UNEMrLOYMENT 123 



clear that both trade and iiianufactures have got to the end of 

 their tether, and phiinly dechiro that — tlicij can abaorh no more 

 labour an every dcpartriient of both trade and industries is terribly 

 congested, and that they themselves have been obliged to disgorge, 

 and will in all probability have to disgorge still more of the 

 assimilated labour, as the comiDetition of foreign nations in the 

 world's market is seriously interfering with British trade. 



A Simple Solution of the Labour Pkoblem 



This is the question, and surely a simpler problem was 

 never propounded to the human race. If you draw away 

 millions of the agriculturists for your manufacturing industries, 

 and after a time find your trades and manufactures are incap- 

 able of employing, supporting, and feeding all your town-bred 

 and added rural labour, then in the name of all that is wonder- 

 ful why don't you send them back to the land? This is, 

 naturally, the only question that another country, for example, 

 would ask of the one in the position indicated ; indeed, what 

 other question could they ask ? It is the question they wouhl 

 put to themselves if they were in our plight. It is the question 

 that one man would put to another if a friend were in a similar 

 plight. It is the question we ought to put to ourselves, not 

 once, but often ; not one day, but every day. It is the question 

 that should ever be on our lips and in our hearts ; it should 

 ring out at all times and at all seasons with the clearness of the 

 clarion and with the insistence of the alarm bell. It should be 

 tlu-ust before the noses of politicians by the people, till Parlia- 

 ment, out of very shame, would have to yield to the popular 

 tumult, and then — the people luould come into their own, but not 

 till then. 



The Question Answered 



This is the answer to the question, the solution of the pro- 

 blem, yet, withal, a problem of so simple a nature, that a child, 

 even, might have solved it, were it not for the thousand and one 

 difficulties with which it has been invested by a multitude of 

 people with a multitude of interests to serve. 



This unfortunate question has been made the subject of such 

 a mass of polemics, of such wide controversy ; has become the 

 centre of so much intrigue ; of political strife and party war- 

 fare ; of unseemly wrangling and " scientific " speculation ; while 

 it is moreover, so little understood, even by the vast majority of 

 the better class people, that there is no wonder it is to-day the 

 pivot iipon which turns most of the political and social unrest 



