52

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

§  6.  Strikes  as  Causes  of  Unemployment.
It  is  not  infrequent  for  business  men  and  others  who
have  not  followed  sufficiently  closely  the  periodic  fluctuations ­
  in  prices  and  volume  of  trade  during  the  last
half  century  to  assign  Strikes  as  the  chief  cause  or  as  an
important  contributory  cause  of  bad  trade  and  of  unemployment. ­
  So  it  is  urged  by  a  writer  in  the  National
Review  *  that  the  high  percentage  of  “  unemployment  ”  at
the  opening  of  1893  must  be  attributed  to  the  “cotton
strike  ",  the  suggestion  being  that  all  “  unemployment  ”
which  is  not  explained  by  necessary  leakage  and  specific
trade  displacements  is  a  voluntary  suspension  of  work
arising  from  excessive  claims  of  the  workers.  “  These
people  rebel  against  their  masters,  make  extortionate  and
impossible  demands,  and  after  striking  work  or  being
locked  out  assume  the  role  of  men  unable  to  get  work
and  wages”—is  the  frequent  comment  made  by  the
unthinking  members  of  all  classes.  Now  in  the  first  place
there  is  no  close  correspondence  between  the  great  strikes
and  a  high  rate  of  unemployment  :  comparatively  few
strikes  of  any  importance  have  occurred  in  the  trades
whose  unions  are  well-ordered  enough  to  furnish  proper
statistics  to  the  Board  of  Trade,  or  in  trades  which  closely
affect  them.  The  coincidence  of  the  cotton  strike  with
the  high  general  percentage  of  “  unemployment  "  was
exceptional.  But  even  were  it  true  that  all  periods  of
great  unemployment  were  marked  by  strikes  or  by  lockouts ­
  resulting  from  action  of  the  workers,  we  should  be
quite  unjustified  in  stopping  our  enquiry  at  this  point.

Miss.  H.  Dendy,  “Socialistic  Propaganda,”  September  1895.