The Failure of Consensus in Britain: The National Industrial Conference, 1919–1921

Abstract

On 27 February 1919, while Britain and most of Europe were gripped by serious industrial unrest, 600 trade unionists and 300 employers met leading cabinet ministers and civil servants at a National Industrial Conference in London. After a morning's debate, the trade unionists and employers separated, each to select thirty representatives to form a ‘provisional joint committee’ (P.J.C.) which might translate the morning's general good humour into hard practical proposals for mutual cooperation and reform. Within five weeks the committee had drawn up a report embracing twenty-six reforms, which was duly confirmed by the reconvened conference on 4 April and approved in principle by Lloyd George (with impeccable timing) on 1 May. The report was a major initiative in domestic policy. Although pledged at the 1918 election to build a ‘land fit for heroes’, the government – fully absorbed in the immediate problems of European settlement, demobilization and decontrol – had had little time to consider its practical implementation. With the report, both sides of industry had provided it with an agreed programme of reform which enabled it, in the industrial sphere at least, to commence the fulfilment of its election promises.

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