F.— ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 115 



their resources in a liquid form. If this hoarding takes place on a large 

 scale a cumulative pressure is exerted on the price level, and the difficulty 

 of absorbing labour is ipso facto increased. In the ceaseless combat waged 

 in the human mind between the desire for greater gratification on the one 

 hand and the desire for greater security in the shape of holding free 

 resources on the other, it is not at all times true that it is the former passion 

 which gains the upper hand. At the present moment it would appear as 

 if the desire to abstain from additional consumption were more important 

 than the critics of current standards of consumption would be prepared to 

 admit. 



However that may be, the problem of transfer that is in any case 

 involved is one of sufficient difficulty. Contrary to general opinion, even 

 in countries like the United States, with a high degree of labour mobility, 

 transfer may involve not only considerable loss to the individual but also 

 considerable delay in point of time : as appears from an interesting piece 

 of evidence presented by the Brookings Institute of Economics to the 

 U.S. Senate Committee on Education and Labour in the course of their 

 investigation of Unemployment in the United States in 1928-9. ^^ 



S. 8. We have now arrived at the point at which it is necessary to 

 apply the foregoing analysis in a more directly practical manner. 



(1) Since the rationalisation movement is international in character, 

 and, since it undoubtedly results in most cases in a reduction of cost per 



'^ Summary of Testimony and Report of Institute of Economics of the Brookings 

 Institution by Isidor Lubin, documented, p. 500-1 : — 



' An investigation recently made by the Institute of Economics of the Brookings 

 Institution reveals that most of the displaced workers have great difficulty in finding 

 new lines of employment once they are discharged. A survey of some 800 workers 

 in three industrial centres revealed that the newer industries are not absorbing the 

 jobless as fast as is usually believed. 



' Almost one-half of the workers who were known to have been discharged by 

 certain firms because of curtailment in employment during the year preceding were 

 still without jobs when interviewed by Institute of Economics investigators. Of 

 those still unemployed over 8 per cent, had been out of work for a year, and about 

 one-half had been idle for more than three months. Among those who had succeeded 

 in finding work, some had had to search for jobs for over a year before finally being 

 placed. More than one-half of those who had found jobs had been in enforced 

 idleness for more than three months before finding emploj-ment. Only 10 per cent. 

 had been successful in finding new jobs within a month after discharge. 



' The new jobs, moreover, were usually secured at a sacrifice in earnings. Some 

 workers, to be sure, were fortunate enough to find employment which paid higher 

 wages, as was made evident by the fact that about one-fifth of them were making 

 more money on their new jobs than before discharge. Forty-eight per cent, however, 

 were receiving lower wages and about one-third were earning just about the same 

 amount as they formerly did. 



' And what kind of jobs did these men finally secure ? Trained clothing cutters 

 with years of experience had become gasoline station attendants, watchmen in 

 warehouses, timekeepers in steel plants, and clerks in meat markets. Rotary press 

 operators were pressing clothes in tailor shops. Machinists were selling hosiery for 

 mail-order houses. Welding machine operators were mixing salves for patent 

 medicine manufacturers. A significant number of men admitted frankly that after 

 some months of enforced loafing they had taken to bootlegging. 



' It is e\ddent that a large number of the workers now being displaced from industry 

 are being forced into unskilled trades at a sacrifice in earnings and a consequent 

 lowering of their standards of living. At the same time they are being made to bear 

 the burden of unemployment, for which they are in no way responsible and over 

 which they have no control.' 



I 2 



