before the war; and unemployment policy has been largely one of 
'* tide-over,”” the aim being to maintain the labour force required 
for the industries in the areas in which they were normally con- 
ducted in a state as free as possible from demoralisation, This was 
the basis of the policy of relief schemes carried out in depressed 
areas or employing labour temporarily from the depressed areas. 
36. From what we have been told by those connected with the 
industries affected, however, we are definitely led to the belief that 
it would be unwise to count upon the recovery by certain areas 
dependent upon the basic industries, and particularly coalmining, 
of the position they occupied before the war. Our considered 
opinion is that from now onwards the first aim of policy should 
be the dispersal of the heavy concentrations of unemployment by 
the active encouragement of movement from the depressed areas 
bo other areas, both in this country and overseas. This, it seems 
bo us, will provide the only natural and Permanent solution of the 
present unemployment problem in the areas now dependent on 
the heavy industries. 
37. A number of difficulties lie in the way. Large units of 
population engaged in the heavy industries especially in coal- 
mining in South Wales and Durham, have lived in comparative 
isolation from the rest of the community ; this has restricted the 
horizon of many to the narrow circle of one community, or of 
3 small group of communities. The people have known de- 
pressions in the past, but they have been temporary. Now they 
are faced with the fact that the industries on which they have 
depended for generations require a much restricted personnel. But 
in these areas the sense of ties of home and locality is strongly 
developed, and is a matter of natural pride. This gives these 
communities their strength of endurance and cohesion, but it is a 
psychological factor which operates against a policy of transfer. 
Further, the physical difficulties standing in the way of the 
complete absorption of all suitable unemployed workers in the heavy 
industries into other industries in this country are formidable. 
While industry is by no means stagnant, no single industry which 
requires heavy labour is now expanding on the necessary scale. 
In fact such industries as are expanding to-day, e.g., electrical 
engineering, motor car manufacture, artificial silk, furniture- 
making, printing and publishing, are, in the main, machine in- 
Justries, which obtain a high rate of productivity with a relatively 
small labour force. The problem of absorbing a surplus from the 
heavy industries is also complicated by the fact that many other 
industries are reorganising themselves upon a labour-saving 
basis, and if, for various reasons, they are not actually discharging 
labour, they are in many cases not engaging new labour on a 
icale which increasing output would otherwise require. Moreover, 
there is no industry or district in Great Britain where there is not 
Some unemployment. as recorded on the registers of employment