Of the registered total of 1,374,000 unemployed, Mr. Churchill explained,
224,6603 were women, and women were not counted before the War, and 500,000 were intermittently unemployed persons who were not drawing more from the Fund than they paid into it. As for the permanently unemployed, their numbers could be diminished only by a general revival of trade. We have often wondered whether there is really more unem- ployment in proportion to the population than there was in such a bad year as 1908. Certainly there is more employment now than ever before in spite of the present appalling figures. We know. of many cases which have come under our observation of men who in former days would not have been called unemployed yet are officially described as such now—men who are employed in fluctuat- ing industries. In the old days they would have accepted idle weeks as inevitable or would have filled in the time with chance occupations; but to-day many men thus engaged place their names on the rolls of the Unemploy- ment Exchanges.- When all-this has .been admitted, and any legitimate -consolation' has been derived from it, the situation is 'bad 'enough to command' and- deserve the unceasing concern of the Government. –
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