War Cabinet's Report for 1917 it is said that "1917 may be described as
the year in which State control was extended until it covered not only
national activities directly affecting the military effort but every
section of industry, production, transport, and manufacture." To get rid
of some of that control as regards industry as well as commerce, must be
one of the first steps in reconstruction. State interference not only
involves the expense of an enormous army of officials, inspectors,
clerks, accountants, and others, but also causes friction, while the
regulations which it has been found necessary to impose have been one of
the causes of labour unrest. Any State regulations of labour are rightly
watched with the greatest jealousy. Pledges have been given that
certain pre-War conditions as regards labour shall be re-established as
soon as possible.

During the War the exceptional conditions demanded exceptional measures.
To prevent competition for labour in order to fulfil the enormously
profitable contracts when the demand for munitions was so imperative,
special legislation was found absolutely necessary before the end of the
first year of the War. Employers had to be prohibited from engaging
workmen who had been on munitions work within six weeks before taking up
new employment, unless they had a certificate that the workmen had left
with the former employer's consent, or a tribunal held that consent had
been unreasonably withheld. Many persons who were in a position to form
a sound opinion consider that this provision "saved the situation." At
all events, it prevented the workmen, under the influence of the
inducements offered by competing employers, from running from place to
place to find where the highest wage could be obtained, and dislocating
the work in which they had been engaged.

The provision for manufacture of munitions had to be made very