IS  WINTER  SLACKNESS  UNEMPLOYMENT?  3

this  “  necessary  ”  leakage.  If  the  building  trade  is  slack,
n ot  only  will  a  smaller  number  of  workers  be  employed,
but  the  intervals  between  jobs  will  be  longer.  Here  there
exists  a  genuine  waste  of  labour-power,  which  would
rightly  rank  as  unemployment.  A  period  of  brisk  trade
m  which  intervals  are  smallest  must  be  taken  as  the  right
nieasure  of  necessary  leakage,  and  even  then,  if  the
leakage  is  due  to  inadequate  organisation  in  the  trade,  it
implies  some  waste.  In  various  trades  improved  intelligence, ­
  cheaper  travelling,  travelling  benefits  of  trade  unions,
have  reduced  what  would  formerly  have  been  considered
necessary”  leakage  due  to  natural  conditions  of  the
trade.
<§  3-  Is  Winter  Slackness  Unemployment?
Official  View.
IIow  far  can  this  view  of  necessary  leakage  be
extended  to  the  longer  intervals  of  leisure  in  the  building
trades  and  other  trades  whose  irregularity  is  due  to
natural  causes?  The  recent  Report  of  the  Labour  Department ­
  upon  the  Unemployed  is  disposed  to  rule  out  all
unemployment”  in  the  building  trades  in  the  winter
months.
A  certain  amount  of  time  will  be  lost  almost  every
) c 'ir  during  frost.  Are  the  men  thus  thrown  out  of  work
ïeully  ‘unemployed’?  The  loss  of  time  may  be  considered
as  one  °f  the  ordinary  trade  risks;  it  recurs  more  or  less
every  year;  it  may  be  supposed  to  be  discounted  in  the
mtes  of  pay  earned  by  members  of  these  trades  when
u  ly  at  work.  The  bricklayers  idle  during  frost  are  in  no
sense  ‘superfluous,’  if  the  whole  year  be  taken  as  a
umt ;  Wer e  they  emigrated  or  planted  in  farm  colonies,