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THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

the  whole  of  London.  The  metropolis  may  be  somewhat
worse  than  other  cities,  but  we  are  brought  face  to  face
here  with  a  huge  mass  of  “  waste  "  labour-power  which
finds  no  reflection  in  the  reports  of  the  Labour  Gazette.
Much,  if  not  most,  of  this  low-graded  town  labour,
taken  as  it  is,  differs  widely  in  respect  of  “  unemployment”
from  the  case  of  skilled  workers  in  times  of  depression.
Unemployment  here,  even  more  than  in  the  case  of  skilled
workers,  becomes  a  question  of  “degree.”  Living  by
casual  and  essentially  irregular  work,  few  of  them  could
be  definitely  said  to  be  “  out  of  work  ”  at  one  time  more
than  another:  some  scraps  of  work  they  must  be  getting
constantly,  or  they  sink  into  pauperdom.  The  true  measure ­
  of  unemployment  here  would  clearly  be  the  waste
of  such  labour-power  as  they  possess.  This,  I  take  it,  is
what  Mr.  Booth  meant  by  his  estimate  of  superfluous
labour  in  East  London.  Now,  if  we  bear  in  mind  the
large  mass  of  our  growing  town  population  which  is
subjected  either  to  the  essential  irregularities  of  the  lowskilled
  trades  or  ekes  out  a  living  by  casual  labour,  we
shall  recognise  that  even  in  periods  of  good  trade  such  a
figure  as  the  7  per  cent,  which  is  applicable  to  skilled
trade  unionists,  would  be  far  below  the  measure  of  economic ­
  “unemployment”  in  these  classes.
§  10.  Evidence  of  the  Labour  Bureaux.
This  view  of  the  higher  rate  of  “  unemployment”  among
low-skilled  and  casual  workers  seems  to  be  borne  out  by
such  direct  evidence  as  is  available  from  the  reports  of
the  Labour  Bureaux  in  London,  Liverpool,  Salford,  and
other  places.  Among  male  applicants  for  work,  general
labourers  form  by  far  the  largest  class,  while  clerks  and