F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



109 



human nature ' upon which reliance can be placed to solve the problem, 

 after transitional effects have been overcome ? Those were, and remain, 

 the fundamental issues which have to be faced. 



S. 5. Available figures do reveal impressive improvements in production 

 in recent years, and gain added significance when placed in juxtaposition 

 with figures relating to employment. An increase in per capita and aggre- 

 gate output in a single industry accompanied by a decline in the number of 

 workers engaged does not, of course, necessarily imj^ly the existence of any 

 unemployment at all, since an industry normally loses a certain percentage 

 of its workers every year, and if the rate at which new entries take place 

 is adjusted to the new technical conditions, the consequences of technical 

 improvements can only be judged of indirectly. An increase of aggregate 

 and per capita production over industry generally accompanied by growing 

 or stable unemployment does, however, suggest that the rate of improvement 

 is for the time being so great that over the range of industry covered, the 

 chances of employment are diminishing : though unless the unemployment 

 returns cover the whole, or a very significant part of the employable 

 population, it may still be the case that, indirectly, the effects of rationalisa- 

 tion are being offset, in whole or in part, by an increase in the volume of 

 employment in the occupations not recorded in the returns. And since 

 production figures are biased by the choice of base years, the incidence of 

 the trade cycle, changes in the demand for particular commodities and the 

 like factors, even the co-existence of increasing aggregate and per capita 

 output with increasing or stable unemployment is not by any means a 

 completely valid test of the relationship between the elements in the 

 problem. 



The best advertised figures are undoubtedly those relating to the United 

 States.* Put into their simplest form, the Census of Production figures 

 show that between 1919 and 1927 (the last a year of comparative depression 

 of trade), the number of workers in the four main divisions of American 

 industry : viz., agriculture, mining, transport and manufacturing, declined 

 by 7 per cent., quantitative output increased by 20 per cent., and output 

 per worker by 30 per cent, approximately. The figures adduced by Mr. 

 Woodlief Thomas carry the same implications with them : they relate to 

 a comparison of the years 1918-20 as base with 1924-6.'' 



Index ai beginning of period^lOO. 



* Some of the material cited below has already been made use of by me in an 

 article : Is America Prosperous ? Economica, No. 28, pp. 7-8. 



' Woodlief Thomas — The Economic Significance of the Increased Efficiency of 

 American Industry in American Economic Review, Supplem.ent, 1928. 



