^Jovemoer 22, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15' 
I 
^he hands of the Government. The Home Clip accounted 
or a nintli part of the consumption in 1915 ; the Australian 
clips represent half the world's exportable resources. The 
Government had, therefore, to arrange for distribution to 
the industry, and to provide not merely the wool that was 
needed for Government cloth, but the wool that was going to 
be passed on to the civilian trade. It is obvious that this 
responsibility introduced all kinds of delicate questions. , For 
one thing, there was the question of distribution. The wool 
that the Government did not require was to be sold, but if 
the supply was less than the demand, on what principle was 
it to be assigned ? At the time, the state of the foreign ex- 
changes gave a special importance to the export trade, and 
priority was accordingly given to the needs of that trade. 
But the Government had to consider, not merely the distri- 
bution, but the economy of supplies, complicated as it was by 
the general difficulty of tonnage. The Government had 
to secure the nation against the risk of a failure of supplies and 
for this purpose it was necessary to regulate the consumption 
of wool by the trade. Here were two problems full of 
material for dispute. 
The Government took measures to facilitate the execution of 
its task. A Department was set up in Bradford, men of ex- 
perience and standing in the trade were enlisted as Government 
officials, a W ool Advisory Committee was formed representing 
difi'erent sections of the industry, and trade unions, as well as 
employers' associations. ' But the early proceedings of the 
Department provoked resentment and suspicion in the trade, 
and the columns of the Yorkshire Observer and the Yorkshire 
Post during the summer months reflect the agitations 
and the discontents of the industry. There is no part of the 
country where bureaucratic control is rejected with greater 
dislike, and so far the scheme was in its essence bureaucratic. 
The hard-headed ^'orkshireman is the last man in the world 
to accept dictation from an official Mr. H. W. Forster, .the 
Financial Secretary to the War Office, visited Bradford, and 
addressed critical and even hostile meetings. Deputations 
went up from Bradford to London. It looked as if the trade 
were irreconcilable, and the prospects of any effective co-opera- 
lion seemed almost desperate. The situation was saved by 
the offer of the Department to set up a Board of Control, and 
thereby enable the industry itself to regulate the working of 
the scheme, subject only to the satisfaction of the essential 
requirements of the Government. The Board was formed in 
September, and its powers were defined by Order in Council 
Ihe same month. 
A Controlling Board 
The Board consists of 33 members, of whom eleven arc 
Governn^ent officials, many of them manufacturers or merchants 
in the present or the past. Thus, Mr. Charles Sykes, the Con- 
troller, who is Chairman of the Board, and a very successful 
chairman, has been closely associated with the industry, and he 
speaks with an intimate knowledge and experience of its cir- 
cumstances and needs. Most of the eleven official members 
are in the same case. Eleven again represent spinners and 
manufacturers. Three are chosen by the West Riding Spinners' 
Federation, three by the \\oollen and ^^■orsted Trades Federa- 
tion, and one each by the Scottish Manufacturers, the West of 
England Manufacturers Association, the Hosiery Manufacturers, 
the Low Wool Users (i.e., men who make blankets, ctc.)f 
and the Shoddy and Mungo Manufacturers' Association. 
Lastly, tlic Trade Unions have eleven members representing 
the several craft unions and the General Union of Textile 
Workers. 
The setting up of the Board is an immense event in an in- 
dustry where indi\ idualist tradition is so persistent. The 
different groups of interests have been compelled to co-operate, 
and to reaignise that the industry as a whole has interests and 
responsibilities. And the work of the Board is of the most im 
portant and delicate kind. The W ar Office reserves to itself 
certain powers. It decides the amount of raw material to be 
maintained for military purposes ; it determines the terms 
and conditions of Government contracts; keeps in its own hands 
all financial arrangements and carries out all the earlier 
processes such as the cleaning, blending, and combing of the 
raw wool. It is not until the wool has reached the topmaking 
stage that the control of the Board begins. At that stage, 
subject to the above reservations, it is the duty of the Board to 
regulate all allocation of wool, lops, and other products, and 
by-products, in such manner as : 
(a) To secure the most efficient execution of Governracut 
orders for supplies of woollen and worsted goods. 
(b) To employ to the greatest advantage the labour, machin- 
ery and skill now engaged in the industry. 
(c) To keep in full use the greatest possible proportion of the 
machinery at present employed in the trade, j 
Its actual duties differ in the case of wool for military 
requirements, and of wool for the civilian trade. Contracts 
for the execution of Government orders are allocated by a 
Cornmittee ; the spinners and manufacturers arc paid on the 
basis of conversion costs, and there is no element of proht 
making. It is laid down in the Order-in-Council that the 
officials of the Department shall obtain the advice and con- 
currence of the Board in so far as is necessary to secure the 
most efficient and equable distribution as between districts, 
trades, groups, and individual firms, and to secure all possible 
regularity and continuity in production. Thus, the respon- 
sibility for organising the execution of Government contracts 
in such a way as to promote the interests of efficiency, equity 
and continuous employment is thrown upon the Board 
The Civilian Trade 
In the case of wool for the civilian trade the Board has full 
and direct responsibility for the distribution of supplies. 
" The Board is empowered to allocate as between dis- 
tricts, trades, groups, and individual firms the quantity of 
wool and tops available for civilian trade." The Board dis- 
charges this duty by setting up a number of rationing committees 
chosen by the spinners and manufacturers, in some cases 
with Trade Union members, with a Joint Rationing Committee 
in control, on which the several district Committees and the 
trade unions are represented. These Committees ascertain 
the main facts about the needs and capacity of the different 
mills and the different districts and the wool at the disposal 
of the Board is distributed in proportion. Such a task can 
only be carried out by the representatives of the industry; 
for no Government Department can command the confidence 
of the men who have to make the sacrifices necessary in the 
interests of justice and of public safety. 
The industry thus takes into its own hands a function which 
at Tirst the Government attempted itself to discharge ; a func- 
tion that in other times has been left to the play of economic 
forces, with results that have brought ruin and unemployment 
in many districts and thousands of houses. Instead of a 
scramble in which some men might majce fortunes and others 
pass into the bankruptcy court, with workpeople here working 
overtime and there walking the streets in hunger and misery, 
we have an industry regulating its fortunes with a view to the 
common good. It is recognised that there is something better 
than economic law as the arbiter of men's fate. The conscious 
efforts of a set of men to adapt themselves to a crisis in such a 
way as to check its disturbing consequences mark a step of 
the first importance in the reconstruction of industry on humane 
lines. It is difficult to calculate the amount of pain, degrada- 
tion and lasting mischief thaf would have been averted if 
there had been such a system in force a hundred years ago. 
Nor does this exhaust the duties of the Board. A most 
important clause in the Order directs them to take all possible 
measures to protect the interests of the home consumer, and 
to secure equable treatment as between various branches of 
the industry. The industry comprises different sections that 
are often in conflict ; merchants, spinners, manufacturers. 
The merchant may be in a position to exploit the spinner ; 
the spinner to exploit the manufacturer. The Board pre- 
sides like Olympus over all these interests, and forces them to 
accept a new moral discipline in place of the old economic 
struggle. Its very existence has a significance that can be 
scarcely exaggerated. 
Meanwhile, the consumer is not forgotten. "All possible 
measures arc to be taken to ])rotect him." And it speaks 
well for the vigour and the resolution of the Board that within 
a few weeks of its creation Mr. Charles Sykes can announce 
to the press that a scheme is shortly to be produced for checking 
profiteering in the civilian trade, and for providing a standard 
cloth at a fixed price. This docs not mean that we shall all 
have to wear clothes of the same colour and pattern if we want 
to escape the high charges of our tailor. What it means is 
that manufacturers will be invited to make a certain quality 
and size of cloth, for which they will receive payment on the 
basis of conversion costs just as if they were making khaki. 
The pattern and the colour will vary fro.;', one manufacturer 
to another. In this way the home consumer will be able to 
buy clothes at a reasonable price of a guaranteed quality. 
A full and interesting discussion of the scheme is now proceeding 
in the columns of the Yorkshire Observer where represent- 
atives of the different interests are giving their views. 
As a scheme for carrying the nation through a crisis the 
Board of Control is a most interesting and happy experiment. 
But it is infinitely more than this. It is a spectacle of a self- 
governing industry acquiring a new corporate spirit, a larger ' 
appreciation of the rights and duties of the industry as a 
whole, a new sense of the danger of uncontrolled economic 
forces, and a new consciousness of theplace and sharetowhich 
the workpeople are entitled in the government of the industrial 
world 
