458 president's address — section gi. 



Casual employment deteriorates both physique and character, 

 producing unsteadiness, intemperance and drift — effects which are 

 intensiiied in the next generation. " It takes a very high order of 

 intellect to be self-supporting on an intermittent income." 



The obvious reason for the unemployment of those in Class I 

 is the temporary superfluity of labour in one or more industries. 

 This on being traced further back is caused by one or other of 

 these : — 



Fluctuation in markets. 



Failure of harvests. 



Slack seasons. 



Changes in fashion. 



New processes of production. 



Substitution of machinery for hand labour. 



Temporary depression. 



Strikes either for wages or hours. 



Insecurity of investments causing withdrawal of capital. 



In Class II we meet with the great straggling host of the 

 unskilled. The casuals are, on the whole, inferior workmen, and 

 as such can command only inferior wages. Trade unions try to 

 find employment for II (a) by forcing up wages ; but as usual the 

 minimum becomes the maximum, and the ultimate result is not 

 the employment of a greater number, but a smaller wage paid to 

 the same original workmen. 



Class II {b) are the despair of the humanitarian. They include 

 all those who either won't work or whose work is not worth having 

 at any price. Drink, laziness, heredity, surroimdings — all con- 

 tribute to the physical and moral condition of this hopeless class. 

 Many of them have learned no trade and can do nothing. The 

 misery of worklessness leads to drink ; intemperance leads to dis- 

 honesty and criminality ; and so the unemployable sink daily. In 

 the district of the East End the public house is said to be at the root 

 of the whole problem of unemployment. But without laying too 

 much emphasis on any one cause, the explanation is found rather 

 in the cumulative action of the causes which produce unemployment 

 in the first instance. 



Old Age Pensions. — There is one great cause of unemployment 

 which merits a passing notice. It is dominant in every period and 

 nation, namely the infirmities which come from old age. With few 

 exceptions, after a certain period of life, earnings and opportunities 

 for earnings diminish, until there is not sufficient income even for 

 material necessaries. Now for this particular kind of poverty there 

 is one remedy which has been tried almost universally, a remedy 

 to which no objection can be raised, except that it is not always 

 sufficient. This remedy is the fourth commandment, " Honour thy 

 father and mother that thy days may be long in the land which the 

 Lord thy God giveth thee." It may well be that, if children were 

 taught bed-rock ethics in State schools many of the economic 

 troubles of society would gradually disappear. 



