3 MARCH 1928, Page 7

How to Deal with Unemployment

[Sir Herbert Samuel, in this important article, suggests setting up a Committee of the Privy Council to deal with the whole question of national development. ' We hope to give our readers further views onthis problem in our next issues.—ED. Spectator.] THE question of the unemployed is not one problem, but several. It is useless to seek a solution in one measure ; it can be found only in a variety. The Labour Party's principle, " Work or Maintenance," states a demand ; it does not offer a method. The. Conservative tendency towards Protection, if it resulted in action, might increase the demand for labour in certain industries ; it would go far to destroy the existing pre- eminence of Britain, over all competing countries, in the export of manufactured goods, and so, in the long run, would restrict employment rather than expand it. There is no panacea. We must analyse the problem into its parts, and deal with each part.

Some men are out of work through defects of their own, in physique or in character. These are a small percentage of the whole body. The infirm or the aged among them can be helped through sickness insurance or old-age pensions ; the rest can only have recourse to the Poor Law or private help. There was a widespread impression not long ago that numbers of people, who might obtain work if they set about it actively, did not trouble to do so, being content with " the dole," and not stopped from receiving it. The Blanesburgh Committee, appointed by the present Government, showed that this impression was not justified. The Committee made the closest investigation into the point and found, unanimously, that the cases of abuse were few, and that there was no ground for holding that the unemployment was fostered in any appreciable degree by the measures for its relief.

There is unemployment which follows the seasons of the year, or the cycles of trade. This is no new factor, and there is no evidence to show that it is more serious now than before. It can be avoided by the better adjust- ment of industries to their markets, and this can only be effected by the industries themselves. It can be relieved, when it occurs, through unemployment insur- ance, or through expanding temporarily the demand for labour in other directions. What those directions might be I will try to indicate in a moment.

There remains the unemployment which is due to the prolonged post-War depression in several of our staple industries. -Here, of course, is the chief source of our present troubles. This is the reason why the curve in the unemployment chart, which in the years before the War fluctuated round about .an average line of four or five per cent. of the persons employed, has fluctuated during the last seven years round about twelve or thirteen per cent. (And it should not be forgotten that the figures published week by week of the workpeople on the un- employment register do not give the full measure of the evil. There is under-employment as distinct from unemployment. The miner working two or three shifts a week instead of five or six, the cotton operative with two looms working instead of four, have their incomes halved, and are sunk into the severest poverty ; but, with some exceptions, no statistic includes them.) It is impossible to attempt in a short article any account, even the briefest, of the causes of the depression in the trades concerned. I can only refer to the careful analysis that is given in the opening chapters of Britain's Industrial Future-, the report of the • Liberal Industrial Inquiry. The upshot is that it would be unsafe to rely upon an automatic return to the pre-War deniand for our coal, cotton goods, and other products ; that in order to preserve and to expand our markets there is need of an intensive effort within the trades themselves ; that this effort must aim at many improvements in the organi- zation of the industries, and in their methods of produc- tion and of sale ; that it must aim also at securing the willing and active co-operation of the workers with the management ; and that this can only be done if the real grievances of Labour, which are many, are remedied by adopting a variety of measures, which experience in particular cases has shown to be practicable. Add to that the lightening of the dead-weight burdens of taxa- tion, both national and local, and our industries will be given conditions that would favour their revival. But still there could be no guarantee of a market for labour, assuring to the workman regularity of employment and security of livelihood. Supplementary to all other measures, we propose a large programme for the develop- ment of national resources.

From time to time Royal Commissions and Depart- mental Committees are appointed to consider some particular matter—canals, docks, afforestation, the drain- age of agricultural areas. They sit, they hear evidence, they report. They find that action is needed in various directions, that it would be of national benefit and would- bring a return on the capital invested. But it is no one's special business to move.

There are other directions also in which enterprise is necessary. It is an error to think that the improvement of the highway system in recent years, great as it has been, is adequate for present needs or can cope with the pro- babilities of the future. Large schemes of slum clearance also are needed in many of our towns, and the building of new garden cities and garden suburbs is needed outside them. We propose that it should be some one's business to view these matters as a whole ; to examine each plan on its merits, to reject the unsound and assist the prac- ticable ; to use these works, so far as the conditions allow, as supplementary to the ordinary industries of the country, pushing them actively when trade is bad and unemployment tending to be rife, slackening the, pace when times are good—making them, in fact, buffer employments in our economic system. This duty, we suggest, should be given to a Committee of the Privy Council on National Development, working directly under the Prime Minister. '

And for the financing of these works, so far' as they are directly remunerative, we propose that capital should be provided from the savings of the people ; that the Post Office Savings Bank, and 'other such institutions should be greatly expanded ; and that part of the resources forthcoming should be invested in these works, under Government guarantee, by a Board of National Invist- ment. Revenue for road construction .would be provided mainly from the Road Fund, protected 'from raiding Chancellors of the Exchequer ; partly also from a better- ment tax on the lands which gain added value from the construction or the improvement of the highways.

Development at home rather than emigration abroad is the remedy. Emigration, said Swift, as a cure for want of work is like cutting off one's foot because one has no shoes. This island is overcrowded 'in parts; there is no reason to think it is overpopulated as a whole. A social and industrial policy that is wise and resourceful will yet enable its present numbers, and greater numbers, to live irl an adequate and a secure comfort.

HERBERT SAMUEL.