i6 
LAND & WATER 
January i", i9i<S 
promotion of scientific nnd prartical sj-stemfs of costing to 
this end. , 
All statistics shall, where necessan,', be verified ljy{ <bartereil 
accountants, who shall make a statutory declaration as to 
secrecy prior to any investigation, and no particulars of 
individual lirms or operatives shall be disclosed bo anyone. 
(k\ Enquiries into problems of the industry, and where de- 
sirable the publication of reports. 
(1) Representation of the needs and opinions of the industry 
• to Government authorities, central and local, and to the 
community generally." 
• ' This declaration spn^nks for itself and it shows wliat a wide 
interpr<?tation tlic Council wisely" puts on its duties. It 
should have a great effect in raising and standardising wages, 
which at present vary considerably and are as a rule poor ; 
in strengtheniiig the unions, in providing for a security of 
tenure, in improving tlie prospects of tlie industry as a whole. 
Employers and workmen have both been educated during the 
war by working together on the advisory committee on military 
exemptions. Keadiness to co-operate has received a great 
stimulus from this experience. Each side has learnt that 
there are purposes for which the help of the other side 'is 
desirable. But perhaps there is no feature of the spheme more 
important than the {.>rovision (j) for the collection of full 
statistics on selling prices and average percentages of profits, 
for here, of course, the consumer will find his protection 
.igainst the danger of a combination of employer and workman 
to e.xploit him. It has already been argued in these pages 
tliat the setting up of representative government in industry 
must be accompanied by some definite safeguards of this 
kind, and this degree of public control over industry Mill be 
necessary under any system. 
The Shadow of Disease ^ 
Not the least important of the duties of the Council is com- 
prised in section (I). Pottery has had a sombre history in 
lespect of disease. \Ve have all heard of " potter's " asthma," 
locally called " potter's rot." The potter's special tendency 
to lung disease was recognised two centuries ago, and our 
own generation has been painfully familiar with stories of lead 
Hiing. Twenty years ago it was the custom among 
.i itive people to buy for their own use the leadless glaze, 
" spionged arid painted" ware which had been made originally 
for the natives of West Africa. The figures published by the 
Chief Inspector of Factories show a notable improvement as 
" the result of agitation and also of the publicity given to the 
w hole subject by the inquiry carried out by Professor Thorpe 
of the Government Laboratory, and Dr. Thonias Oliver, the 
W'ell-known doctor. Professor Thorpe and Dr. Oliver were 
appointed in 1898 to inquire into the causes of those diseases 
and the possibility of taking measures against them. Their 
work was done with great thoroughness, and all the leading 
minufactories on the Continent were visited. The publication 
of their report and the subsequent arbitration, at which Lord 
James of Ilerefprd acted as umpire, are a landmark in the 
history of this melancholy- subject. 
The two experts made a number of pretty drastic recom- 
mendations, proposing to forbid the use of lead in any form in 
all except a few branches of the industry, and to stipulate in 
those branches for the use of a fritted double silicate, a com- 
pound that would greatly diminish' the risk and e\il of lead 
poisoning. They also proposed to exclude women and young 
persons from the dipping and ware-cleaning departments. 
■Jhese proposals seemed too drastic to many of the manu- 
facturers.and to an industry with old-established customs and 
, a conservative mind, they were revolutionary. After negotia- 
tions between the trade and the Home Office, the whole 
question was referred to arbitration. The Home Office 
ailopted a series of amended rules to give effect to Lord James 
of Hereford's decision, which represented a compromise 
between the hopes of the doctors and the fears of the trade. 
Those rules have been in. force for sixteen years and the results 
are seen in the diminution of disease. The Annual Report 
■,ior the year 1914 showed all the reported cases of plumbism, 
which from an average of 116 in the vears 1899-1910, had 
..fallen to 62 in 1913 and to 27 in the following year. In the 
middle nineties the figure had been somewhere about 350. 
.But, the industry cannot be satisfied until it has removed 
.'this employment from the category of dangerous trades. 
1 here are various ways in which tlic Industrial Council will 
\>e able to help in improving the industry in this respect. 
.\t present inspectors are appointed in the works to see that 
the Home Ofiicf rules are applied ; they arc supplementary 
policemen to the Government Inspector. Their difficulties, 
of course, arise partly from the conservatism and carelessness 
.of workpeople who are reluctant to take ftie trouble to protect 
thenrselves by wearing washable head-coverings, and using 
..o^hcr precautionary devices. These' inspectors are not 
.always very competent or active in discharging their dnties. 
it would obviously be better to entrust this task to the Shop 
Committee, which will have greater }x>wer in dealing alike with 
' recalcitrant' \\orkmen and witli recalcitrant employers. In 
" general, it vVill !>»:• the duty of the Industrial Council to sef that 
the standard of the good firms is applied throughout the 
industry, and that we shall not have in future inspectors 
reporting. " In many earthenware biscuit warehouses the 
means for avoiding dnst in the brushing process is still un- 
satisfactory." 
But surely the Industr\' will do more than this, and will 
prepare for the largo reform that civilisation demands, the 
abolition of the use of lead. Dr. Ohver tells us the Egyi)tian 
potters used a glaze composed of silicate of soda without lt;ud 
and that there was no trace of lead or tin in the enamelled 
bricks in the ruins of Babylon. Lead was frequently used in 
Assyrian and Persian pottery, but they were pot superior 
cither in durability or colour. The common argument used to 
be that our potters used lead because they worked on a body 
made of bone that needed it, whereas Continental potters have 
a different body — felspar, which does not need it. But this 
argument no longer hokls, for Dr. Mellor and Mr. Bernard 
Moore have recently dc\-ised a body which has all the pro- 
perties of the foreign body and yet is made from Engfish 
material. As a matter of fact, the use of leadless glaze is 
growing steadily. Many of the bigpotterit^ use it mainly or 
exclusively in their works ; the names of Wedgwood, Cope- 
land, Minton, occur to the mind in this connection. The 
last Inspectors' Keport showed that of iir coarse warp pot- 
teries, raw lead is used only in 18, and that out of 465 other 
potteries (including all the general fine household earthen- 
ware and china manufactories of the country) 106 are now 
confining themselves to substantially non-poisonous glaze. 
This is the moment for prohibiting the use of lead, and 
removing this slur and danger from a noble and avcient art. 
Some General Suggestions ^ 
As the creation of these Councils is now under disai.«slon 
in several industries, a few suggestions and cautions may 
be desirable. The task of conducting industry successfidly 
on these lines will tax all the resources of our industrial 
statesmanship, and it will tax the ability of the Trades Unions 
in a special degree. If they can seize the chance to break 
down the spirit of jealousy between this craft union and 
that, between this type of union and that, and gradually to 
reorganise and combine their forces in new jomiations, 
corresponding to the new circumstances of industn^", the 
Trade Union movement will grow immensely in power. 
If this is to be effected, several questions that have hitherto 
been shirked in the Trade Union world will have to be 
faced. The crisis over the shop stewards was a result 
of turning a blind eye to the realities of the workshop 
and the mill, and allowing a dangerous separation to 
grow up between leaders and rank and file. That movement 
is in itself a symptom of life and energy and if properly handled 
it will add to the sincerity and strength of representati%-e 
government in the Trade Union world. And all its power 
will be needed, for the Industrial Councils will not inaugurate 
a perpetual peace between employers and employed or achieve 
a final rcconcihation between their interests. ' Some people 
are talcing with hope, others w-ith fear of a grand 'alliance 
between employers and employed, threa'tening the State 
and the consumer with a new and dangerous tyranny. This 
assumes that the State is helpless and that employers and 
employed have no divergent interests. Both assumptions 
are mistaken. The organisation of industry, with' repre- 
sentative forms, will make some degree of State control — of 
the kind outlined in previous arcicles — essential for' the 
protection of society. And though there will be co-operation 
on these councils, there will also be conflict. The workman 
who thinks that the Trades Union leaders often get the 
worst of it in dealings with officials and employers will look 
on this prospect with some anxiety, and it is in the'interest 
of the nation as it is in the intcTest of the workman that the 
Trades Unionist should be able to hold his own in debate and 
deliberation. 
In this connection the Trades Union might well take a leaf 
out of the employers' book. The employers do not choose the 
secretaries of their organisations exclusively from their own 
ranks. Ofie of the most successful officials to be found in the 
service of these as.sociations was previously a leadin.g statistician 
in the Board of Trade. The Trades Unions would be well advised 
to look beyond their own boundaries and to appoint among 
their of^~icials men with the kind of experience and education 
that are needed, say, for the Civil Service. Skill and quick- 
ness in handling documents, in analysing and in presenting a 
ca.se, in appreciating the precise meaning of which a statement 
is capable,are acquired by a special training, and if a Trade? 
Union, is to provide its own secretary and staff, it will need 
those specialised qualities jiist as much as'a Go\'ernment 
Department needs them. 
