That system was possible in the cotton trade; in other trades it might be impossible for technical reasons, or, where possible, it might in certain circumstances be highly undesirable.  The point I wish to stress is that under an industrial scheme you have an immense flexibility, you can adapt all the details to the special conditions of the particular industry, and by that means you can secure results immeasurably superior to anything that is possible under a universal State system.  Moreover, if certain features of the scheme should prove in practice unsatisfactory, they can be altered with comparatively little difficulty.  You don’t need to be so desperately afraid of the possibility of making a mistake as you must when it is a case of a great national scheme, which can only be altered by Act of Parliament.

THE MORAL OBLIGATION OF INDUSTRIES

I do not underrate the difficulty of applying this principle of industrial relief over the whole field of industry.  There is the great difficulty of defining an industry, or drawing the lines of demarcation between one trade and another.  I have not time to elaborate those difficulties, but I consider that they constitute an insuperable obstacle to anything in the nature of an Act of Parliament, which would impose forcibly upon each industry the obligation to work out an unemployment scheme.  The initiative must come from within the industry; the organisations of employers and employed must get together and work out their own scheme, on their own responsibility and with a free hand.  And, if it happens in this way—­one industry taking the lead and others following—­these difficulties of demarcation become comparatively unimportant.  You can let an industry define itself more or less as it likes, and it does not matter much if its distinctions are somewhat arbitrary.  It is not a fatal drawback if some firms and work-people are left outside who would like to be brought in.  And if there are two industries which overlap one another, each of which is contemplating a scheme of the kind, it is a comparatively simple matter for the responsible bodies in the two industries to agree with one another as to the lines of demarcation between them, as was actually done during the war by the Cotton Control Board and the Wool Control Board, with practically no difficulty whatever.  But for such agreements to work smoothly it is essential that the industries concerned should be anxious to make their schemes a success; and that is another reason why you cannot impose this policy by force majeure upon a reluctant trade.  It is in the field of industry that the real move must be made.