480 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



advanced by a practical illustration of the enormous waste 

 involved in the capitalistic and competitive s} r stem that now 

 prevails. 



The Problem of the Unemployed. 



The problem of general unemployment is well stated by 

 Mr. J. Hobson in the Contemporary Review, April, 1898. 

 He says : 



" Why is it that, with a wheat-growing area so huge and so 

 productive that in good years whole crops are left to rot in the 

 ground, thousands of English labourers, millions of Russian peasants 

 cannot get enough bread to eat ? Why is it that, with so many cotton- 

 mills in Lancashire, that they cannot all be kept working for any 

 length of time together, thousands of people in Manchester cannot 

 get a decent shirt to their backs ? Why is it that, with a growing 

 glut of mines and miners, myriads of people are shivering for lack 

 of coals ? " 



Now, not one of our authorized teachers of political 

 economy, not one of our most experienced legislators can 

 give any clear answer to these questions, except by vague 

 reference to the immutable laws of supply and demand, 

 and by the altogether false statement that things are not 

 so bad as they were, and that in course of time they will 

 improve of themselves. Mr, H. V. Mills had his attention 

 directed to this subject by an individual instance of the 

 same phenomenon. He found in Liverpool, next door to 

 each other, a baker, a shoemaker, and a tailor, all out of 

 work, all wanting the bread, clothes and shoes which they 

 could produce, all willing and anxious to work, and yet all 

 compelled to remain idle and half starving. His book has 

 been before the world several years; it contains a 

 practical and efficient remedy for this state of things ; yet 

 no attempt whatever has been made to give his plan a 

 fair trial. Let us therefore see if we can throw a little 

 more light on the problem, and thus help to force it upon 

 the attention of those who have the power, but who 

 believe that nothing can be done. 



The answer to the question so well put by Mr. Hobson, 

 and which Mr. Stead, in the Review of Reviews, considers 

 to be the modern problem of the Sphinx which it needs a 



