PRfiSlDENtlAL ADDRESS. 641 



It is true tbat, even at present, new trades and growing trades are very 

 rapidly supplied. Skilled labour as a whole is very fluid ; witness the manufac- 

 ture of cycles in the eighties and nineties, the more recent motor-car industry, the 

 great increase iu the number of coal miners. On the other hand, the unemployment 

 statistics in years of good trade show that the process of transmutation is not 

 sufficiently rapid. The possibility of improvement lies in regulating the supply. 

 An even more serious difficulty is that of moving from one grade to another. We 

 are very ignorant on the subject, but it is commonly alleged that the son of an 

 unskilled workman in general must also be unskilled. The father's wages being 

 low, the lad must get to work at once, at the first thing that opens. There is a 

 permanent demand for errand and messenger boys, and generally for quite unskilled 

 labour at the bottom of an industry, which if not checked throws a great many 

 young men adrift to begin the world at eighteen in total ignorance of any useful 

 occupation. There is, therefore, a tendency for a permanent oversupply of the 

 unskilled relative to the skilled. It is not known whether in modern industry the 

 proportions of skilled, partly skilled, and unskilled have changed or not. I have 

 not found any significant alteration in such inquiries as I have been able to make. 

 But this proportion is not fixed by any natural law. A deficit of unskilled would 

 soon be supplied by machinery ; processes are rapidly adapted to the labour 

 supply. The labour market could readily absorb a greater supply of skilled men, 

 if their skill was that in demand iu the growing trades. If we want to check the 

 growth of ignorant and unadaptable labour, we must save the boys of thirteen 

 and fourteen from entering occupations that ofier no future, and provide them 

 with that knowledge and technique which industry will need five years later. The 

 reason why a not unwilling worker cannot find an employer is not the want of 

 sufficient capital, but the uselessness of the workman to society. So far we can 

 get by a priori reasoning; whether the facts are correctly stated can only be 

 decided by careful inquiry, applying the mathematical methods of sampling, 

 averaging, and grading. A purely arithmetical inquiry, as that conducted at 

 the London Docks by Mr. C. Booth, and at Liverpool by Miss E. F. Rathbone and 

 Mr. G. H. Wood, will, however, throw a flood of light on such a question as to 

 how many men are wanted, and how many in fact are present, in a trade. We 

 may also hope to learn a great deal from a study of the information collected by 

 the various relief agencies in the recent period of unemployment. 



The question of periodic unemployment (as opposed to chronic want of work) 

 is easier to handle and is better understood. It is, however, in need of very 

 careful investigation ; and I may remark that the most recent inquiry put to 

 me as to mathematical processes related to the question of forecasting the 

 turning-point towards better or worse trade. The cycle of commercial credit, 

 which is very intimately connected with employment, is best studied by index 

 numbers of prices and of quantity, and the most advanced mathematical work 

 done by Section F ^ related to these numbers. The more the nature of a crisis is 

 imderstood, the better it can be discounted and its worst effects mitigated, and 

 there is some evidence that this is now done. When the recurring wave of 

 unemployment is sufficiently well known, proper rates of insurance for want of 

 work can be established, and the very extensive insurance in this direction by 

 trade unions and other bodies can be put on a safer basis. It is a curious point, 

 and one little noticed, that in the high tide of trade work is plentiful and wages 

 high; but prices are also high, and therefore the purchasing power of a sovereign 

 low. This is the time to save, whether privately or in a society; for when the 

 tide falls there is both more leisure to spend and the purchasing power of money 

 is greater. Those whose occupation is aftected by the commercial cycle have 

 their salvation in their own hands. 



There remain those who are physically or mentally unfit for work, who must 

 always be a burden on their more fortunate fellows, and in considering them we 

 pass out of the region of economics. But iu this, as in other sociological questions, 

 we still need statistics — perhaps most those methods of measurement we associate 



' Report of Committee on Variations in the Monetary Standard, 1888-1890. 

 190G. T X 



