§ Here I wish to pay a tribute to the steadiness and good sense which the trade unions and their leaders have shown during the war in this regard, and also to the great value of the voluntary joint machinery of wage negotiations and industrial negotiations generally in all the principal industries. Wage rates, as figures show, have climbed steadily all the time, and that has been right; yet there has been no break-away rise, no 1879 uncontrolled rise such as we might easily have seen had it not been for this continuing co-operation between the Government—in this case the Coalition Government—and the trade unions, both recognising that the common interest was best served by this joint effort of the two parties to keep prices and wages on an even keel.