All this makes it more , difficult than ever to understand
the Government, Tor their Insurance Scheme is based on the assumption that a million men will be unemployed until 1926, and that even after that 800,000 will be permanently unemployed. We said that Mr. Shaw could point to no definite scheme -yet introduced by the-Govern- ment, but perhaps we ought to have made an exception in the case of his statement that the Trade Facilities Act has been applied to Russia—a statement received with ironical cheering. All the other schemes lie in the future. Mr. Shaw said that there were plans for new roads, chiefly in Lancashire ; the Forestry -Grant would be increased by £10,000, and an expert committee had been appointed to advise ; railway works in Crown Colonies were being considered, as well as an improvement of the approaches to the London Docks and the Tilbury Dock scheme. Other projects were for providing electrical power stations, and for building a Severn barrage if the report of the engineers should be favourable. Both Unionist and Liberal critics, -of course, had an easy task in reminding the Government that the Labour Party professed to have all its plans ready for ending unem- ployment three years ago.
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