Unemployment Decreasing The important fact to bear in mind in
connexion with the increase in the number of employed persons by 66,000 in August is that the rise in employment comes in a month in which a decline is commonly registered. The actual decrease in the number of unemployed is, of course, less than 66,000 ; there were actually asmoo fewer on the unemployed register in August than in the previous month, and the total number of unemployed has now fallen to just over 1,600,000. The rearmament programme I responsible for some of this improvement, but not, it is satisfactory to observe, for the greater part of it. The coal mines employed 44,000 more men, and there were improvements in boot and shoe manufacture, building and public works. On the other hand in certain seasonal trades, such as tailoring, the number of unemployed increased. Only very chastened satisfaction can be inspired by an unemployment total which still stands at over 1,600,000, but at any rate we have got far below the two million mark, and there are many signs that the improvement in industry is still continuing. It cannot be too often repeated, none the less, that this country has always lived, and so far as can be seen must always live, in the future, on its foreign trade, and nothing like full prosperity is possible unless the barriers to trade which fanatical nationalisms have erected everywhere can be broken down.
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