al
population idle during the year 1885, and finds 69 per cent of this
idleness in protected manufacturing industries.

So far as I can see, the result of the Illinois investigation
strengthens and verifies that of Massachusetts, both resulting in the
conclusion that for 1885 and 1886 the equivalent of at least 11 per cent
of our industrial population was out of work. The Iowa Bureau of Labor
Statistics in 1887 threw out the "raw material" of a report that would,
if digested and tabulated, strengthen this position. Unfortunately, the
report as printed is but the reproduction of individual returns, and the
work of getting an average is too great for the time at command.

A brief computation, however, on the figures presented shows that, in a
total of 1989 reports to that Bureau from workingmen in all industries,
trades, and occupations, there was an average loss of time of 80 days
per man per year; or, counting 300 working days per year, 26 per cent of
the time of the workingmen of Iowa is unemployed.

After this survey of the field from the reports of three States, we turn
to the report of the United States Bureau, at Washington, for 1885
(pages 65 and 66).

That report, from information gained by its agents and other sources of
information at its hand, estimates that 7-1/2 per cent of the 255,000
manufacturing establishments of the country were absolutely idle during
the year ending July 1, 1885, and that 168,750 factory hands were thus
rendered idle. By applying the 7-1/2 per cent to all industries, that
bureau stated that there "might be" 1,304,407 men out of employment that
year, but again readjusts its estimate as being too large, and gives the
number as 998,839. That same year 11 per cent of all the people engaged
in all gainful pursuits in Massachusetts were idle; the next year 15 per
cent of all those engaged in the three principal industries aside from
agriculture were idle in Illinois. In Iowa, 26 per cent of the time of
workingmen in all industries is spent in hunting work; and how, from
this state of facts, the Federal Bureau could get at a 7-1/2 per cent
estimate it is difficult to see. Massachusetts finds 29 per cent of her
people idle one-third of the time, or 11 per cent all the time. If it is
said that this percentage would be reduced in agricultural States, Iowa
proves it to be not quite true, and at least the reduction would be
slight. Allowing 4 per cent less of idleness for Western States than fo