480 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



contributing nothing to the wealth of the community, nevertheless 

 have to be fed and housed and clothed (however unsatisfactorily) 

 either in workhouses or by public or private charity, the wealth of 

 the rest of the community which is engaged in productive work is 

 always being diminished by the maintenance of those who are 

 bringing nothing to the common stock. That is, there is Economic 

 Waste. 



Were it possible to deal with the people who have no work to do, 

 and whom nobody seems to want, in the same way that our Muni- 

 cipality deals with unnecessary dogs, and send them to the lethal 

 chamber, society would at least be relieved of the cost of their keep, 

 but no one has yet, I believe, been bold enough to suggest this 

 remedy. Moreover, there would be this drawback, that when trade 

 improves again and more labour is required, you would have no 

 surplus supply to fall back upon. You might shut up your lethal 

 chamber, reduce the cost of marriage licenses, and do all you could 

 otherwise to increase population, but the crop of able-bodied workers 

 would take so long to produce that by the time it was available the 

 next swing of the pendulum in the industrial world would have taken 

 place, and you would again have to fall back on the lethal chamber. 



Is there no means by which the overplus of labour, which the. 

 industrial condition of the country does not at any given time require, 

 can be usefully employed at something else till the next expansion of 

 commerce causes it to be again demanded ? 



If there be any such thing possible, three great ends would be 

 attained. 



Firstly, the community would be relieved of the cost of main- 

 taining the unemptoyed. 



Secondly, the workers so enlisted, in what I might call the 

 industrial reserves, would be saved from the deterioration which seems 

 inevitably to accompany idleness. Even machinery allowed to stand 

 idle deteriorates ; how much more human beings kept in idleness 

 deteriorate every thinking and seeing man must admit. Whether it is, 

 in the words of Dr. Watts, that " Satan finds some mischief still 

 for idle hands to do," or whether we look for an explanation to the 

 ordinary nature of things and men, without calling in the aid of 

 His Satanic Majesty, is not very important — the really important 

 fact is that when we allow any of our workers to be for any length 

 of time out of work we are allowinp; our labour to deteriorate, so 

 that if we do later on find employment for them, the equivalent of 

 work that they will do will be definitely less than if they had been 

 all along in steady work ; so that again there is Economic Waste. 



Thirdly. Yet again, if the thousands or millions of persons at 

 any given time unemploved, and so producing nothing, could by any 

 means be turned into producers of any things that the rest of the 

 communitv (those in work) require, what an enormously increased 

 effective demand there would be for t"he things alreadv being pro- 

 duced. All these unemployed people want things; the demand for 

 the commodities others are producino- is already there ; give them 



