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way to get a result as high as 115 for 1924.31 Mr. Layton was a proponent of the most sanguine view of British industrial conditions, and yet our estimate shows nearly double the increase of production since 1907 which even his highest guess would warrant. Put another way, our index shows from 7.5 per cent32 to 20 per cent33 more production in 1924 than the best estimates previous to the publication of the census results.

33

Everything discussed so far pertains to aggregate production. Production per worker will, of course, show less increase, since the numbers engaged in industry have increased since 1907. None of these previous indices were constructed to show production per worker, but the census of production also provides data to make this possible. The returns have the advantage of applying to the identical establishments to which our index of production applies.

By using these data, the Balfour Committee on Industry and Trade has arrived at an index of production per worker for 1924 of 107 (1907-100). Their method was to divide the aggregate sale value per worker, as shown by the census, by an index of general prices. The difficulty, as has been suggested, is that the data on prices do not apply—as they should-to the identical commodities whose production is indexed. Also, it is impossible to show detailed results for separate industrial groups without a separate

Assume that Layton meant that 1925 industrial production equaled that of 1913. According to Rowe's data, the following two equations may be set up:

1924 production _ 98.1

1925 production 94.5

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and 1913 production = 1907 production 1.104.

Then since 1907 production = 100 for this purpose, according to Layton, we can substitute 1.104 in place of 1925 production:

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assigned for the rapid recovery of normal conditions of employ

ment:1

1. The number of workmen who joined the forces tended to neutralize the reduction in the number of persons employed.

2. Great activity in the trades engaged in filling the new government orders for war supplies of all kinds tended to compensate for the depression experienced in other trades.

It should be said, however, that the industrial revival which so quickly succeeded the period of depression that followed the outbreak of the war brought about a recovery in the women's trades more slowly than in the men's trades. In the year 1915 there were trades, like dressmaking, in which there was still a considerable amount of unemployment, but there were other trades in which there was a shortage of women workers; and on the whole it was clear that further readjustments could be made with a little time. By April, 1915, the Labour Gazette reported a shortage of female labor in some branches of the clothing trades; in June, 1915, women were needed in excess of the available supply for many occupations, and in the following months the substitution of female for male labor steadily continued.

Early in the second year of the war the problem that had definitely shaped itself was how to extend the employment of women so as to meet the great shortage of skilled and unskilled labor. By November, 1915, "everyone capable of work" was said to have an opportunity of employment; and it was clear that still larger numbers of women and girls, not previously employed in trade and industry, were needed in many occupations.

The turn of the tide so far as outdoor relief was concerned did not begin until after January 1, 1915. For indoor relief the change came earlier. In Table VII it has already been indicated that as as early as the week of November 21, 1914, the number of persons receiving indoor relief fell below the number receiving indoor relief in 1913. This lower level was steadily maintained. Table IX

I See report issued by the Board of Trade on the State of Employment in the United Kingdom in October, 1914 (Cd. 7703) and December, 1914 (Cd. 7755); and Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Local Government Board, 1914–1915 (Cd. 8195), PP. 44-45.

shows the total number of persons on the pauper lists on the last Saturday of each month in 1914 and 1915.

Commenting upon these figures, and particularly the decided decline in March, the London Times noted that during this month there had been a general improvement in the employment situation and that a scarcity of male labor had developed in many

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industries. "The trades affected by war contracts continued busy, and the upward movement in wages became very pronounced." Attention was also called to the rapid decline in pauperism which went on week by week in the second quarter of the year. According to the Times:

The increasing number of enlistments and the active demand for labor reduced unemployment to almost the vanishing point, except in a few luxury and other trades, which have been adversely affected by the war. In April the percentage of unemployed among the trade-union members not serving with the forces was lower than in any month during the last twenty-five

years.'

So temporary had been the condition of distress resulting from the war that, in the first annual report issued by the Local Government Board after the outbreak of hostilities (that for the year

Times (weekly edition), December 31, 1915.

ending March 31, 1915), attention was called to the fact that "notwithstanding the situation created by the war, the total number of persons in receipt of poor law relief in England and Wales was smaller at the end of the year 1914-1915 than at the end of the preceding year."

The report notes further that, after the sudden increase in the number of paupers during the month of August, 1914, “pauperism fell off steadily towards its normal level until, in January, 1915, the figures as compared with the corresponding figures of a year earlier show a substantial and growing decrease." So complete was the change that the pauper ratios in 1914-15 were considerably below the average for the five years from March, 1909, to March, 1914.

The decline in the number of persons aided by the Distress Committees during the month of September in each of the years given is further evidence of the rapid recovery which was taking place in 1915. The number assisted was 436 in 1913, 4,141 in 1914, 44 in 1915, and none in 1916.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PAUPER

At the close of the first eighteen months of the war, so great had been the decline in the number of persons receiving relief that there was general comment on the fact that pauperism had disappeared. The London Times at the close of 1915 commented on what was described as an "extraordinary state of things," which even the experience of Christmas week had not appreciably modified. Thus the Times editorial notes that "at the Christmas dinners given at the workhouses and charitable shelters in London the number of guests was the smallest ever known. Single workhouses found their lists reduced by hundreds, and in many of them the whole company consisted of the sick and infirm." The unprecedented reduction of the destitute was cited as an unanswerable proof of the prevailing prosperity. "It disposes," said the Times,

broadly but absolutely of the contention that very few in the poorer sections of the population have derived any benefit from increased employment and higher wages, and that large masses of them are suffering great distress from

the high cost of living. The men and women who have left the security of the workhouse and those who no longer seek the casual ward and the night shelter have to pay the price of necessaries like every one else; and since they have deliberately chosen to do so the burden cannot be crushing.'

Table X shows for England and Wales and for London separately the total number of persons in receipt of relief from 1910 to 1920 and the number per 1,000 population. The data in this

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*The number given for each year is the mean of the number relieved on or about the first of January of one year and on or about the first of July preceding. That is, the year covered by the Local Government Board Poor Law Report ended in March of each year.

table both for England and Wales and for the metropolis serve to confirm the statements already made as to the continuous decline in the number of persons in receipt of poor-law relief throughout the period of the war. For England and Wales, the rate for 1920 was approximately 6 per 1,000 population lower than in 1913; for London, the 1920 rate was 9 per thousand below the 1913 rate. In terms of absolute numbers, the change is seen on a larger scale. The number of paupers in 1920 was close to 200,000 below the number in 1913 for England and Wales; for London, the number of paupers fell from 109,456 in 1913 to 67,154 in 1920, a decrease of 42,302 in the seven years. There had also been a decline among

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