UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY.
The establishment of a national unemployment bureau system, similar to that in Britain, is proposed in one of a number of Bills which have been introduced into Congress as a consequence of the present unemployment in the United States. Several States have unemployment bureaus, con- ducted by .public authorities at present, but there is no national system, and previous efforts to establish one have met with little support. Times, however, have changed and many authorities, as was evident from the recent discussions of the American Economic Association and the American Statistical Association, believe that the problems of unem- ployment demand and will demand increasingly in the future much more attention than they have had so far. The Bills now before Congress reflect that view. In addition to the establishment of national bureaui, under Federal authority, they propose, among other things, provisions to utilize public construction programmes to stabilize unemployment by concentrating work in periods of depression, much as President Hoover himself has suggested, and a national survey of the extent and causes of unemployment.
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