Unemployment; a problem of industry

Front matter

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Preface

This volume contains a course of lectures delivered in Oxford, during Michaelmas term of the year now ending, for the Delegates of the Common University Fund. Its object is to combine a record of the principal facts of unemployment with a continuous argument as to the causes of unemployment. It includes a good deal of matter from published sources to which in the lectures I merely gave references, and appendices, the most important of which deal with "Public Labour Exchanges in Grermany" (reprinted from the Economic Journal for March, 1908) and " Methods of Seeking Employment in Great Britain". I am only too conscious that the treatment given in the following pages to one of the most perplexing and urgent of industrial problems is in many points defective ; that, not once but many times, I have been compelled to leave the record of facts or their analysis incomplete, to give probabilities in place of searching for certainties, to turn back unsatisfied from whole fields of inquiry as fascinating as they are important. Among these last is to be mentioned particularly the problem of the underl)ang causes of cyclical fluctuation in trade and employment In so far as the main obstacle to further inquiry into these causes has, in my case, been immersion in actual dealing with distress as member of the Central (Unemployed) Body for London during the past three years, I can only hope that the following discussion may prove to have gained on the side of practical experience something to set against what it has lost on the side of theory. After all, whatever may be the underlying causes of cyclical fluctuation, the fact of cyclical fluctuation has to be reckoned with by governments and individuals for many years to come. No analysis of its causes can hope within the range of practical politics, if indeed ever, to dispense with the need for providing against its results.

vii viii PREFACE

Another point of incompleteness is involved in the publication of these lectures now rather than six months or a year hence. The trade of the country appears to be passing through a depression more severe, or at least more general, than any that has occurred within recent times. It is possible, therefore, though, I think, not probable, that the experience of Distress Committees during the present winter may be such as to modify considerably some of the conclusions based upon their working in the past In any case, however, the modification will be one of emphasis rather than of substance. The present winter's experience may bring to light more distress that can truly be called exceptional. It cannot diminish the seriousness of the distress that is chronic. I would gladly have delayed publication in order to test, by the Experience of a fresh and in some ways abnormal winter, die conclusions already dhiwh. Since circumstances make this delay impossible I can only hope that here, too, loss may be counterbalanced by gain and the present volume have additional value as contributing to discussion at a critical moment

The final chapters serve to define what needs to be done rather than to set out in section and subsection the way of doing it. They must be judged as a stateknent of remedial policy, not as a compendium of practical reforms. The guiding principle of this policy is the reduction of the question of unemployment to a question of wages. Along that line alone but along that lin^ certainly will the problem of distress through Unemployment at last be solved. It is not in any substantial sense insoluble. The hlain part of it lies within ascertaihable limits. It represents, not an immeasurable and irredeemable failure of the existing social system, but incompleteness of organisation at certaih points^ Them is, indeed, something almost fantastic in supposing disat a nation capable of raising the edifice of British industry ihust be forever baffled by the business problem of oi^anising and maintaining adequately the reserve forces of labour.

The question is simply that of determining that the problem shall be solved. Upon tiiat and that alone depends the practicability of all the essential reforms — of the voluntary or compulsoiy organisation of the labour market, and of the voluntary or tompulsory averaging of earnings. " Practicability " is never anything but a relative term — dependent tipon the Uigiency with which ah

PREFACE

IX object is desired and upon the inconveniences which men are prepared to undergo in its pursuit It is practicable for most people to run a mile to save a life. It is not practicable for any one to run a mile unless he is prepared to get warm. So it is not practicable for a nation to get a mastery of unemployment without being prepared to submit to some change of industrial methods and customs. The problem of unemployment — this is a point that cannot be too strongly emphasised — is insoluble by any mere expenditure of public money. It represents not a want to be satisfied but a disease to be eradicated. It needs not money so much as thought and organisation. It needs above all to be taken seriously. ' A problem of industrial organisation is not taken seriously so long as it is left to the Poor Law or to " Distress " Committees, so long as it is forgotten with every temporary improvement of trade, so long as it is made a peg on which to hang all other projects of social or political change.

I have to thank many friends for help in the publication ot these lectures — more particularly my aunt Mrs. North, who collected and prepared the material for many of the statistical tables ; Mr. A. Andrewes-Uthwatt, who read a large part of the proofs and compiled the index ; and Mr. J. S. Nicholson, who is mainly responsible for the bibliography and also gave invaluable aid at the last moment in completing statistics and verifying references.

I have to thank also the Editors of the Albany RevieWy the Contemporary Review and the Economic Journal for placing at my disposal again matter which had already appeared in those periodicals.

W. H. BEVERIDGE.

December, zgo8.

Chapter I. Paqb

ThbjProblem and its Limits • . . . z

Growth of sense of public responsibility in regard to unemployment. Growth of accurate knowledge ; general theory of causes now possible. Inquiry must be (a) economic, {h\ as to unemployment rather Uian as to the imemployed. The proolem that of the adjustment of supply of and demand ior labour.

The forces making for adjustment. Supply influenced by demand ; demand ultimately governed by supply. The demand for the products of labour unlimited. This demand, however, is not for the products of labour alone but for those of labour in combination with land and capital. Relations of labour and land. No shortage of latter. No pressure of population on the means of subsistence to-day. Relations of labour and capital. No general displacement of men by machines. The reward to labour rising not falling. The neg^ative conclusion reached : Unemployment does not represent general failure of adjustment between growth of supply of labour and growth of demand. The positive conclusion reached : ^Unemployment does represent specific imperfections of adjustment. Changes of industrial structure. Fluctuations of industrial activity. The glutting of the labour market. Outline of subsequent discussion.

The positive conclusion more certain and more important than the negative conclusion. A rising demand for labour no cure for unemployment

CHAPTER 11.

The Sources op Information i6

1. The unemployed percentage. Returns from trade unions pajring unem-

ployed benefit. Percentages 1894-1908. Returns fairly complete as to unions reporting. Not a fair sample of the whole of industry. Stable trades unrepresented. Fluctuating trades over-represented. No account taken of short time. The unemployed percentage no indication of the volume of general unemployment but only of its growth or diminution.

2. Records of Distress Committees. Include only distressed unemployed.

Detailed information as to applicants.

3. Subsidiary sources of information. Statistics of commerce and manu-

facture. Days worked in coal-mines. Trade union reports. Pauperism. No possibility of numbering the unemployed. Analysis must be of unemployment.

xii CONTENTS

Chapter III. Paob

A familiar and common phenomenon. Spring and summer trades. Winter trades. Trades dependent on social habits. Differences of period, range, regularity and cause. Seasonal fluctuations met (a) by reduction of hours ; (b) by use of subsidiary trades ; (3) by private or collective saving. A surface movement. A question less of unemployment than of wages.

CHAPTER IV. Cyclical Fluctuation 38

Alternate rise and fall of average unemployed percentage in periods of years. All principal trades affected together. Fluctuation in the labour market, part of general economic ebb and flow. The pulse of the nation. Shown in bank rate, foreign trade, marriage rate, consumption of beer, crime, pauperism, company formation, railway receipts, bankers' clearances, wages, prices. Peculiar features since 1900. Material life of the nation governed by alternations of expansion and contraction.

Causes of cyclical fluctuation still in dispute. Distinction between financial crises and industrial depressions. Two types of theory untenable, viz. : those not applicable to all advanced industrial countries alike and those requiring fixed periods. Foreign trade fluctuation of principal countries. Three types of theory still possible : (i) Fluctuation in supply of gold and silver. (2) Misdirection of productive energy. (3) Superfluity of productive energy. The " under-consumption " theory. The competition theory. Cyclical fluctuation as the necessary form of progress under competition.

No final theory as to cydical fluctuation can yet be given. Fluctuation itself certain to continue. Average rate of growth of demand for labour adequate for growth of population; actual rate sometimes greater, sometimes less. Recurrent pressure in labour market more or less successfully met in some trades. Not met by unorganised workmen. Mansion House Relief Funds. Better measures of palliation needed.

CHAPTER V. The Reserve of Labour 68

1. The irreducible minimum of unemployment. Unemployed percentages of

skilled men never down to zero. Chronic distress of unskilled men. The paradox of the labour market : general and normal excess of supply over demand. Constitution of irreducible minimum shown by distribution of unemployment in trade unions. Loss of time by many, not chronic idleness of a few. Men out of work on any one day onl^ that day's sample of labour reserve. Confirmation by experience of Distress Committees. The typical applicant is not a chronically unemployed man but a casual labourer, is industrial not parasitic upon industry.

2. Economics of casual employment. Labour reserves swollen fa) by lack of

mobility,' (&) by chance ens^agement. Abstract analysis illustrated by London riverside labour. Work at the docks and wharves. Reform by London aild India Docks Company. Organised fluidity. The bulk of employment still unorganised. The observed excess of labour. Average earnings of casual dockers.

3. The glutting of the labour market. Other ports than London. Other

forms of casual employment. The building trades. Casual employment only acute form of general phenomenon. Dissipation of fluctuating demands causes over-recruiting of all trades. The sense in which methods of employment may be said to call excessive reserves of labour into being.

CONTENTS xiii

4. Under-employment Irreducible minimum only a sample of irregular reserves of labour. Reserve of labour not necessarily so great os so irregular as to involve distress or under-employment Tendency to glutting of labour market varies in strength and meets with varying obstacles in different occupations. Distinction between skilled and unskilled. " Under-employment '* as a form of sweating. The beating down of avera^ earnings to subsistence level. Chsurity and public relief as subsidies to casual employment. The problem one of business organisation. iM^to provide properly maintained reserves of labour Uj

for fluctuations of demand.

CHAPTER VI. Loss AND Lack of Industrial Quality izi

1. Changes of industrial structure. Illustrated by census. Decay of par-

ticuSur trades. New processes or machines. New forms of labour. Shifting of locality. Common feature the destruction of established livelihoods. Not, however, of great apparent importance. Such changes best considered under a more genersd heading as one type of lEactors producing qualitative maladjustment in the labour market. Other fiictors are age and deficiencies of mdustriai training.

2. Influence of advancing years. Applicants to Distress Committees drawn

in comparable proportions from all ages though more from the later ones. Unemplo3rment not specifically a disease of old age. Popular idea that men get displaced at earlier ages than before contradicted by statistics of superannuation in two important unions. Old men and the standard rate. Advancing years destroying adaptability increase the difficulty of obtaining new employment.

3. Deficiencies of industrial training. The bulk of applicants to Distress

Committees have taken to " blind-alley " and uneducative employments on leaving school. Inference from this that improvements of industrial training are the principal remedy for unemployment not justified. Distress Committees register only some, notall the unemployed. Casual labour market recruited from many sources and at all ages ; age distribution in residuary and skilled occupations compared. Casual labour dependent upon casual demand. Possible influence of industrial training upon unemployment limited. Need for revival of principle only of apprenticeship — that every boy should be learning something as well as earning.

CHAPTER VII. Thb Personal Factor 133

Defects of character and the volume of unemployment. The vagrant and <* unemployable ". The half-employable. All instability of character increases unemployment.

Defects of character and the incidence of unemployment. Unequal efficiency of workmen. The leas efficient are dismissed and thereby further de^ moralised. Concentration of unemployment upon the inferior men illustrated by (a) costliness of relief works, (h) proportions of unpunctuaiity in good and bad times, if) statistics of unemployed claims in trade unions. The casual fringe among compositors and bookbinders. Influence of personal character upon the incidence of unemployment a dominant fact of the situation.

The unemployed present as a rule many economic and personal factora in combination. The Umbo of casual labour. The main visible effect of eiEceptional depression is to accentuate normal poverty — making more casual those who were casual before. Trade union statistics. Numbers unemployed and average period of unemployment in good and bad years respecti't^y. Complication of many factors impedes direct treatment of the unemployed.

rw^

XIV CONTENTS

Chapter VIII. Paok

Rbmbdibs of thb Past

I. The able-bodied under the Poor Law. Relief in the workhouse. Relief of family outside and head of family inside the workhouse. Outdoor relief with a labour test Outdoor relief without a labour test. The casual ward.

a. Municipal relief works. The circulars of 1886 and 1892. << Work *' with no standard of competence.

3. Special charitable funds. Development in London i860, 1867, 1885,

Z892-5. The " colony system " of 1903-4. Mr. Long's scheme of joint committees, 1904-5.

4. The Unemployed Workmen Act. Summary of provisions. A conglome-

rate of ideas from Poor Law, municipal relief work and special charitable funds. Working of Act 1905-8. Numbers and occupations of applicants. Difficulties of investigation and selection. The predominant casual labourer. Cost of relief work. Absence of permanent benefit. Farm colonies. Emig^ration. Labour Exchanges.

5. Conclusions as to Unemployed Worlunen Act. Departures firom original

policy in respect of finance, persons to be assisted, conditions of assistance, effect of assistance. Failure to deal with exceptional distress. Assumed advantages of relief by work rather than by money gifts unreal. Need for improved industrial conditions. A country cannot treat its dependants less badly than its citizens. Need for measures of organisation not of relief.

Chapter IX

Principles of Future Policy. I. The Organised Fluidity of Labour . 192

Summary of preceding discussion. Unemployment a matter of fluctuations and changes in the demand for labour. Its treatment a matter of business organisation — ^to provide reserve power for fluctuations and to ease transitions. Criticism of proposals for State employment as a reservoir of labour for ordinary employment.

The labour market. Different treatment of labour and other commodities to-day. The hawking of labour. Wastefulness of this plan shown in two ways, (a) delay of production or (b) maintenance of excessive reserves of labour. Abolition of this plan by organisation of labour market the first step in the treatment of unemployment. De-casualisation. All men not regularly employed under one firm to be engaged only from an Exchange in touch with many firms. Concentration of work on some, displacing of others. Theoretical and pactical answers to objection on ground of this displacement. Organisation of labour market as an increase of industrial efficiency. Subsidiary use of emigration, afforestation, etc. Analogies between casual employment and casual relief, and between under-employment and under-payment. Principle clear ; practical application varied. De-casualisation only special form of genersd labour market organisation. Organised and therefore limited fluidity of labour a protection to those in each trade or district.

Labour Exchanges and other factors in unemployment. Seasonal fluctuations. Changes of industrial structure. The problem of age. The problem of youth ; relation between Labour Exchanges and industrial training. The unemployable. The Labour Exchange test of unemployment. An alternative to deterrence.

Conclusions. The demand of economists for mobility of labour. Ignorance a principal barrier to movement. The two functions of the modem workman. Organisation of the search for work increases working efficiency. Need for this on any view of relations between population and industry. The cardinal principle of social policy — to make youth adventurous and keep age secure.

CONTENTS XV

Chapter X, Paob

Pkinciplbs of Future Policy. II. The Avbraqinq of Work and Earnings 219 The averaging of work and earnings. Elasticity of working hours. The example of coal and cotton. Unemployed insurance. The example of the trade unions. Expenditure on unemployed benefits. Cost per member per week. Flexibility of the provision made. The burden of unemployment borne by the trade as a whole. Foreign examples. The German report. Value of the method of insurance. Possibility of extension depends upon test of unemployment. Minor and collateral measures. Systematic distribution of public work on business lines. Elasticity of wages. Absorption of temporary surplus. General progress. Poor Law Reform. The principles and functions of public relief

CHAPTER XI. Conclusion 235

APPENDIX A.

Public Labour Exchanges in Germany 239

APPENDIX B.

Methods of Seeking Employment in Great Britain .... 255

APPENDIX C.

Report of the Departmental Committee on Vagrancy. . . . 267

APPENDIX D.

LrisT OF Reports and other Publications bearing on Unemployment . 270

-t

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS.

TABLE PAOK

I. Principal Industries in United Kingdom, 1855-1907 .... 7

II. Rates of Money Wages and Prices, 1878-1907 9

III. Unemployed Percentage, 1894-1908 18

IV. Unemployed Percentage— Trades Represented 20

V. Coal-Mining — Days Worked per Week 25

VI. Seasonal Fluctuations in Certain Trades. {With Chart) . . 30, 31 VII. Building Trade — Increase and Decrease per cent in Numbers Employed by Firms making Returns 33

VIII. Cyclical Fluctuation of £mp]o3rment 39

IX. The Pulse of the Nation. {With Chart) 42-44

X. Foreign Trade of Principal Countries. {With Chart) . . 55, 56

XI. Cyclical Fluctuation and Relief Funds 66

XII. Percentage Membership of Certain Unions Unemployed at some time

in a year 71

XIII. Distribution of Unemployment — Amalgamated Society of Engineers . 73

XIV. Distribution of Unemployment — London Society of Compositors . 74 XV. Distribution of Unemployment — London Society of Compositors . 74

XVI. London and India Docks — Percentage of Work Performed by each

Class of Labour . . . . i 89

XVII. Average Weekly Earnings of Casual Docker 94

XVIII. Ages of Applicants found Qualified by Distress Committees — England

and Wales 117

XIX. Ages of Unemployed Applicants — London and West Ham . .119

XX. Age Distribution of Unemployed and Others 119

XXI. Age at Superannuation — Amalgamated Society of Engineers . . 122 XXII. Age at Superannuation — Friendly Society of Ironfounders . . . 122

XXIII. Superannuation in Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 1885 and

1907 123

XXIV. Age Distribution in Certain Occupations. England and Wales.

{With Chart) 129

XXV. Exceptional Depression in Trade Unions 147

XXVI. Distress Committees in England and Wales 166

XXVII. Occupations of Unemployed Applicants . ' 168

XXVIII. Repeated Applications in London 178

XXIX. Men Assisted and Men Appl3dng 179

XXX. Metropolitan Emplo3rment Exchanges, 1906-1908 .... 184

XXXI. Metropolitan Employment Exchanges (Year ended 30th June, 1908) . 184

XXXII. Principal Public Labour Exchanges in Germany . . . . . 241

XXXIII. Development of Principal German Exchanges 246

XXXIV. Travelling Benefit (Ironfounders) 259

XXXV. Travelling Benefit (Ironfounders) : Summary 260

xvi

Chapter I. The Problem And Its Limits

Growth of sense of public responsibility in regard to unemployment. Growth of accurate Imowledge ; general theory of causes now possible. Inquiry must be (a) economic, (h) as to unemplo3rment rather than as to the unemployed. The problem that of the adjustment of supply of and demand for labour.

The forces making for adjustment. Supply influenced by demand; demand ultimately governed by supply. The demand for the products of labour unlimited. This demand, however, is not for the products of labour alone but for those of labour in combination with land and capital. Relations of labour and land. No shortage of latter. No pressure of population on the means of subsistence to-day. Relations of labour and capital. No general displacement of men by machines. The reward to labour rising not falling. The negative conclusion reached : Unemployment does not represent general failure of adjustment between growth of supply of labour and growth of demand. The positive conclusion reached : Unemployment does represent specific imperfections of adjustment. Changes of industrial structure. Fluctuations of industrial activity. The glutting of the labour market. Outline of subsequent discussion.

The positive conclusion more certain and more important than the negative conclusion. A rising demand for labour no cure for unemployment.

The problem of unemployment lies, in a very special sense, at the root of most other social problems. Society is built up on labour ; it lays upon its members responsibilities which in the vast majority of cases can be met only from the reward of labour ; it imprisons for beggary and brands for pauperism ; its ideal unit is the household of man, wife and children maintained by the earnings of the first alone. The household should have at all times sufficient room and air according to its size — but how, if the income is too irregular always to pay the rent ? The children, till they themselves can work, should be supported by the parents — but how, unless the father has employment? The wife, so long at least as she is bearing and bringing up children, should have no other task — but how, if the husband's earnings fail and she has to.go out to work ? Everywhere the same difficulty recurs. Everywhere reasonable security of employment for the bread-winner is the basis of all private duties and all sound social action.

At one time this reasonable security was assumed as axiomatic. The great majority of people were people who had obtained employment. The great majority argued from their own cases that any man who really wanted employment could always obtain it. Only now and again came exceptional circumstances — a war in America, a famine in India, a bank failure in Glasgow — to be met by emergency measures of relief. Not one in a thousand of those who lived by this cheerful belief could have given reasons for his optimism. Now that this optimism is shaken, as it certainly is, there is danger that it may give place to a pessimism as unreasoning and as harmful.

The circular issued by Mr. Chamberlain as President of the Local Government Board in 1886 laid upon local authorities the moral obligation of endeavouring to provide work in times of exceptional distress. This circular was repeated by Sir Henry Fowler in the succeeding depression of 1892 and onwards. In 1904 under the Presidency of Mr. Walter Long semi-official machinery was established for the better administration of special relief funds. In 1905 the Unemployed Workmen Act reversed the principles of 1834 and enshrined in the statute book the policy of relieving the unemployed without the disqualifications of the Poor Law. The Act itself was so drafted as to prevent arty direct application of public moneys for relief; the cost of providing work had in the first year to be met entirely from voluntary subscriptions. In the following year and since then this distinction has been disregarded; unemployment has been relieved without the pauper stigma, though at the public cost. In the spring of the present year a Bill to acknowledge the right of every man to have work provided for him by public authority \vas introduced in the House of Commons and received on its second reading the support of 116 members. The. Government of the day while opposing that Bill pledged itself to introduce practical alternatives of its own in the near future.

There has been thus a steady, if gradual, growth of the sense of public responsibility for the case of the unemployed. If this sense of responsibility is to issue in further action, it is before ail things necessary that that case should be fully understood. In a matter of the first importance there is room for mistakes of the first importance. A community may treat its criminals or its lunatics unwisely without more than local inconvenience ; it will touch in any case but an insignificant percentage of its members. It cannot treat the question of employment unwisely without the risk of grave harm in every quarter ; its policy there is a policy affecting the great majority of citizens. Fortunately, with the growth of a sense of public responsibility in regard to this problem, there has been a growth of knowledge and understanding. The administration of the Unemployed Workmen Act in

THE PROBLEM AND ITS LIMITS j

particular has afforded a mass of new experience and of discussion. If much, with regard to unemployment, remains obscure, yet much has been done to lighten the past obscurity; many crude ideas are in process of dispersal; it is even possible to suggest the outlines of a general theory of causes and principles for treatment This is the attempt which will be made in the following pages. The manner of that attempt is governed by two general considerations. First, the inquiry must be essentially an economic one. The evil to be analysed is, in technical language, that of maladjustment between the supply of and the demand for labour. Second, the inquiry must be one as to unemployment rather than as to the unemployed.

The inquiry must be essentially an economic one. The object in view is not the framir^ of palliatives for present distress, I but the discovery of causes and the suggestion, if possible, of|| preventive measures and final remedies. With this in view thelj problem must be approached, not from the standpoint of the Poor/ 1 Law or of charitable administration, but from that of industry.) |1 The first question must be, not what is to be done with the unem- \ ployed individual, but wj^ y he is thus unemployed. His involun- I tary idleness indicates excess of the supply of labour over the demand for laboufT To what extent, under what circumstances, and in what forms is such an excess observable in the industry of to-day? To what economic and social causes may it be attributed? How is the action of the social and economic causes complicated by the influence of personal character? How, if at all, can they be rendered harmless or eliminated? How far, if at all, can this be done without risk of graver harm in other directions ?

The inquiry must be one into unemployment rather than into the unemployed. It will appear at once, indeed it is manifest from the start, that any one unemployed individual may represent and commonly does represent, the concurrence of many different forces, some industrial, some personal. A riverside labourer in Wapping during February, 1908, might be suffering at one and the same time from chronic irregularity of employment, from* seasonal depression of his trade, from exceptional or cyclical depression of trade generally, from the permanent shifting of work lower down the river, and from his own deficiencies of character or education. His distress could not be attributed to any one of these factors alone. Classification of men according to the causes of their unemployment is, strictly speaking, an impossibility. The only possible course is to classify the causes or types of unemplo)anent themselves.

into

ifest hi sent, ^

I The problem of unemployment is the problem of the adjust- I ment of the supply of labour and the demand for labour. The supply of labour in a country is, in the Widest sense, the supply of population. It is at any moment, apart from the possibilities of emigration and immigration, a fairly fixed quantity. Moreover, it is fixed for each moment, not by anything then happening, but by the habits and actions of millions of disconnected households a generation back. The demand for labour, on the other hand, is an aggregate of thousands or tens of thousands of separate demands in the present It fluctuates with the fortunes and the calculations of the host of rival employers.

Discrepancy between two things so distinct in immediate origin is obviously possible. The problem has merely to be stated in order to shatter the simple faith that at all times any man who really wants work can obtain it There is nothing in the existing industrial order to secure this miraculously perfect adjustment The question is rather as to what- there is to secure any sort of adjustment at all, and to keep the demand for labour even within measurable distance of the supply. When only one particular type of labour is in question, there are obvious possibilities. Men will tend to leave or to avoid entering an employment that they know to be overcrowded ; they will transfer their services to one in which the demand appears to exceed the supply. In regard to labour as a whole, there is not this possibility. Is there then anything to prevent the supply of labour as a whole from growing to be permanently and largely in excess of the demand, or the demand for labour as a whole from falling off so as to be permanently and largely deficient for the supply ? Is it not possible that one or other of these things has happened or is happening in the United Kingdom to-day ? If so, there can be little need of elaborate inquiry into the minor causes of unemployment, and there can be no hope of a remedy except in the rapid expansion of industry or in the restriction of the population.