only be filled at the expense of people already in employment or at 
the best to the prejudice of unemployed persons in the area. If, 
accepting this view, we regard the employment market as a 
static and limited thing, it would be useless for us to give any 
further thought to possibilities of absorption at home. This is, 
however, not a true view of the situation in the home employ- 
ment market. There is a ceaseless ebb and flow of employment, 
and at all times the employed personnel is constantly changing. 
Each man taken on is adding to a flowing stream, not driving 
another out of a space of fixed dimensions. The existence of local 
pnemployment doses not make it unnecessary or uneconomic to 
bring in labour from other areas. It is quite normal to find simul- 
taneously in the same area unemployment and an unsatisfied 
demand for labour, because the labour available is not suitable 
for the vacancies. In districts whsre the level of unemployment 
is low, those who remain unemployed may be of less than the 
average employment value or persons of special types of skill 
not required at the moment but awaiting engagement in due course. 
In many districts, particularly in the Midlands and in the Greater 
London area, unemployment is no longer a social problem affecting 
a whole community, or pressing for long periods upon large num- 
bers of all types of skill and aptitude. The statistical machines 
created by the Unemployment Insurance Acts, while it records all 
passing movements in the employment market, distinguishes in- 
sufficiently bstween the various kinds of unemployment. A town 
with a large variety of industries carried on in small establishments, 
each subject to the normal fluctuations of demand, may show 
10 per cent. of unemployment on the live register of the employ- 
ment exchange, but, considered in its human and social aspects, 
such a figure may be of utterly different significance from that of 
an identical figure of unsmployment if arising, for example, in a 
small area which depends almost entirely on three or four collieries. 
It would bs serious if any confusion between these kinds of unem- 
ployment were to stand in the way of a policy of transfer of labour 
required by industry. Moreover, many of the workers in the heavy 
industries now unemployed are of high employment value. At a 
time of good or relatively good trade such as is now being enjoyed 
In a number of areas in this country, many employers are pre- 
pared to make an effort to start a good man. There are, in fact, 
many potential vacancies in industry ‘‘ at the margin ’ which 
materialise upon the appearancs of a suitable man for the job. This 
has been proved in practice by the experience gained in canvassing 
for places for trainees from the Government training centres for 
work in this country. In drawing upon the depressed areas for 
their workpeople, employers need not fear that they are being called 
upon to subordinate economic efficiency to sentiment. There are 
In those areas many men of the highest employment value willing, 
if only an opportunity offers, to give loyal and skilful service, and