I
want to explain to you that we consider the representative you elect
to-day to be one of the most important personages in that Government.
We have not issued our programme yet. When we do, we are going to make
the country a wonderful promise. We are going to promise that there
shall be no more strikes. That sounds a large order, perhaps, but we
shall keep our word and we are going to end for ever this bitter
struggle between capital and labour by welding the two into one and by
making the interests of one the interests of the other. Our scheme is
that the person whom you elect to-day will be chairman of an inner
conference of twelve. We shall ask you to elect a further three from
amongst yourselves, which will give the trades unions four
representatives upon this inner council. Four representative Cabinet
Ministers will be chosen by ballot to add to their number. Four
employers of labour, elected by the Employers' Association, will also
join the council and the whole will be presided over by the person whom
you elect to-day. There will be a select committee, or rather
fifty-seven select committees, of each industry always at hand, and we
consider that we shall frame in that manner a body of men competent to
deal with the inner workings of every industry.
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