6

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED

prevent  the  degradation  of  morale  and  industrial  efficiency
which  every  irregularity  of  trade  produces.  Just  as  in
the  case  of  the  docks,  the  recent  readjustment  of  methods
of  employment  has  squeezed  out  and  exhibited  as  “  superfluous” ­
  a  large  mass  of  casual  labour  which  formerly
would  have  ranked  as  a  necessary  margin  for  occasional
absorption,  so  in  the  building  and  other  trades  a  similar
pressure,  modifying  methods  of  work,  would  expose  a
like  superfluity  or  “  waste  ”  of  labour-power.  But  even  it
it  be  held  that  the  distribution  of  employment  throughout
the  year  in  these  trades  cannot  be  materially  altered,  it
should  be  admitted  that  the  necessary  working  of  these
trades  involves  a  great  waste  of  labour-power  by  reason
of  its  irregularity.  The  bricklayers  idle  during  frost
clearly  represent  a  superfluity  of  labour,  though  not
necessarily  of  bricklaying  labour.  The  earnest  desire
expressed  by  some  to  provide  these  season  workers  with
an  alternative  craft  is  a  virtual  admission  of  the  present
waste  of  labour-power.
§  5.  The  “  Unemployed  ”  by  Trade  Depression.
A  very  large  majority  of  the  skilled  workers  who
are  “  out  of  work”  at  a  time  like  the  present  owe  their
unemployment,  not  to  short  leakages  or  seasonal  fluctuations, ­
  but  to  great  depressions  in  the  manufacturing  trade
of  the  country.  This,  one  might  imagine,  would  be  at
once  admitted  to  imply  a  superfluity  and  a  waste  of
labour-power.  But  the  Report  on  the  Unemployed  is
disposed  to  think  quite  otherwise  :
“  In  a  period  of  contraction  like  the  present  there  are
many  men  who  are  out  of  work.  They  are  industrially
‘superfluous/  if  so  short  a  period  as  a  year  be  taken  as