POPULATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT. 
ADDRESS TO SECTION F (ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS) BY 
SIR WILLIAM H. BEVERIDGE, K.C.B., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION, 
THE impression that the civilised world is already threatened with over- 
population is very common to-day. Many, perhaps most, educated 
people are troubled by fear that the limits of population, probably in 
Europe and certainly in this country, have been reached, and that a 
reduction in the rate of increase is an urgent necessity. Most, if they 
were asked to give reasons for their fear, would refer to one or both 
of two reasons: they would point to the enormous volume of unemploy- 
ment in this country ; they would say that economic science, at least at 
Cambridge, had already pronounced its verdict. I propose to begin 
by raising some doubts as to the validity of each of these arguments. 
Unemployment No Proof of Over-Population. 
The volume of unemployment in Britain is undoubtedly serious, and 
almost certainly unparalleled in past history. Those who see, as we 
now do, more than a million wage-earners whom our industry for 
years together is unable to absorb in productive employment may be 
excused if they draw the inference that there are too many wage-earners 
in the country. The inference, though natural, is unjustified. Un- 
employment in Britain can in any case prove nothing about the world 
asa whole. History shows that 1t does not prove over-population even 
in Britain. 
During the last half of the nineteenth century, the industry of the 
United Kingdom was finding room for a rapidly increasing number of 
wage-earners with an admittedly rising standard of production and 
comfort. Through the whole of that period there was unemployment 
in the country. The percentage of trade unionists out of work never 
fell to zero; in no year since 1874 was it less than two; at more than 
one crisis it reached a height comparable if not equal to that which 
we have just experienced. During 1922 this percentage has averaged 
fifteen ; but it averaged over eleven in 1879 and over ten in 1886. These 
figures are not on an identical basis and are therefore not absolutely com- 
parable. ‘Taken for one year only, they understate the relatively greater 
seriousness of our recent experience, since the unemployment percentage 
was high through a large part of 1921 as well as in 1922, and still con- 
tinues high. But the difference is one of degree rather than of kind. 
The peril of inferring over-population from unemployment is conclu- 
sively shown. 9 
The experience of 1879 was up to then unparalleled; probably it 
was as much worse than anything previously recorded as the experience 
