The Treasury Agreement is the name given to the agreement between the British government and the trade unions made in March 1915, during the First World War.
The Government of the United Kingdom, formally referred to as Her Majesty's Government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is also commonly referred to as simply the UK Government or the British Government.
World War I, also known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as, "the war to end all wars," it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history. It is also one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the resulting 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide.
The war exposed British industry's inadequacy in regards to the production of munitions and it was therefore necessary to secure the co-operation of organised labour in maximising production. [1] The first draft of the Defence of the Realm (Amendment) Act 1915 included a clause outlawing strikes and lock-outs in any company engaged in munitions production and another clause introduced compulsory arbitration of workplace disputes. [1] However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, decided to attempt a voluntary agreement with the trade unions. Therefore, during 17–18 March 1915, a conference was held in the Treasury between Lloyd George and the representatives of the trade unionists. [2] Arthur Balfour was also present. [3]
The Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of Her Majesty's Exchequer, commonly known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or simply the Chancellor, is a senior official within the Government of the United Kingdom and head of Her Majesty's Treasury. The office is a British Cabinet-level position.
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician. He was the last Liberal to serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Her Majesty's Treasury, sometimes referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is the British government department responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and economic policy. The Treasury maintains the Online System for Central Accounting and Reporting (OSCAR), the replacement for the Combined Online Information System (COINS), which itemises departmental spending under thousands of category headings, and from which the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) annual financial statements are produced.
Opening the conference, Lloyd George said that the powers acquired by the government to take over firms capable of munitions production meant that those firms would be turned over entirely to munitions production and that there would be a limitation of private profits. [4] Lloyd George went on to say that as the government would interfere in the rights of capital, it was only fair that the workers should make a similar sacrifice, particularly in suspending those trade union regulations that hampered munitions production. [4] He also said any disputes should be settled by peaceful arbitration. [4]
The trade unionists then drew up a memorandum in response. This was submitted by Arthur Henderson on 19 March and was signed by Lloyd George and Walter Runciman on behalf of the government and by Henderson and Mr. Mosses on behalf of the trade unions. [5] The resulting Treasury Agreement suspended (for the duration of the war) those trade union regulations that hampered munitions production. It also allowed existing bodies of skilled labour to be diluted by semi-skilled and unskilled labour on the condition that these workers were paid the same wages as skilled labour. The Agreement also replaced strikes with arbitration and limited the private profits of manufacturers. [6]
A memorandum is a written message that may be used in a business office. The plural form of the Latin noun memorandum so derived is properly memoranda, but if the word is deemed to have become a word of the English language, the plural memorandums, abbreviated to memos, may be used..
Arthur Henderson was a British iron moulder and Labour politician. He was the first Labour cabinet minister, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 and, uniquely, served three separate terms as Leader of the Labour Party in three different decades. He was popular among his colleagues, who called him ‘Uncle Arthur’ in acknowledgement of his integrity, his devotion to the cause and his imperturbability. He was a transitional figure whose policies were, at first, close to those of the Liberal Party. The trades unions rejected his emphasis on arbitration and conciliation, and thwarted his goal of unifying the Labour Party and the trade unions.
Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford, was a prominent Liberal and later National Liberal politician in the United Kingdom between the 1900s and 1930s.
The Agreement was not immediately put into effect because the workers would not implement it before the government had instituted the limitation of private profits. Although Runciman attempted to negotiate with the heads of munitions companies to this end, these discussions came to nothing and the proposals were embodied in the June 1915 Munitions of War Act. [6]
The Munitions of War Act 1915 was a British Act of Parliament passed on 2 July 1915 during the First World War. It was designed to maximize munitions output and brought private companies supplying the armed forces under the tight control of the newly created Ministry of Munitions, under David Lloyd George. The policy, according to J. A. R. Marriott, was that:
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