WASTE”  IN  “MAKING”  INDUSTRIES

23

warehousemen,  porters  and  messengers,  contribute  a  very
large  proportion  of  the  whole,  and  far  outweigh  the
members  of  skilled  trades,  which  are  chiefly  represented
by  the  building,  engineering,  and  metal  trades.  Similarly,
among  female  applicants  for  work,  charwomen  and  other
general  workers  have  a  large  predominance.  Although
no  close  statistical  conclusions  as  to  distribution  of  unemployment ­
  can  be  drawn  from  such  sources,  because  the
greater  helplessness  of  low-paid  labour  would  more  readily
drive  it  to  have  recourse  to  these  Labour  Bureaux,  the
evidence  does  warrant  us  in  concluding  that  “  unemployment” ­
  is  greater  among  the  low-skilled  and  casual  than
among  the  high-skilled  labourers.
§  11.  Summary  of  “  Waste”  in  “  Making”
Industries.
Following  this  line  of  argument,  we  shall  conclude  that
the  7  per  cent,  which  was  taken  as  our  starting-point,
is  not  a  full  measure  of  the  “unemployment”  in  trade
unions  of  skilled  trades,  still  less  is  it  a  measure  of  the
“  unemployment”  or  the  waste  labour  in  the  whole  body
of  these  trades,  and  that  when  we  turn  from  the  skilled
trades  to  the  less  skilled,  and  from  them  to  the  casual
labour  of  our  towns,  we  shall  expect  to  find  a  far  higher
average  rate  of  economic  waste  or  “unemployment.”  If
to  this  we  add  the  inevitable  tendency  of  modern  industrial
forces,  attested  plainly  by  statistics  of  occupations,  to
assign  an  ever-diminishing  proportion  of  national  employment ­
  to  the  great  staple  manufactures  engaged  in  supplying
common  “  routine”  wants,  and  an  ever-increasing  proportion ­
  to  subsidiary  and  luxury  trades,  which  are  in  their
nature  prone  to  irregularity  we  shall  find  good  reason