CHAPTER  IV
MINOR  CAUSES  OF  UNEMPLOYMENT
§  i.  The  Individual  Moral  View  of  the  Problem.
In  order  to  realise  the  relative  importance  of  the  economic
causes  which  are  directly  responsible  for  “  unemployment,”
some  deductions  from  our  earlier  analysis  may  be  of
service.  The  common  notion  of  the  “philanthropist”  and
the  moralist  who,  wholly  untrained  in  economic  thought,
thinks  the  only  thorough  treatment  of  this  and  other
problems  of  poverty  consists  in  the  treatment  of  individual ­
  character,  need  not  detain  us  long.  The  fallacy  is
one  necessary  to  all  individualist  views  of  society.  A
depression  of  the  staple  trade  in  a  town  throws  out  of
employment  io  per  cent,  of  those  who  are  normally
employed.  The  charity  organiser  with  his  individual
scrutiny  sets  to  work,  and  a  close  investigation  of  each
“case”  discloses  in  most  of  this  io  per  cent,  some  moral
or  economic  defect:  there  is  drink,  laziness,  inefficiency,
or  some  other  personal  fault  discernible  in,  or  imputed
to,  most  of  these  “unemployed.”  Our  “thorough”  investigator, ­
  having,  as  he  thinks,  found  a  sufficient  reason
why  each  man  should  be  unemployed,  reaches  the  con-45