522
A more important cause of difference between the German and British figures is found
in the fact that the occupations represented in them are different, and especially that the
former give comparatively slight influence to trades which are characterised by large
fluctuations of employment, while the latter give such trades a very considerable representation
in the statistics.
Thus, in the British figures a large representation is given to the shipbuilding trades,
in which fluctuations of employment are especially violent. So important, indeed, is this
representation that the mere omission of the shipbuilding figures from the return for
December last would reduce the average unemployed percentage from 6T to 5 3. While
this is not the only case in which the English figures are influenced in an important degree
by the inclusion of industries liable to disturbance beyond the average, the German figures
include hardi y any important groups in which the unemployment rate is relatively high.
In December lasïTfor example, only one-fourtli of the membership on which the returns
were based was included in the unions whose unemployment rate exceeded the average
2'7 per cent., and in these only two large federations, those of the workers in wood, and
book-printers, were found. The fact that, for various reasons, the unions from which
returns are received in Germany include but few important groups from trades which
show marked fluctuations in the numbers employed, renders it impossible to treat the
German average figures as in any sense directly comparable with the British.
The practice of meeting slack periods by working shgrt time, rather than by a
reduction of staff, appears to be very considerably more general in Germany than in the
United Kingdom. How far this consideration may modify the return of numbers of
unemployed may be illustrated from the case of coal-miners in this country. During
1907, the percentage of coal-miners returned as unemployed varied between 0T and 0 3.
The return of the shifts worked per week varied between an average of 5T7 in April, 5.22 in
August, and 5 - 69 in February, while in all these months the pet centage returned as unemployed
was 0'2. It is clear that the recorded percentage of unemployed among coal-miners fails to
present, for comparison with other trades, an adequate representation of the degree of
irregularity of employment. This illustrates the tendency of such figures where the practice
of short time prevails. Some of the German authorities declare that the practice of short
time in certain industries reduces earnings by as much as one-fourth to one-third in the
course of a year. It is certain that, though certain British industries, notably coal-mining
and the cotton industry, resort to the system of short time, the extent to which tKIs system
operates to lower the figure of unemployed workmen in the United Kingdom is much less
than in the German Empire. It is, however, impossible to estimate, even roughly, the
proportionate effect on the percentage of unemployed returned by the tiade unions.
(c) Considerations which tend to show that the Official Figure published in Germany is a
less complete Record of the true Percentage of Unemployed Members of German Trade
(Tnions than the Official Figure published in the United Kingdom is of Unemployed
Members of British Trade Unions.
Doubts have also been suggested as to the completeness of the figures under consideration,
and examination of the facts has not altogether removed the doubts. The earlier
German figures appear to have comprised in the main only those unemployed who were
actually in receipt of unemployed or travelling benefit. Since the autumn of 1906 the
German Statistical Department has endeavoured to secure a complete return of all those
members known to the unions to be out of work, and some of the more important of the
German unions appear now to endeavour to secure as complete a return as possible of all
members who are out of employment. Whether the same can be said of the unions
generally is a question as to which the information at the disposal of the Board of Trade
does not admit of a definite answer. It may, perhaps, be regarded as probable that some
irregularity on this point yet remains, and affects the returns to some extent. This view
receives some support from a consideration of such figures as those secured by the city of
Dresden, in which, not only the total numbers of unemployed in the city, but their
distribution according to the duration of their unemployment, is recorded. Considering
these figures in relation to the period during which German trade unions ordinarily grant
unemployed benefit to their members, and the proportion shown by the official returns
between the unemployed in and out of benefit, it appears probable that the returns of
those out of employment still fail, in not a few cases, to cover all those whom it is sought
to include in the record. Some noteworthy difficulties present themselves in procuring
the desired information, owing to the incomplete organisation of the German trade unions.*
* That it is far from easy to secure a complete return of unemployed from all the branches of some of
the German trade unions is illustrated by the following- cases :—
The tobacco-workers of Bremen, after the issue of the new circular in the autumn of 1906, withdrew
from contributing to the unemployed return on the ground that repeated efforts had failed to secure
prompt returns—in some cases had failed to secure any return from branches (c.f. Reichs-Arbeitsblatt,
October, 1906, p. 911).
The federation of Catholic Labour Unions, at the end of 1906, had a total membership of 100,238. Only
6,171 of these had contributed to the unemployment return, and the recorded total of unemployed benefit
paid in the last three months of 1906 was £3 5s. These returns were considered so unsatisfactory that
the suggestion to separate them from the general body of the returns is made (c.f. Reichs-Arbeitsblatt,
January, 1907, p. 19). They have since been entirely discontinued.
The group of trade unions known as “Free Unions” have returned percentages of unemployed regularly
in excess of those of similar trades in other organisations. Reasons assigned for this, even as late as
April, 1907, are an earlier payment of unemployed benefit and a special trade policy, these features
contributing to a more complete record being secured than elsewhere (c.f. Reichs-Arbeitsblatt, April, 1907,
p. 318). That these reasons should be assigned implies the incompleteness of the records of other unions.
