Economic Waste. 487 



should not shrink from the cost of a peaceful experiment which, if 

 successful, would bring with it more blessings and more prosperity 

 than the most successful war. 



I have finished, because my time, not my subject, is exhausted. 

 You may disagree with every word I have said, you may disprove 

 almost every statement I have made, but you cannot get away from 

 the fact that this problem of what to do with our unemployed is 

 one of the most important, if not the most important, problem with 

 which we have to deal. And as such I make no apology for thrust- 

 ing it before you and saying think about it, look at it fairly and 

 earnestly, and see if nothing can be done. The gold output, Chinese 

 labour, the Customs tariff, the prospects of the share market, may 

 be of extreme interest to some of us personally, but the problem of 

 the unemployed is one which affects us all, and on the solution of 

 which the prosperity or otherwise of unborn generations depends. 

 Many of the greatest advances made in the last century, and particu- 

 larly in the latter half of the century, have been due to the discovery 

 of the means of utilising various waste products of industry. It is 

 for this century to find the means of utilising that waste product of 

 our industrial system as a whole, " unemployed labour," and so put 

 an end to the misery and degradation, almost inevitable for those who 

 are " out of work," as well as to the present enormous Economic 

 Waste. 



