Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/79

Rh cycles of a similar term occur in the case of other peoples, such as France or Germany.

This is an evil of weight, though we must not exaggerate its scope. These fluctuations are even arguably a good; they are the obverse aspect of improvement, the shadow side of progress. For, as trade contracts, the weakest factories and the most obsolete methods go under, and thus the next expansion starts from a higher level of efficiency. By this rude play trade advances, and through the crest of prosperity and the trough of depression commerce makes head.

Considered, however, from the platform of the individual artisan, these movements are serious enough. The worker cannot wait. He lives by selling his labour, and he must sell it now. Viewed through the eyes of the working classes these fluctuations mean that something like two hundred thousand skilled men occasionally find themselves, through no fault of their own, without work or wages, while, simultaneously, this evil spreads in widening circles through the grades of unskilled and general labourers. Insurance is well enough, but has to be paid for, and cannot pretend to cut at the root of the problem, any more than a life policy sets forth to avert death.

The principal suggestion hitherto made is to regularise the internal demand for labour. For instance, national and local authorities are estimated to spend 150 millions sterling annually on works and services. This immense outlay could be