THE  “  UNEMPLOYED”  BY  TRADE  DEPRESSION  7
the  unit,  but  over  a  period  of  seven  years—which  for
shipbuilding  appears  to  be  about  the  period  of  the
cycle—they  are  necessary,  and  were  they  lifted  off  the
labour-market  in  slack  years  there  would  not  be  enough
men  to  execute  the  work  when  trade  revived.”
That  is  to  say,  when  trade  is  good  a  large  body  of  men
are  wanted  to  work,  when  trade  is  bad  they  are  wanted
to  wait  in  case  it  may  get  better.  While  they  wait  their
labour-power  is  not  to  be  considered  “  waste”,  because,  in
the  words  of  Mr.  Booth,  “  our  modem  system  of  industry
will  not  work  without  some  unemployed  margin,  some
reserve  of  labour.”  “They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and
wait,”  Milton  has  told  us,  but  this  specific  application  of
the  truth  has  seldom  been  made  clear.  My  chief  criticism ­
  of  the  judgment  made  in  the  Report  is  that  it
hegs  the  entire  question  with  an  almost  humorous  effrontery. ­
  As  an  alternative  to  the  suggestion  that  without
this  unhappy  margin  of  “waiters”  “there  would  not  be
enough  men  to  execute  the  work  when  trade  revived,”
I  would  put  the  following  question  :  “  May  not  the
existence  under  normal  conditions  of  an  average  margin
5  per  cent,  ‘unemployed’  in  the  skilled  trades,  and
possibly  a  larger  margin  in  the  ‘unskilled’  trades,  be  a
cause,  as  it  is  certainly  a  condition,  of  the  fluctuations
which  make  this  year  ‘good’  and  that  year  ‘bad’?”  If
there  did  not  exist  this  “  margin,”  it  is  evident  trade
would  not  “  revive”  to  the  extent  it  does  in  such  a  year
as  1889;  hut,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  not  conceivable,
that  it  might  not  decline  so  deeply  as  in  1887?  In
other  words,  is  it  not  possible  that  the  fluctuations  would
he  less  violent  if  there  did  not  under  normal  conditions
exist  an  average  “reserve”  force  of  labour  to  “play