§ Now, I have a word to say about the proposals of the Government to meet this state of things. The Poor Law Commission has recently called attention to the; importance of endeavouring to devise some effective scheme of insurance against unemployment. The question is one which bristles with difficulties, and the Commission put forward no definite scheme of their own, but they expressly approved the principle, and recommended that immediate steps should be taken to devise a workable scheme. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has anticipated this recommendation, and the Board of Trade have been closely engaged for the last six months in endeavouring to frame and develop a scheme which, while encouraging the voluntary efforts now being made by trade unions to provide unemployment benefit for their members, will extend the advantage of insurance to a very much larger circle of workmen, including unskilled 489 labourers. I do not now speak of the unemployment due to infirmity or personal failings or of unemployment due to labour disputes, but to that unemployment, by far the larger part of the evil, which occurs as a regular feature, varying with seasons and cycles, in important groups of trades; which renders the position of the worker in such trades unusually precarious; and which can only be dealt with, and ought clearly to be dealt with, by a process of spreading wages and of averaging risks and fluctuations. I do not propose to enter into the details of the Board of Trade scheme, which is, however, far advanced, and for which the national system of labour exchanges promised in the King's Speech will afford the necessary machinery. We recognise in this matter that we must walk with caution, and that it will be best to begin with certain groups of trades peculiarly liable to the fluctuations I have referred to, and in other respects suitable for insurance rather than to attempt to cover the entire area of industry. The Royal Commission were emphatic in recommending that any scheme of unemployment insurance should have a trade basis, and we propose to adopt this principle. Within the selected trades, however, the scheme will apply universally to all adult workers. Any insurance scheme of this kind must necessarily require contributions from those engaged in the insured trades, both as employers and employed; but we recognise the necessity of meeting these contributions by a State grant and guarantee. We cannot, of course, attempt to pass the necessary Bill to establish unemployment insurance during the present Session. But the postponement will not involve any real delay, for the establishment of labour exchanges is a necessary preliminary to the work of insurance, and this will occupy time which may also be advantageously employed in consulting the various interests upon the details of the scheme and in co-ordinating its financial provisions with the machinery of invalidity and other forms of insurance.