The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

THE ADVENT OF INDUSTRIAL CONTROL 13

(5) The House of Lords has accordingly reached a stage in its development when it must sink into impotence or have its powers largely augmented. It is obvious that its present powers will be strengthened and fresh powers given to it when the Tories are strong enough.

(6) Alternatively, the representative principle must be adopted.

It is upon this last point that Labour must concentrate. How could or should we apply the representative principle? Remembering that the House of Lords has always been an industrial body—strange though that seems at the first glance—and further remembering that supreme need for an industrial mechanism to give effect to industrial change, the logical conclusion is to change the House of Lords into a genuine and representative House of Industry, on an industrial and not a political electorate. This industrial electorate can be found in a Census of Production. I could work it out in a week, with a Census of Production brought up to date.

In his Romanes Lecture, Winston Churchill advocates an economic sub-Parliament and on the day that I first suggested this House of Industry, Mrs. Sidney Webb advocated on the wireless a large devolution of Parliamentary powers on Provincial Parliaments. With the latter proposal I have no quarrel. But I make two comments. First, there can be no useful devolution until the political and economic functions are separated ; and secondly, there would be a distinct danger