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dispassionately the best methods by which they could safely
and rapidly diminish or prevent this grave disease, for it was
in time of peace that preparation should be made for war.
They would do no good by exaggerating the character of the
disease. It was idle to say, as some people did, that Unem
ployment was a peculiarly modern industrial disease. So far
as could be judged by statistics, there was no reason to believe
that there was a larger proportion of unemployment under
the modern system than under the old system. There was,
however, a growing mental appreciation of the enormity of
this evil which made it a more real and more painful malady
for modern thinkers. They also knew that the
growing advance of education had caused a large
number of men and women to think, and therefore they
appreciated more than ever before the danger and misery
connected with unemployment. It was in that sense that the
evil was a more pressing one. There was a growing demand
to face unflinchingly the necessity of setting our industrial
system in order so as to cut out this diseased factor of the
industrial body. Anyone who looked closely into the structure
and organisation of a jgreat modern business was amazed by
the intricacy, and on the whole the accuracy, with which
this machinery works for the purpose of providing profit.
It was a triumph of human ingenuity and intellect. When,
however, we turn to view the working of the industrial
system as a whole from the standpoint of social health, we
see anything but successful administration. We see enormous
waste.
They therefore required to bring their most careful re
flection to the diagnosis of this disease, and then to considera
tion of remedies.
He did not want to occupy time by dwelling upon the
details of the problem. They knew that weather and other
matters affecting the normal regularity of industry played
their part in causing unemployment. They knew that
changes in methods of machinery, changes in public taste,
necessarily had their effect in disturbing the industries to
which they relate, and consequently throwing a certain
number of men out of work.
There must, in spite of all the improved adjustments
and of all dovetailing which a careful system could devise,
be a certain amount of waste, but when they had reduced this
to a minimum it could not rightly be regarded as waste at all.
Such a minimum would always be necessary in a progressing
industry. But it was also necessary not merely that the
individuals who were displaced should be compensated, but
that provision should be made against the deterioration of
their working efficiency. The detailed proposals of the
Minority Report would go very far to economise to the utmost