grave shortage of skilled engineering labour, threatening to make impossible the vitally needed expansion of production. Nor, when the figures of recruitment are examined, is this result surprising. By Oct. 1914 the group in the engineering trades had lost by enlistment 12-2% of their pre-war male workers. This percentage had risen by July 1915 to 19-s. 1 Against this loss must be offset the large proportion of new entrants into these trades, but these entrants never filled the gap thus created arid would have been inadequate
1 Board of Trade report on the state of employment in the United Kingdom in July 1915, Part I, page 3.
