UNEMPLOYMENT: WHO CARES?
For some months now, unemployment has been well above the level any post-war government apart from the present would have regarded as socially or politically tolerable. Even the present government feels the need to say, from time to time, that the rate of unemployment is " intolerable " : but the plain fact is that this government shows considerable capacity to tolerate over a million unemployed. Were Mr Macmillan prime minister it is impossible to imagine him contemplating the present scale of unemployment with any of the equanimity displayed by Mr Heath, and were he dead he would doubtless be turning in his grave. It is a measure of the difference between the Heath administration and those of Mr Macmillan and Sir Alec Douglas-Home, and is yet another instance of the radical nature of the government we now possess and its apparent impertubability in the face of hostile public opinion. It is too early to know whether the lack of governmental response to unemployment is a consequence of the government's coolness of nerve and determination to push through with its policies of industrial reinvigoration, or the symptom of irresolution.
There are demonstrations in the major cities; banners are unfurled; Mr Vic Feather leads marches through industrial streets. But if there exists deep public anger, or feeling of outrage or of despair, now that the dread shadow of unemployment has once again been spread across the land, it has not shown itself. It often seems that, just as Mr Heath and his men are impertubable, so is the public indifferent. And it is too early to discern the cause of this public indifference (if it actually exists), just as it is premature to explain the government's imperturbability (if that is what it is). It may be, as it is often claimed, that the scale of unemployment benefits is now so generous that many people do noi mind being unemployed and that few people mind other people being unemployed. It may be that the public disenchantment with politicians, and with what can be done through political or governmental activity to remedy matters, is now so deep-rooted that people are past anger. It may even be that the public instinctively recognises the need for an industrial shake-out and is prepared to put up with a bad period of unemployment as the price of industrial efficiency..
But whatever may be the explanations for the appearance of an imperturbable government and an indifferent public, the present high unemployment rate is becoming alarming. To all intents and purposes the brakes are off : but the economy is not moving. Unemployment is no longer a regional problem, a matter of old industries and industrial dislocation. Adult male unemployment in Birmingham has never been higher since the war. The south-east — nearest to the continent, best placed to be booming now — is stagnant. While fortunes are made on the Stock Exchange and easy credit gives many a feeling of material prosperity, factories which should be working flat out are devising schemes to prevent expensive redundancies. There is much concealed under-employment. Financiers may smile; but industrialists are gravely concerned. The wealth of the nation comes from its factories, not its stock exchanges; and from men at work, not on the dole. It is time for further government action to stimulate the demand for goods : it is consumption, not savings, which will make the industrialist re-equip and get the men back at work.
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