NO  FULL  MEASURE  OF  UNEMPLOYED  UNIONISTS  15
twelve  months’  membership  is  commonly  required  as  a
qualification  for  the  receipt  of  unemployed  benefit;  other
conditions  are  often  essential  to  full  membership.  Thus
a  considerable  proportion  of  those  included  in  the  aggregate ­
  of  members  are  not  entitled  to  receive  out-of-work
pay,  and  their  unemployment  does  not  appear.  For  example,
only  88  per  cent,  of  iron-founders  and  only  50  per  cent,
of  shipwrights  were  eligible  for  out-of-work  pay  in  1893
according  to  the  Report  on  the  Unemployed.  In  most
unions  “unemployed  pay”  is  only  given  for  a  limited
number  of  weeks,  seldom  extending  over  thirteen  and
in  some  cases  for  only  six  ;  “  unemployment”  does  not
generally  count  as  such  until  a  member  has  been  out  of
work  for  a  week  or  longer  ;  many  are  disqualified  by
falling  into  arrears  in  their  subscription,  a  misfortune  to
which  they  will  be  most  liable  in  times  of  bad  trade  ;
some  better-to-do  workers  make  it  a  point  of  personal
pride  not  to  come  on  their  union  fund  until  they  are
obliged.  Owing  to  these  causes,  particularly  the  first,
the  returns  made  by  the  trade  unions  which  only  take
account  of  the  members  who  are  in  actual  receipt  of
“unemployed  benefit,”  gravely  under-represent  the  “unemployment” ­
  of  trade  union  members.
Again,  the  strain  of  modern  competition  and  the
pressure  of  our  great  “driving”  system  bear  more  and
more  heavily  upon  working  men  who  are  past  their  prime
°f  vigour  ;  the  age  when  men  are  superannuated  as  no
hmger  able  to  earn  the  standard  wage  is  very  early  in  the
harder  manual  trades  ;  and  members  who  are  still  possessed ­
  of  a  fair  measure  of  efficient  labour-power  no
longer  receive  “  unemployed”  benefit,  but  are  placed  upon
the  superannuated  or  the  sick  list,  receiving  aid  for  a