STRIKES  AS  CAUSES  OF  UNEMPLOYMENT  53

There  1»  an  overwhelming  weight  of  evidence  to  show
that  most  great  strikes  are  symptoms  and  results  of  tradedepressions,
  not  causes.  The  three  large  strikes  of  recent
years,  those  connected  with  Dock  Labour,  the  Cotton
Trade,  and  Coal  Mining,  were  all  of  this  character.
Schulze-Gaevernitz  in  his  careful  and  impartial  investigation ­
  of  English  industry  finds  the  real  cause  of  the
great  Dock  Strike  in  1889  in  the  financial  weakness  of  the
Dock  Companies,  attributable  to  the  fact  that  “Too  many
docks  had  been  built  and  there  was  the  fiercest  competition ­
  between  the  Companies.  ”  *  The  persistent  fall  of
prices  due  to  “  over-production  ”  is  assigned  as  the  explanation ­
  of  the  cotton-strike  of  1893.  f  The  cutting  down
of  contract  prices  under  the  pressure  of  the  same  forces
brought  about  the  great  lock-out  in  the  Coal-mining
industry.  Other  ostensible  causes  are  sometimes  to  the
front,  but  most  modern  strikes  are  conditioned  by  an  excess ­
  of  producing  power  in  the  several  trades,  which
drives  employers  to  lower  prices  which  they  can  only
render  profitable  by  reducing  wages  or  by  introducing
new  labour-saving  machinery  or  by  other  economies  which
directly  diminish  the  demand  for  labour.  The  only
strikes  which  we  are  entitled  to  count  as  voluntary  unemployment ­
  and  for  which  allowance  should  be  made  in
our  analysis  of  economic  causes,  are  those  made  for  a
rise  in  the  standard  wage  or  some  other  definite  improvement ­
  in  the  economic  condition  of  a  class  of  workers,  or
the  rare  case  of  a  sympathetic  strike.  Speaking  generally
a  strike  is  not  a  cause  but  an  effect  of  depressed  trade
*  “  Social  Peace,”  p.  262.
t  Cf.  De  Routiers,  “  La  Question  Ouvrière  en  Angleterre  ”
PP  455-458.