THE “ UNEMPLOYED” BY TRADE DEPRESSION 7
the unit, but over a period of seven years—which for
shipbuilding appears to be about the period of the
cycle—they are necessary, and were they lifted off the
labour-market in slack years there would not be enough
men to execute the work when trade revived.”
That is to say, when trade is good a large body of men
are wanted to work, when trade is bad they are wanted
to wait in case it may get better. While they wait their
labour-power is not to be considered “ waste”, because, in
the words of Mr. Booth, “ our modem system of industry
will not work without some unemployed margin, some
reserve of labour.” “They also serve who only stand and
wait,” Milton has told us, but this specific application of
the truth has seldom been made clear. My chief criticism
of the judgment made in the Report is that it
hegs the entire question with an almost humorous effrontery.
As an alternative to the suggestion that without
this unhappy margin of “waiters” “there would not be
enough men to execute the work when trade revived,”
I would put the following question : “ May not the
existence under normal conditions of an average margin
5 per cent, ‘unemployed’ in the skilled trades, and
possibly a larger margin in the ‘unskilled’ trades, be a
cause, as it is certainly a condition, of the fluctuations
which make this year ‘good’ and that year ‘bad’?” If
there did not exist this “ margin,” it is evident trade
would not “ revive” to the extent it does in such a year
as 1889; hut, on the other hand, is it not conceivable,
that it might not decline so deeply as in 1887? In
other words, is it not possible that the fluctuations would
he less violent if there did not under normal conditions
exist an average “reserve” force of labour to “play
