UNEMPLOYMENT AND ITS CAUSES.
THE Times of Thursday week contained a very interesting article, "From a Correspondent," on the unemployed. The writer's description of the question as "an economic problem of great complexity," and a malady which "impulsive treatment with salves and plasters is more likely to aggravate than to remedy," we can accept unreservedly. His analysis of unemployment is excellent. It is "lack, of sufficient work to keep all the workers employed." From the term thus limited must be excluded those who are out of work through sickness, or accident, or the normal fluctuations of trade. These fluctuations are inevitable. "They are primarily caused by the 'act of God,' or by the discoveries and inventions of man, to which no bounds can be set"; and "we must be content to meet them by remedial agencies." But in recent years the character of unemployment has changed. It has become continuous instead of occasional. There are more people out of work, and they have less prospect of getting work. A comparison of the Census of 1881 with that of 1901 shows that the proportion of unoccupied to occupied persons is higher, and that in the unoccupied class there are more adults. A still more striking change has taken place in the character of the work done by those who are employed. The productive workers—the workers who live by the production of useful things—become less and less numerous in comparison with the non-pro- ductive workers—those, that is, who live by render- ing "services." There are fewer people engaged in agriculture than there were in 1881, and only about the same number engaged in textile manufactures. In the unproductive occupations, on the other hand, "every group, except domestic service, shows a large, while several show an enormous, increase Trade and transport have replaced productive industry, particularly transport." But the demand for this particular kind of labour has a very unfortunate effect on those to whom it appeals. It makes them unskilled, and consequently casual, labourers. The root cause of this state of things "is the system of free imports, which fosters trade and transport, combined with restricted foreign markets, which discourage pro- ductive industry." Englishmen have less to make because the foreigner makes so much for them. A disproportionate amount of time and energy is devoted to carrying about the things which the foreigner sends to them.
The first observation that presents itself on this picture is that the writer has not accurately read the moral of the figures which he so honestly sets wit. Government (general and local), be tells us, shows an increase of ninety per cent. in those engaged in it ; defence of fifty-seven per cent.; professions of forty-five per cent. ; drapers and some other dealers of seventy-three per cent. ; gas, water, and sanitary service of a hundred and seventy per cent. But no system of Tariff Reform that we can think of would lessen the demand for clerks and inspectors, for soldiers and sailors, for doctors and lawyers, for those engaged in the retail sale of goods wherever manufactured, for the provision and maintenance of light, of water, of improved sanitary arrangements. These things are the natural products or accompaniments of a civilisa- tion which is daily growing more exacting, and consequently more costly. Nor can we see that the increase—a hundred per cent.—in clerks would have been less if foreign goods had been kept out of the English market. The clerk is mainly concerned with the distribution of goods, and no change which did not lessen this distribution would appreciably lessen the numbers engaged in it. We do not understand, however, that the Tariff Reformer professes to lessen the number of useful things in the country. His object is to ensure that they shall be made as well as used at home. No doubt if the effect of Tariff Reform were to make these useful things dearer there would be less demand for clerks to distribute them. But the contention of the Tariff Reformer is that no material increase in the cost of living would follow upon the adoption of his system; and if this proved true, the cost of distribution and the need for distributors would be un- changed. The same thing may be said of the growth in railwaymen, carmen, and carriers. Their relation to what they carry does not begin until the goods are lying on English soil, and whether they are transported, say to London, from an English port or from an English manu- facturing town would make little difference in the end. But how about dock-erg? The increase in their numbers is one hundred and, thirty-four per cent., and they are largely concerned with the unloading of goods coming from abroad. If we grew or made everything at home this particular industry would come to an end, and those engaged in it would be set free for productive work. But there is room for doubt even here. The Tariff Reformer is commonly a preferential-duties man, and he looks forward to large shipments of corn and raw materials from the Colonies to take the place of those which now come to us from foreign countries. These will need unloading just as much as the foreign goods.
The correspondent of the Times assumes that the exclu- sion of foreign goods would increase the volume of English productive industry. Possibly, if the duties on foreign goods were high enough to make an appreciable difference in the cost, they might have this effect. But it is exceedingly rash to take this for granted. A large rise in the price of whole classes of articles would in many cases greatly reduce the demand for them. Or it might prove impossible, in the existing conditions of English labour, to make them at home for the price at which the foreigner is willing to sell them, and then the consumer would be inconvenienced with no compensating benefit to the English producer. He might, indeed, be even the worse for the very change devised for his advantage. Besides losing the distributing trade which foreign im- portations had brought us, we might lose the production rendered necessary by the exports which now balance the imports. The equilibrium of trade is a very delicate thing, and we ought to be very sure of our ground before we venture upon changes in a direction in which prophecy is so uncertain. Even if, like the writer in the Times, we put our finger on what seems a weak place in our system, how can we feel sure that its removal might not displace some piece of machinery of the importance and action of which we are quite ignorant? Tariff Reformers may possibly remember that they have not yet made their choice between the two alternative results of the levying of duties for other than revenue purposes. Are they to keep out foreign goods, and thus make work for the English producer ? Or are they to bring in a large revenue from the importation of foreign goods ? In the latter case the English producer will derive no benefit from them. In the former case the benefit may be neutralised by some unforeseen loss.
Education has so often been recommended as the uni- versal cure for all the evils to which man is heir that we do not wonder that to a Tariff Reformer it seems idle to preach it once more. And yet the letter from the Warden of New College in Tuesday's Times, and Dr. Macnamara's on Wednesday, do seem to bear very closely on the question of the unemployed. What is it that does most to swell the numbers of this undesirable class ? The indifference alike of the parent and of the child to any preparation other than that which the elementary school affords for the business of life. The boy leaves school at fourteen and at once becomes a wage-earner. But to be a wage-earner at that age commonly means that he gets employment as a messenger or as an errand-boy, or that he goes out with a van. These occupations, no doubt, bring in a few shillings a, week, but they lead to nothing better. By and by the boy asks for a rise of wages and gets a dismissal instead. For the particular purpose for which he is wanted he is worth no more at eighteen than he was at fifteen, and there is a fresh generation of boys just leaving school who are ready to fill his place. This is especially the case in London, where there is no great industry tending to draw to itself all the available working power in the district. Dr. Ma,cnamara tells us that a strong Committee of which he is chairman has for some time past been considering how to "spread again among the operative classes the knowledge of handicraft, and to revive under modern conditions a, national system of apprenticeship." Recommendations concurred in by Sir Horace Plunkett and Sir Henry Craik, and commanding the strong support of the Labour Members on the Committee, are not likely to be wanting in practical value. It is, we admit, but a commonplace substitute for a return to Protection. But it has the advantage over the larger proposal that it does not put in peril the complicated network of English trade or revolu- tionise the course of English policy for two generations. The very considerations which make Dr. Ma,cnamara's suggestion look prosaic by the side of the other do at least make its adoption the safer course of the two.
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