378 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— F. 



SECTION F. 

 ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



(For references to the publication elsewhere of communications entered in the 

 following list of transactions, see p. 409.) 



Thursday, September 7. 



1. Mr. J. L. Cohen. — The Future of Unemployment Insurance. 



(i) The fundamental principles underlying the British scheme of unemploy- 

 ment insurance are sound. 



The inadequate application of those principles has produced the present 

 discontent. 



An examination of the errors of the past. 



Current misleading conceptions relating to ' employment exchanges,' 

 'doles,' the 'bankruptcy' of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. 



(ii) Shall industries bear the costs of maintaining their own unemployed? 

 The growth of this idea. 



The rota system of the Cotton Control Board; the Dockers' Scheme; the 

 Building Guilds ; Establishment Funds. 



Special schemes under the British Act. 



The case for and against. 



(iii) Can unemployment insurance be so organised as to reduce the amount 

 of unemployment ? The Wisconsin Bill for ' Unemployment Compensation and 

 Prevention.' The proposal examined. 



(iv) Th.3 need for a committee of inquiry into : 



(i) The possible elimination of the trade cycle. 



(ii) The advisability of unemployment insurance organised by trades, 

 (iii) The possibility of a unified centralised system of social insurance. 



2. Prof. J. G. Smith. — Modern Municipal Markets and their Eco- 



nomic Significance. 



^larket organisations for the handling of perishable produce, municipal and 

 non-municipal, British and foreign, were briefly reviewed, and the conclusion was 

 reached that markets under the direct management of local authorities are to 

 be preferred to the system now general in this country, under which municipal 

 authorities hire out stalls and sites in publicly owned buildings and/or levy 

 tolls on all produce dealt in. Wholesale and retail markets in this respect 

 present the same problems. Hitherto attempts at organisation by producers 

 to obtain better prices, and by consumers to effect reduction in city prices, 

 have met with failure ; and co-operative societies do not succeed in eliminating 

 the middlemen, who intercept so large a part of the price paid by the consumer. 

 Decentralisation, through municipalisation of wholesale marketing, would save 

 much of the expense that is now incurred in unnecessary transportation and 

 prevent, for example, produce grown in the Evesham district, destined, perhaps, 

 for consumption ultimately in Birmingham, from being forwarded to Covent 

 Garden for sale there to Midland buyers. Moreover, such decentralisation 

 would not result in lessened prices for producers. 



3. Joint Discussion with Sections A and M on Weather Cycles in 



Relation to Agriculture and Industrial Fluctuations. Opener: 

 Sir ^Y. Beveejdge, K.O.B. 



Friday, September 8. 



4. Mr. E. B. Forrester. — The Measurement of Productivity. 



International comparisons of productive efficiency in industry and agricnl- 

 ture. Survey of the tests which have been used (a) in comparing British and 

 foreign agriculture by Sir Thomas ^Nliddleton, Mr. Ashby, and other writers; 

 {b) in contrasting the position of the cotton industry in different countries by 



