Little things that matter
It is a truly glorious thing to have the power of looking on the bright side of everything—to be buoyed up by an everlasting optimism that cannot be disappointed. Lloyd George is one of the lucky ones in this direction. According to him, via that well-known “democratic” weekly called “Reynolds’s” (7.4.1912), “unemployment was almost unknown in this country.” Trade is booming all over the world ; Imports and Exports are piling up hand over fist; the Budget shows a surplus of 6½ millions: and the colliers are going back to work.
As the “Daily Mail” on one historical occasion remarked, the reserve army of labour was a necessity of capitalist production, its present almost complete absorption must strike the capitalists with anxiety. With business so brisk that the unemployed are almost gone, the opportunity for increases in wages and general improvements of conditions is worth noting by the working class and its various economic organisations. Perhaps this is the real reason for the Labour unrest of which we have heard something of late.
It is strange that with unemployment almost unknown, the passages to Australia are booked up months ahead, and the emigrant services to Canada, South Africa and other colonies should be so thriving. Last year the number of emigrants reached 260,000. Can it be that these passengers are prosperous workmen travelling for a holiday, or are they throwing up jobs here for uncertainties abroad ? If the hundreds of thousands who are continually being shipped to the Colonies leave jobs to go, there must soon come a time when the “almost” is “quite,” and what becomes of the necessary reserve army then ?
Yet in spite of this optimistic outlook the unemployment that is “almost unknown” is a very real factor in many trades. The London printing trade is in a parlous state, and unemployment is worse rather than better in comparison with last year and previous periods. As, however, Mr. Lloyd George considers the coal strike a mere incidental interruption in the commercial prosperity, no doubt any unemployment among London printers is similarly incidental upon their strike of last year.
The optimism would appear to belong to “Reynolds’s” as an improvement on that of Lloyd George. So far as other reports of his speech go they refer to a diminution of unemployment, and a near approach to the lowest record. Which is a very different thing from unemployment being “almost unknown.” This, however, must be left to “Reynolds’s” and the Chancellor. We are still waiting to know why he didn’t resign according to promise after three years without solving the social problem.
The anxiety of the miners’ leaders to get the men back to work when an effort to hold out a little longer would probably have made sure of the minimum for which they have been struggling, is a bad bit of business. The railway men have on two occasions been induced, mainly by their leaders, to return to work just a little too soon. Promises should never be accepted. When the circumstances which produce them have been removed, they are so liable to be forgotten or re-interpreted. Conciliation Boards and Minimum Wage Boards are poor substitutes for a much-needed and hardly won rise in wages.
The fiction of the independent chairman of such boards would be amusing if it were not so tragic. With twelve men on either side the workmen have considerable danger of being overwhelmed by superior oratory and education. The independent chairman is certain to be of some social standing, with consequently a leaning, more or less pronounced, on the side of capital. It is impossible for a man to be neutral in a matter of living by or living on labour, and the man chosen to be the local board chairman is safe to be a liver-on.
D. K.