The Struggle For Peace

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employers and workers, and I hope I am not too optimistic in
believing that this freedom from industrial warfare is no
accident. It arises, as it seems to me, from something in the
nature of a permanent change in the methods of arriving
at a fairer distribution of the profits of trade and industry,
That, in turn, has sprung from a more complete and a more
scientific organisation of trade unions on the one side and of
employers5 associations on the other, with the effect that we
have largely cut out the old personal antagonisms, and that in
these days we can approach negotiations between employers
and employed on a broader and a more objective basis.
" Whatever may be the cause of it, undoubtedly the result
has been eminently satisfactory. During these last few years
the profits of trade—and, may I, as an ex-Chancellor, add,
the contribution which those profits make to the national
revenue—have been very handsomely expanded, and the
figures recently quoted by the Minister of Labour in the
House of Commons, when he stated that last year the weekly
wage rates of over 5,000,000 people had been increased
by no less than ^780,000, demonstrate most convincingly
what benefits have accrued to the working people.
" If I were to try to put in a single word the greatest
boon that any Government can bestow upon the country, I
would say that it is in the establishment and maintenance of
confidence. It is confidence that stimulates enterprise, and
confidence that gives peace of mind to the people- I would -
say that in this country especially the establishment of con-
fidence breeds a like result elsewhere. Only a little while ago
there seemed to be some check to our confidence. I never
believed that there was any foundation for such a check, and
I think it has already passed off as far as we are concerned.
" Only in the last few days we have given proof of our
confidence in our future, and in the future of our potential
customers, by making certain relaxations in the regulations
that govern the lending of money to foreign borrowers. I
believe that that change will tend to stimulate international
trade, and, after all, it is to international trade that we must
chiefly look to take the place of our rearmament programme
when it begins to approach its completion. If by joint effort
we can succeed in securing some measure of political appease-