TOPICS OF THE DAY
UNEMPLOYMENT AND COAL
] 1ACH week the figures of unemployment grow worse. The returns for the week ending June 9th, published on Wednesday, are full of menace ; there is no other word for it. • They show an increase over the previous week of close on 44,000. And this is no accidental figure, but merely the quickening of a process that has been going on steadily for the past six months. Compare to-day's total with that of a year ago. On June 9th, 1924, there were 1,027,515 unemployed. To-day there are 1,291,200. In other words, there are well over a quarter of a million more men and women receiving public assistance now than then—to be exact; 263,685 more. Further, it is almost certain there is a drift towards even higher figures. More pits are closing and more furnaces ceasing to operate. And remember that more men and women out of work involves a double impoverishment. The purchasing power of the men thrown out of work is, of course, greatly decreased. Therefore there is less general trade, and less general trade means yet further unemployment. Filially, the burden of public assistance through the need of supporting the unemployed is increased, and with it the already crushing burden of the taxes and rates. But bloated taxation, imperial and local, is a sure killer of industry. 'Here, then, is -a vicious circle of depression: Such are the tragic consequences of deflation, of a rising Bank Rate, of dear money, of a contraction of credit, of preventing those issues of new securities which would have increased the demand for our goods from abroad and also stimulated our home market. That " looking the dollar in the face " has been a costly luxury indeed These statements will, I know, be challenged, and I realize that the evils of the hour are open to other interpretations. On this matter I will only say that, whatever the cause, things have gone exactly as the opponents of deflation and of fixing our gaze on the dollar predicted they would. This time last year the policy of anti-deflation was still adhered to, and the figures of unemployment, though high, were on the down grade and the prospects of trade were improving. Then the yellow flag of a money quarantine was hoisted at the Bank of England and we were in effect warned to beware of doing business. The warning was only too well heeded. Credit was contracted, and with that came, as always, the. doom of unemployment and the restlessness and discontent which throughout _ economic history has invariably followed the policy of deflation,. and the accompanying discouragement of commercial. enterprise and industrial speculation. We .pitied the money-lenders and. forgot the producers. So potent, indeed, were • the suggestions of contraction that the prodneers made little attempt to avoid their fate. A fatalistic sigh of despair was all they . mild manage. With the cry of Morituri to salutant the Federation of- British Industries acclaimed the Sovereign Dollar and passed on to their doom. But it is. useless to -attempt to undo things done. We cannot call back yesterday or last year. We have got to fix our attention on the present and on the future. We will not say we are bound to die, but that we are determined to live. We have missed our way in the labyrinth, but_ we will fmd our way out.
First of all, we should say to the country, " Don't sit wondering whether Science may not 'sonic - day be' able to save the coal trade. Let us get up and save it at once." It can be saved if we make up Our minds to turn' our coal into oil, and use that oil and the other by-products of low-temperature carbonization for the thousand and one purposes which can be served by the derivatiVes of coal-tar. As .Mr. H edges pointed out in his able and far-seeing speech, we have passed, though we may not realize it, the period when we were justified. in saying ,that we had better wait and see whether the process was possible. . The, experimental Rubicon has been passed, and all that is wanted is a piece of bold industrial initiative. " Ah ! But you forget the .cost. It is not a sound proposition.. It.. is economically wasteful." People who use this argument, even if we admit it at its face value, though probably we have no right to do so, are forgetting the indirect evils and injuries, and so the waste, of .using untreated . coal. What would it be worth the country's while to pay for a clear. sky and an unspotted atmosphere, leaving the saving on the dole entirely on one side ? In weekly savings in washing, in " cleaning materials," in renewals of stone and iron work injured by the chemical products poured forth by our chimneys, we should save at least £20,000,000 a year. What we should save in the matter of national health it is difficult to estimate, but it would be a huge sum. Next, we should get cheaper oil for motor transport, for sea and air transport, for the future is with the oil engine. Directly or indirectly, I believe that we should save at least £100,000,000 a year as a nation, and also increase our security.; The time may not be far distant when those who possess home supplies of mineral oil will decide to keep it at. home.
I do not insist on these figures. I will only ask' whether the initial cost of low-temperature carbonization on a national. scale could come up to anything like the cost involved in using raw coal in the way we now use it. Mr. Hodges talked of £10,000,000 (not each year: but altogether) as being all that was required to start the new industry.. If he is right, and we have been assured that he is right by an informant • who has studied this problem closely for the past thirty years, then it seems that the time has come for immediate action.
As a rule we would avoid Government action, but we have drifted into a position so perilous that we cannot wait for individual effort to take the initiative. Ideally, the best plan would, no doubt,. be for the Government to impose a tax on all bituminous. coal: put on the market before the smoke products had been extracted, but industrial effort is too much depressed to make such a policy practical now. It would probably be necessary to *give a guarantee or actual subsidy. to companies and firms willing to start low-temperature carbonization works. Fdrther, it might be advisable for the Govern' ment to set up several model systems. Again, the Government should experiment=not in laboratories, but in workswith methods of producing cheap, electric power at the pit's mouth or in the pits themselves.
The essential thing is to get the.system going—to make the dust fly, as Mr.. Roosevelt. said in regard to the Panama Canal. We must get the miners back to work at all costs. Happily,'Science. prOvides us. with a way„of doing it which will at the same time make . for hygienic, aesthetic and moral improvement throughout the country. That it will also, through cheap electric power, make for individualism- in trade and for the small business against " Trustification is a feature of the scheme which does not .decrease its attractions.
J. ST. LOB STRACHEY.
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