4  2

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

larger  absolute  amount  of  general  ability  but  that  it  calls
for  a  smaller  quantity  of  special  skill.  General  ability  is
only  relatively  more  important  in  the  modern  mechanic
and  machine-worker.
§  y.  Transferability  of  Labour  in  Other  Industries.
If  we  turn  from  manufacture  to  the  extractive  industries
concerned  directly  with  getting  the  raw  materials  of  food
or  manufacture,  we  shall  not  find  any  net  increase  of
ability  to  transfer  labour-power,  except  from  one  locality
to  another.  The  Scotch  or  the  Durham  coalminer  may
try  his  luck  in  Pennsylvania,  or  the  Cornish  tin  miner
may  migrate  to  South  Africa,  but  the  saying  “  once  a
miner  always  a  miner”  still  holds  good,  and  there  is
every  reason  to  believe  that  a  miner  is  more  narrowly
specialised  and  that  in  the  modern  strain  of  competition
a  thin-seam  “  hewer  ”  has  less  chance  than  formerly  of
working  advantageously  in  a  thick-seam  mine.
The  young  agricultural  labourer  no  doubt  has  more
freedom  of  choice  and  can  take  up  town  work  or  work
on  the  line,  but  when  he  is  once  inured  to  agricultural
work  he  can  no  more  quit  it  for  factory  or  other  town
work  than  can  the  sailor,  the  soldier,  or  the  fisherman.
The  various  departments  of  the  transport  and  the  distributive ­
  trades  do  unquestionably  contain  a  large  amount
of  labour  which  is  more  transferable.  Though  much
railway  labour  and  some  dock  labour,  as  for  example  the
work  of  many  of  the  stevedores,  is  highly  skilled,  the
bulk  of  it,  together  with  the  work  of  draymen,  messengers,
and  the  like,  rests  for  its  value  upon  certain  common
qualities  of  muscular  vigour  and  intelligence  which  can
be  diverted  without  much  loss  to  another  branch  of  the