FLUCTUATIONS

51

§  j.  Short  Period  and  Long  Period  Fluctuations.
Now,  if  in  the  skilled  trades  here  represented  we  are
justified  in  counting  the  minor  “  leakages  ”  and  special
displacement  due  to  introduction  of  new  machinery,  etc.,
us  a  fairly  constant  quantity,  taking  one  year  with  another, ­
  we  cannot  fail  to  recognise  that  some  greater  forces
are  at  work  which  account  for  the  large  bulk  of  the
unemployment  here  displayed.  In  January,  1900,  the
necessary  minor  “leakages”  and  specific  displacements
were  going  on,  and  yet  these  only  caused  2.7  unemployment. ­
  If,  then,  we  are  called  upon  to  explain  why  in
January,  1903,  10  per  cent,  are  “unemployed,”  we  must
seek  another  cause  or  causes.  A  further  comparison  of
one  year  as  a  whole  with  another  will  disclose  the  fact
that  the  force  to  which  we  must  attribute  the  mass  of
unemployment  is  one  which  operates  over  wider  periods
than  a  year.  We  are  driven  irresistibly  to  the  conclusion
that  the  great  tidal  movements  of  trade,  and  not  the
minor  detailed  movements  of  special  trades,  are  the  rootcauses
  of  the  evil  we  are  investigating.  No  accumulation
of  minor  short-period  causes  will  explain  why,  on  the
average,  throughout  1899  the  rate  of  “  unemployment  ”  was
only  2.4,  while  in  1893  it  was  7.5,  and  in  1894  6.9.
So  far  as  these  statistics  of  skilled  trades  can  be  taken
as  an  index  of  general  trade  movements,  we  must  conclude ­
  that  the  great  trade  depressions  are  the  vital  factor
with  which  we  have  to  deal,  and  that  no  palliatives  or
cures  will  be  of  much  service  unless  they  serve  to  mitigate ­
  the  force  of  these  vast  world-movements  in  trade.