462 president's address — SECTION Gl. 



3. Agencies which insure against unemployment or which 

 grant pensions to the unemployed on certain conditions. 



Before outlining in detail the present campaign against un- 

 employment, it will be of value to notice some of the incidents 

 attaching to two special methods which are everywhere winning 

 rapid acceptance, namely, labour exchanges and State insurance 

 against unemployment. 



Labour Exchanges. — It is vain to expect too much of Labour 

 Bureaux. They adjust supply and demand ; they do not pretend 

 to remove an absolute superfluity of labour. But with this limi- 

 tation in mind high praise may well be given to the expeditious 

 work of these exchanges. 



France established her first in 1848. Her Free Municipal 

 Labour Agencies began in 1886, and in 1891, out of a total of 

 2,496,079 applicants, 459,459 w-ere placed in permanent work and 

 361,991 in temporary situations. 



In England, Labour Bureaux have passed through 20 years 

 of experiment. Her first Bureau was floated at Egham in 1885 

 under voluntary management, and in 14 months out of 382 appli- 

 cants, 289 (or 75 per cent.) were found work. The Ipswich Bureau, 

 opened in 1885, found it had to leave severely alore the old, the 

 incapable, and the vicious. The Wolverhampton Bureau failed 

 because all applicants (even the submerged tenth) were admitted 

 to registration, and employers refused to use it. Private registries, 

 good and bad, went on exploiting the field of the unemployed in 

 all parts of Great Britain. _ In spite of Mr. John Burns' plea to use 

 the 18,000 post offices in England as Labour Bureaux, English 

 statesmen refused to be awakened to the true office and poten- 

 tialities of well-conducted Labour Exchanges. In 1909, however, 

 a new era began. 



The Asquith Governmejit has just passed a labour Exchanges 

 Bill proposing to establish a uniform national system of exchanges, 

 spread over ten divisions, all working in harmony, and with a 

 central clearing-hoi se in London; The control of the whole scheme 

 is in the hands of the Board of Trade. " The labour Exchange," 

 said Mr. Churchill, " is a gateway to industrial security; it is an 

 essential piece of social mechanism ; it is necessary to almost 

 every approach to the imemployed question — it opens the way 

 to every approach ; it bars the way to none." Well managed, the 

 Labour Exchanges can bring men and work together ; they should 

 be able not only to tell workmen where to go, but where not to go ; 

 they should act as a guide to discover to the new generation what 

 trades are not overworked ; they should prevent the exploitation 

 of boy labour, and should be able to dovetail one seasonal trade 

 with another. 



In New Zealand the Department of Labour, instituted in June, 

 1891, has more than justified its existence. 



