22 
the material details which attend a trade depression. The 
theory did not explain why those persons who had specnlated 
in the sense of putting up new plant and machinery for the 
turning out of large quantities of goods did not find their 
expectations of good trade realised. He did not think that 
this explanation agreed wim tne tacts of industry. 
THE STOPPAGE OF THE MACHINE. 
Why was it that the wealth making machinery should be 
periodically stopped ? The unemployed problem was not 
merely the problem of unemployed labour. The effects of 
depression upon labour present the most serious of the 
evil aspects of this malady, but it was essentially a 
problem of simultaneous unemployment of large masses 
of labour, capital, land, and managing ability, all these 
different factors of industry standing idle in superabundance. 
One year they were working at full power, and another year 
they would be standing idle. What they had got to explain 
was why from time to time the instruments of production 
should stand idle. Why could not they work as they worked 
last year? That was the problem of Unemployment as he 
wanted to present it to them. He thought the Conference 
would be more inclined than a body of merely technical 
economists to accept the explanation which he always put upon 
these phenomena. They would be disposed to connect it very 
closely with the bad distribution of wealth and income which 
arose from our present economic system. They would be dis 
posed to accept the view that the reason why this machinery 
of production, labour, and capital, stands idle in large masses 
during large portions of the time, was that the consuming 
power is not to an adequate extent in the hands of the work 
ing classes of this country, who desired to keep up the standard 
of consumption to a level with the increase in the powers of 
wealth production. The tendency now was for consumption to 
lag behind production, because the persons who had the power 
to consume had already satisfied their legitimate demands, 
and they allowed large masses of their income to accumulate. 
WAGES, RENT, PROFIT, AND INTEREST. 
If they increased the proportion of wealth which passed in 
the form of wages into the hands of the working classes, and 
reduced the proportion of income which passed as rent, profit, 
and interest to the wealthy classes, they would have con 
sumption risi g automatically to meet every increase in the 
power of production. The intelligent business man could quite 
see this. It was always much easier for a buyer to buy than 
for a seller to sell. If this was so it meant that there was a 
constant tendency to chronic over-production or under con 
sumption. They wanted a system of organisation which