UNEMPLOYMENT IN PUBLIC SERVICES
27
of labour-power as well as a great irregularity in its
demand in these trades, but the very large register of
clerks and messengers, warehousemen and porters, I am
disposed rather to impute partly to the fact that such
workers often cannot take the ordinary means of seeking
work by personal application which is open to those
engaged in manufactures and large-scale industries, and
partly to the absence of trade union organisation upon
which most skilled and some unskilled workers rely to
assist them to a place. But though the classes of roadtransport
are evidently subject to great irregularity, against
this must be set the steady and large employment on
railways and in large departments of navigation.
On the contrary dockers and all branches of riverside
labour will yield a very large quantity of “waste.” If we
accept Mr. Geoffrey Drage’s estimate of the number of
London dock labourers at 22,000 (exclusive of those
who drift in occasionally from other trades), and compare
d with the average of those actually employed on any
given day, which for the year 1894 amounted to 7,006,
We shall perceive that after allowance is made for the
fairly full work of “ permanent ” hands, the quantity of
unemployment for the mass must be enormous. Much
of this irregularity is inherent in the nature of a trade
so largely dependent on season and on weather, which
yields a difference of about 25 per cent, for the numbers
employed in March and in November, while the daily
fluctuations are much wider. But even if we take the
maximum employed on the busiest day of the year we
shall find it falls short by some thousands of the number
°f “ dockers ”, indicating a large net surplus of “ unemployed
” not wanted even for short emergencies. In other
