Movements of Industry The Ministry of Labour's annual industrial census,
which has been published now for 13 years, provides a valuable survey of the development of British industry as a whole and of the relative shifts and changes within the national economy. Perhaps the most important change is in the distribution of industry between North and South. In 1937 the North employed 46.4 per cent. of the insured workers, the South 53.4 per Cent. ; in 1923 the proportion was almost exactly the reverse. The change in the relative importance of certain industries is shown especially by coal mining, which employs nearly 500,000 less workers than in 1923, and half its former proportion of the total insured population. On the other hand, during the last year the greatest increase in employment was in coal mining. The general increase in the number of workers during the last 13 years is the most striking feature of the census ; at 13,226,000 it is now the highest on record, over 3,000,000 more than in 1923, and 67o,000 more than last year. Yet this increase, while striking evidence of the expansive capacity of industry, conceals vicissitudes and fluctuations which are equally significant, and, like the flow of industry to the South, have caused untold human suffering. In 1932, for instance, employment had fallen to a point at which it was no higher than in 1923. At a time when em- ployment is at its highest in our history, it would be well to remember the years of extreme distress and to make plans to forestall any repetition of them.
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