GENERAL  EXCESS  OF  PRODUCING  POWER  59

§  j.  Central  Fact—General  Excess  0/  Producing
Power.
Neither  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Labour  Commission
nor  in  the  analysis  of  causes  of  unemployment  contained
in  the  Report  of  the  Board  of  Trade  do  we  find  the
faintest  recognition  of  the  central  fact  of  the  “unemployed”
problem—viz.,  the  simultaneous  general  unemployment
of  labour,  capital,  and  land  in  periods  of  depressed  trade.
Our  analysis  of  the  available  statistics  forced  us  to  the
conclusion  that  the  “unemployed”  question  was  in  the
main  a  leading  aspect  of  the  problem  of  trade  depression.
From  the  financial  point  of  view  bad  trade  appears  as  a
general  lowness  of  prices  and  of  profits,  but,  regarded  as
a  disease  of  the  industrial  structure,  it  takes  the  shape  of
a  general  slackness  or  under-use  of  the  various  factors
of  production.  Now,  no  serious  attempt  has  been  made,
by  what  may  provisionally  be  called  the  orthodox  school
of  English  economists,  to  explain  why  it  is  that  at  one
and  the  same  time  there  can  be  in  existence  more  labour,
more  capital,  and  more  land,  than  are  wanted.  There  might
exist,  according  to  their  theory,  more  labour  than  could
be  employed,  owing  to  an  insufficiency  of  capital  with
which  to  assist  labour  to  produce  ;  but,  since  capital  and
labour  are  the  only  requisites  for  the  production  of
wealth,  they  could  not  both  be  in  excess.  The  common
mode  of  meeting  the  difficulty  was  to  deny  the  fact  of
a  general  excess  of  producing-power.  There  might,  it
was  alleged,  be  an  excessive  application  of  capital  and
labour  to  certain  trades,  but  this  was  a  malady  of  misdirection, ­
  general  excess  of  producing-power  was  impossible.