14 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
(ii) the laying down of a procedure for the settlement of industrial disputes; and
(iii) the discussion of all matters of all-India importance as between employers and employees.
In regard to the first it is unnecessary to say why we have included it in our aims and objects. Uniformity in Labour legislation can never cease to be a matter of importance to so large a country like India with its many administrative and provincial jurisdictions. It must therefore, continue to occupy our attention in the future as it has done in the past.
INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES
As to industrial disputes both Labour and Capital have, once in war, behaved with a sense of responsibility and the number of strikes that have taken place has not been on a very extensive or disturbing scale. There was some tendency at the beginning of this year for an increase in industrial unrest, but the laying down of a procedure for adjudication of disputes under the Defence of India Rule 81-A has resulted in some reduction in recent months. That procedure will, we hope, prove an efficient and a reliable machinery, but it is a procedure for the settlement of industrial disputes as one of the aims and objects of the Conference which we propose to set up.
In designing the last item included in our aims and objects we have deliberately used wide language so as not to exclude from the deliberation of the Conference anything that is of importance to labour and capital. But I like to tell you what we have in mind in employing…… this broad expression “matters of all-India importance.” We want to include in it all matters relating to Labour Welfare and the maintenance of Labour morale. So understood, I need hardly say this object, though placed last, may be regarded as the highest in importance. We certainly regard it as most urgent. The urgency I need hardly say is due to the necessities of the war.
A WAR OF SUPPLIES
The present war is a war of supplies and supplies depend upon peace in industry. How to secure peace in industry is a pressing problem for us today. I may not be wrong if I say that peace in industry depends