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dispassionately the best methods by which they could safely 
and rapidly diminish or prevent this grave disease, for it was 
in time of peace that preparation should be made for war. 
They would do no good by exaggerating the character of the 
disease. It was idle to say, as some people did, that Unem 
ployment was a peculiarly modern industrial disease. So far 
as could be judged by statistics, there was no reason to believe 
that there was a larger proportion of unemployment under 
the modern system than under the old system. There was, 
however, a growing mental appreciation of the enormity of 
this evil which made it a more real and more painful malady 
for modern thinkers. They also knew that the 
growing advance of education had caused a large 
number of men and women to think, and therefore they 
appreciated more than ever before the danger and misery 
connected with unemployment. It was in that sense that the 
evil was a more pressing one. There was a growing demand 
to face unflinchingly the necessity of setting our industrial 
system in order so as to cut out this diseased factor of the 
industrial body. Anyone who looked closely into the structure 
and organisation of a jgreat modern business was amazed by 
the intricacy, and on the whole the accuracy, with which 
this machinery works for the purpose of providing profit. 
It was a triumph of human ingenuity and intellect. When, 
however, we turn to view the working of the industrial 
system as a whole from the standpoint of social health, we 
see anything but successful administration. We see enormous 
waste. 
They therefore required to bring their most careful re 
flection to the diagnosis of this disease, and then to considera 
tion of remedies. 
He did not want to occupy time by dwelling upon the 
details of the problem. They knew that weather and other 
matters affecting the normal regularity of industry played 
their part in causing unemployment. They knew that 
changes in methods of machinery, changes in public taste, 
necessarily had their effect in disturbing the industries to 
which they relate, and consequently throwing a certain 
number of men out of work. 
There must, in spite of all the improved adjustments 
and of all dovetailing which a careful system could devise, 
be a certain amount of waste, but when they had reduced this 
to a minimum it could not rightly be regarded as waste at all. 
Such a minimum would always be necessary in a progressing 
industry. But it was also necessary not merely that the 
individuals who were displaced should be compensated, but 
that provision should be made against the deterioration of 
their working efficiency. The detailed proposals of the 
Minority Report would go very far to economise to the utmost