in the United States by the percentage of unemployed in New York, as some of our ministers have done, as it would be to estimate the number of Jews in Great Britain by the percentage of Jews in Mile End, Whitechapel, and Bethnal Green. In the second place, New York is the centre of the seasonal trades of America. The ready-made clothes trade, for instance, is centred in New York for the same reason for which, in Great Britain, it is centred in the East-end of London. In both the East-end of London and in New York, tailoring is carried on by emigrant Jews from Eastern Europe. Besides, New York has so severe a winter that every year during many months building operations are almost at a standstill. In the words of the eleventh Special Report, issued by the Commissioner of Labor at Washington, "Weather conditions interfere with out-of-door work, reducing considerably the number of days worked in twelve months. In New York, for instance, it is estimated that bricklayers are able to work during only 150 to 175 days in the year."

It is worth noting that among the trade unionists who report on unemployment to the Labor Department of New York State, the workers engaged in the building trade and the clothing trade, two trades which are essentially seasonal trades, form by far the largest contingents.

British workers have, on the whole, little cause to pity the American unemployed. Let us take the case of the New York bricklayer who is occupied during only 150 to 175 days in the year. His average wages amount, according to the statistics. furnished by the Labor Department in Washington, to 70 cents per hour, and to double that sum per hour for overtime. Hence, a New York bricklayer will earn in a normal eight-hours day 5'60 dollars, or £1 3s. If he works nine hours he will earn £1 9s. a day, and if he works ten hours he will earn £1 15s. a day. The report of the Mosely Commission of 1903 contains the following statements by Mr. H. R. Taylor of the Operative Bricklayers' Society and by Mr. M. Deller of the National Association of Operative Plasterers, "The bricklayer in America receives a wage ranging from two and a quarter to three and a half times the highest wage paid to a bricklayer here, the highest rate in England being 101d., or 21 cents per hour, whilst the lowest wage paid in any of the towns and cities I have visited was 45 cents, or 1s. 103d. per hour at Niagara, and as high as 75 cents, or 3s. 1d. per hour, in New York; whilst for tunnel or sewer work the recognised rate is 75 cents per hour, or 25s. per day in the Niagara and Cleveland districts, and as high as nine dollars or £1 17s. 6d. per day of

eight hours, in New York. The wages paid to plasterers in New York are at the present time 5 dollars (£1 0s. 2d.) per day.

Such are the wages among the men in the building trade of New York who notoriously suffer most severely from statistical unemployment as shown in the foregoing table. However, New York bricklayers earn during the six or seven months whilst they are at work more than English bricklayers can earn in eighteen months. Moreover, during the long spell of winter, when building operations are at a standstill, and when the bricklayers are statistically unemployed, they work, many of them, at another trade. They earn frequently good wages in winter in the gas-works, which then have their busy season. However, that fact does not, of course, prevent these men being reported as unemployed at their trade by the secretary of their union.

The foregoing suffices to show that the statistics of unemployment among trade unionists issued by the Department of Labor of the State of New York are deceptive and that it is quite inadmissible to assume that the New York percentage of unemployment may be applied to all workers, organised and unorganised, throughout the United States. It is, perhaps, not unnatural that irresponsible journalists have informed the British public that "one man out of three is out of work in America," or "in Free Trade Great Britain only 82 per cent of the workers are unemployed, whilst in Protectionist America from 10 to 30 per cent. of the workers are habitually unemployed even in the best times." However, it is very much to be regretted that Mr. Asquith and other members of the Cabinet should implicitly and explicitly have endorsed these grossly misleading statements, statements which they ought to have known to be not in accordance with fact.

Now let us see whether the two remaining tests of employment and of unemployment, the emigration and immigration tests, and the savings banks test, confirm or contradict the very rudimentary trade union unemployment test given in the foregoing.

GROSS EMIGRATION NET EMIGRATION

IMMIGRATION TO

FROM GREAT BRITAIN. FROM GREAT BRITAIN. THE UNITED STATES.

It will be noticed that between 1900 and 1907 emigration from Great Britain and immigration into the United States have both grown threefold, that the people are fleeing from this country in rapidly increasing numbers as from a stricken land, whilst the United States are getting more and more attractive to workers who wish to better themselves.

It cannot be argued that the enormous exodus of people from Europe to the United States is due chiefly to the activity of the Emigration Agents and the shipping companies, or that it is a chance movement, a passing craze, or a fashion due to some migratory instinct or to the unjustified hopes of emigrants who are attracted to America by visions of boundless wealth. The American Department of Labor, a department the functions of which are similar to those of our own Board of Trade, has by means of exhaustive inquiries ascertained that the vast majority of immigrants have set out to America because they have been advised to do so by relatives or friends of theirs who have settled in America and who have prospered. In a very large number of cases foreign immigrants have their passage paid for them by their friends and relatives in America. As soon as prosperity diminishes, foreigners settled in America advise their relatives and friends living in Europe not to come over because employment is bad. Hence, the immigration statistics are considered to be an excellent, and almost an infallible, index to the state of employment in the United States.

In view of the foregoing record figures it is quite clear that between 1900 and 1907, when employment grew steadily worse in Great Britain, it became steadily better in the United States. In fact, employment was so good over there during the period 1900-1907 that workers were scarce in America notwithstanding the immigration of millions of willing workers. The reports of the American Chambers of Commerce, of many American undertakings, and of our own Consuls testify to the fact that the United States suffered up to the summer of 1907, not from a scarcity of work, but from a scarcity of workers. The Consular report for New York, issued in May, 1907, speaks, for instance, of "constant complaints of shortage of labour, notwithstanding an immigration exceeding 1,000,000 persons." Another Consular report, relating to the United States, No. 3876, issued in July, 1907, states: "Notwithstanding the fact that considerably over 1,000,000 immigrants came into this country, there was in certain industries a serious scarcity of labour." Consular Report No. 3777 on the trade of Maryland, states: "Complaints were constantly made by the large wholesale houses that they were unable to get goods from the manufacturers, and the manufacturers plead

that the dearth of workmen prevented them from complying with the demands that were made upon them. Indeed, everywhere, both in the country and in the cities, there was a constant cry for labour, skilled and unskilled."

The immigration and emigration test clearly shows that employment was excellent in America between 1900 and 1907, and that consequently unemployment must have been practically nonexistent in that country.

The American workers have £740,000,000 in their savings banks, whilst the British workers have only £210,000,000 in our savings banks. However, it would not be fair to apply the savings banks test to the whole of the United States and to Great Britain. In the United States, and especially in the agricultural parts, the workers invest their savings chiefly in land and houses. Similar facilities for investment do not exist in Great Britain. In New York State and Massachusetts, on the other hand, industrial and commercial States in which the vast majority of workers are town dwellers, the workers have comparatively few opportunities for investing money in real estate, and thus they are compelled to put their savings into the savings banks. In view of the fact that in New York State from 10 per cent. to 30 per cent. of the workers are, according to the trade union statistics, habitually unemployed, it will be particularly interesting to compare the savings banks deposits in Great Britain and in New York State.

The foregoing figures are startling indeed. They show that the 8,000,000 inhabitants of New York State have now a considerably larger sum in their savings banks than have the 44,000,000 inhabitants of the whole of Great Britain. If we allow for the difference in population, we find that for every £1 deposited in the savings banks by the average Englishman, the average citizen of New York State has £8 deposited in the savings banks. They show, further, that during the years 1905-1907 the average

New Yorker added £7 to his savings banks deposit, whilst during the same time the average Englishman added only two shillings to his savings. In other words, for every £1 put by during the last three years by the average British worker the average worker in New York State put by £70. The foregoing figures confirm the fact that in the United States employment must have been excellent and unemployment practically nil, and that employment was perhaps best in New York State, notwithstanding the large, but purely nominal, unemployment figures furnished by the trade unions of that State. The emigration and immigration figures and the savings banks statistics incontestably prove that the American workers must have passed through a long period of unparalleled prosperity.

New York State, like Great Britain, is a small and very densely populated State which subsists chiefly on trade and industries. Therefore it is worth while to inquire a little more closely into the state of employment over there. For this purpose let us look into the censuses of 1900 and 1905, censuses which did not merely enumerate and classify population, but which were industrial censuses as well. These censuses give the following picture of the state of employment in New York State.

=

Increase +29,982 +$34,405,060 +$31 £6 4 0

...

...

It will be noticed that between 1900 and 1905 New York State found work for an additional army of 130,038 wage-earners and 29,982 clerks, &c., to whom, roughly speaking, additional wages of 127,096,326 dollars, or £25,419,265, per year were paid. These figures suffice to show that employment has been excellent in New York State. They show a surprising expansion in employment, and they prove that wherever unemployment existed in New York State it could scarcely be due to lack of work. The