12 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
previous Conferences met regularly at certain fixed periods, permanency was not a part of the plan of those conferences. There could have been a break in their regularity and the idea could have been abandoned without doing violence to any rule or convention or understanding. The present conference has permanancy as a part of its plan. The organisation that we want to set up will have the permanancy and regularity of a standing committee, ready to function when called upon to do so.
More important than this feature of the conference is the second feature to which I want to draw your particular attention. It relates to the composition of the conference. The previous conferences were representative of Governments only—the representatives of the Central Government, Provincial Governments and some of the Indian States’ Governments— formed the only constituents of the conference. The most necessary and the most important elements, namely, the Employers and the Employees, were not represented at these conferences. Care was no doubt taken to establish contact and even to consult the organisations representing the Employers and the Employees. For instance, my distinguished colleague the Hon’ble Sir. A. Ramaswani Mudaliar, when he was the member in charge of Labour, did take occasion when he visited Calcutta to meet the representatives of Labour and of employers.
Similarly, my distinguished colleague, the Hon’ble Sir Firoz Khan Noon, to whom we owe the project of the present conference, did in his tenure of office as Labour Member seek occasion to take counsel with the organisations of Employers and Employers. It is for the first time, however, in the history of these Labour conferences that the representatives of the Employers and the Employees have been brought face to face within the ambit of a joint Conference. To my mind this is a feature of the conference which should find a very ready welcome from all concerned and particularly from the representatives of the Employees. Ever since the Witley Commission, in its Report on Labour in India, put forth the proposal that there should be established in India as a permanent body an Industrial Council, the representatives of Labour have agitated for effect being given to that recommendation. For various reasons it did not until now become possible to realise the ideal of an Industrial Council. I do not claim that the proposal