Unemployment The Ministry of Labour figures for July 14th make
melancholy reading. Great Britain, as a whole, has 16.6 per cent. of all her insured population unemployed. England has 15.8 per cent., Scotland 17.9 per cent., and Wales no less than 27.2 per cent. The distribution of unemployment between the counties makes it certain that there is no easy remedy to be found in Protection, for it is in the counties dependent upon our principal exporting industries—the South Welsh counties, Lan- cashire, Durham and Northumberland, Lanarkshire— that the highest averages are to be found. In spite of all the talk about the plight of agriculture, the agricultural counties have less unemployment than the average for the whole country, though these figures may not be an accurate index of prosperity, especially as the unemployed tend to drift into the towns. Of all, it is sonic of the villages, which are dependent on few industries, or one, that are hardest hit, the figures in some cases reaching 70 per cent.
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