28G 



Dis(:ovi;i'.v 



In considering the position of clcctro-chcmical enter- 

 prises generally, wc shall find that the main obstacle 

 offered to their development in the nineteenth century 

 was the necessity of generating specially the large 

 amount of electrical power required. At the present 

 time the most economical way of obtaining electrical 

 energy is to have it generated in large centralised 

 generating stations situated near the coalfields and 

 distributing the power electrically. Such stations 

 are developing rapidly, because they offer the most 

 economical method of power generation. For these 

 undertakings, of course, coal is a necessity. A 

 very considerable economy is effected by them, 

 partly because of the large scale of operation, 

 and partly because the distribution of power over 

 large areas for miscellaneous services such as factories, 

 railways, and lighting, leads to a more favourable 

 balancing or averaging of the consumption, known as 

 the load factor. 



The future interests of this country can be regarded 

 with equanimity, despite the prospect of the exhaustion 

 of our coalfields some day. That day is still far off 

 and, by the time it comes, engineers may have 

 harnessed tidal energy, a source of power now under 

 serious consideration. There is, further, a more remote 

 possibility of the employment of the internal heat of 

 the earth. As with present large power stations, it 

 may be assumed that power from these sources, when 

 it is generated, will be distributed electrically, and 

 thus complete the inception of the electric furnace in 

 chemical industry. 



The Problem of 

 Unemployment 



By Douglas Knoop, M.A. 



Professor of Economics in the Universilij o/ Sltelficld 



Unemployment is not a new discovery ; it is a social 

 ill which has existed in this country since at any 

 rate the sixteenth century.' It appears to be of the 

 nature of a disease, like influenza, cases of which are 

 present all the time, but which does not attract much 

 attention in a community accustomed to it, until 

 there is a sharp and widespread outbreak. There is 

 always some unemployment in the community, but 

 nobody ordinarily worries much about it ; from time 

 to time, however, it spreads widely and assumes 



> See Leonard, ^aW,^ English Poor Relief, for details of the 

 problem of unemployment in the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. 



alarming proportions. Public interest is then aroused, 

 the evils of unemployment arc recognised, and efforts 

 are made to combat the outbreak. The community 

 is suffering from a particularly bad outbreak of unem- 

 ployment at the present time, and it will be worth our 

 while briefly to examine the problem. 



I 



It has long been recognised that the state of em- 

 ployment is subject to periodic changes, that a boom 

 in trade is followed by a slump in trade, that the 

 slump in its turn is succeeded by another boom, and 

 so forth. It is not my intention in this short article 

 to discuss the characteristics and causes of ups and 

 downs in trade. Here we shall accept the fact that we 

 are suffering from a bad slump in trade and consequent 

 unemployment, and we shall consider the special 

 conditions which appear to be associated with the 

 present slump. Every depression in trade has a cer- 

 tain individuality of its own, which differentiates 

 it from other depressions, but usually the special con- 

 ditions connected with a slump are comparatively 

 unimportant compared with the general conditions 

 common to all slumps. In the present case, the special 

 conditions appear to be unpleasantly numerous. 



In order to study the special conditions associated 

 with the present slump, it is desirable to classify 

 them. In the first place, we may separate (i) what 

 wc may call the special features of the present outbreak 

 of unemploj-ment from (2) the special influences which 

 are accentuating the outbreak. In the second place, 

 we can divide the special influences into three classes : 

 (i) those arising from the character of the post-war 

 boom in trade ; (ii) those which are an aftermath of 

 the war ; and (iii) other special influences. 



I. The special features of the present outbreak of 

 unemployment appear to be its suddenness and its 

 acuteness. Its suddenness arises from the character 

 of the post-war boom aiid is referred to below. In 

 what concerns the acuteness, three things seem to have 

 accentuated it in appearance, if not in reality ; 



(a) Unemployment during the last year or two of 

 the war was abnormally low, it was almost non-existent. 

 \\Tiereas during ordinary booms in trade the average 

 number of unemployed trade unionists has rarely 

 fallen below 20 or 25 per 1,000, the number was as low 

 as 4 per 1,000 in 1916, 7 per 1,000 in 1917, and 8 per 

 1,000 in 1918 ; even during the summer of 1920 it was 

 below 20 per 1,000. The present figure of 165 per 

 1,000 is contrasted in people's minds, not with a figure 

 of 20 or 25 per 1,000, a sufficiently striking difference, 

 but with a figure of 7 or 8 per i.ooo, a perfectly stagger- 

 ing contrast. Instead of unemployment being about 

 eight times as bad as during an ordinary spell of good 

 trade, it is approximately twenty times as bad as 



