FINANCIAL NOTES
HIGHER UNEMPLOYMENT
ONCE again the British unemployment figures give no indication of an immediate reversal of the industrial recession. The rise of about 30,000 to roughly 1,779,000 in the total live register of the unemployment exchanges is by no means so severe as were the increases which occurred last winter. But it is dis- quieting because it runs counter to the normal seasonal tendency, and because it shows a recrudescence of the industrial decline after some sort of stability had apparently been reached. Detailed examination of the figures shows that a substantial part of the unseasonable increase in unemployment reflects the position of agriculture. The deterioration there is due to drought, frosts, and foot-and-mouth disease ; its connexion, if any, with the industrial outlook is remote. But there is no escape from the fact that unemployment in the coal and steel industries has increased fairly sharply, that the cotton textile industry has sunk even deeper into depression and that the tin- plate and motor industries are in a worse position than they have experienced for some years.
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