2  6

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

§  ij.  Unemployment  in  Distributive,  Transport,
and  Public  Services.
The  chief  waste  of  labour  in  distribution  takes  the
form,  not  of  “unemployment,”  but  of  employment  which
is  excessive  and  useless  from  the  social  standpoint,  the
multiplication  of  clerks,  warehousemen,  shop-assistants,
etc.,  which  proceeds  far  faster  than  the  growth  of  wares
to  be  distributed.  It  is  true  that  the  evidence  of  Labour
Bureaux  shows  that  large  numbers  of  clerks,  shop  assistants,
and  warehousemen  are  “  unemployed”,  and  the  heightened
competition  in  these  departments  of  work  leads  doubtless
to  an  increased  precariousness  of  employment.  But  in
taking  a  present  estimate  we  should  be  obliged  to  assign
a  lower  figure  of  “unemployment”  to  commercial  than
to  manufacturing  industry.  Again,  the  “  transport”  industries
constantly  afford  more  employment,  occupying  more  than
i2  per  cent,  of  the  employed  males  in  1901.  Some  large
departments  of  work  connected  with  road-transport  show  a
great  “  superfluity  ”  of  labour,  and  carmen,  stablemen,  and
others  connected  with  street-traffic  figure  largely  in  the  lists  of
the  Labour  Bureaux:  while,  apart  from  absolute  “unemployment”, ­
  there  must  be  an  enormous  waste  of  labourpower
  in  cab-driving,  etc.
The  evidence  provided  by  the  registers  of  Labour
Bureaux,  though  it  has  a  value  of  its  own,  must  not,  I
think,  be  taken  as  even  an  approximate  test  of  the
proportion  of  unemployed  in  the  several  trades  of  the
localities.  The  preponderance  of  general  labourers  and
of  those  belonging  to  the  building  trades  amongst  men,
and  dressmakers  and  seamstresses  and  charwomen  amongst
women  do,  I  think,  rightly  indicate  a  very  large  excess