exampled trade expansion, we have entered upon a
period of decline. We are not alone in this. A reaction from
overtrading is general all over the world. Both Germany and the United
States are suffering from a similar commercial contraction, and in
both countries, in spite of their high and elaborate protective
tariffs, a trade set-back has been accompanied by severe industrial
dislocation and unemployment. In the United States of America,
particularly, I am informed that unemployment has recently been more
general than in this country. Indeed the financial collapse in the
United States last autumn has been the most clearly marked of all the
causes to which the present trade depression may be assigned.

It is not yet possible to say that the end of that period of
depression is in sight; but there are some significant indications
which I think justify the hope that it will be less severe and less
prolonged than has been known in other trade cycles, or than some
people were at first inclined to believe. But the problem of
unemployment is not confined to periods of trade depression, and will
not be solved by trade revival; and it is to that problem in its
larger and more permanent aspects that I desire to draw your attention
for a short time to-night.

There is no evidence that the population of Great Britain has
increased beyond the means of subsistence. On the contrary, our wealth
is increasing faster than our numbers. Production is active; industry
grows, and grows with astonishing vigour and rapidity. Enterprise in
this country requires no artificial stimulant; if it errs at all, it
is from time to time upon the side of overtrading and overproduction.
There is no ground for believing that this country is not capable of
supporting an increasing population in a condition of expanding
prosperity.

It must, however, be remembered that the British people are more than
any other people in the world a manufacturing people. It is certain
that our population could never have attained its present vast
numbers, nor our country have achieved its position in the world,
without an altogether unusual reliance upon manufacture as opposed to
simple agriculture. The ordinary changes and transitions inseparable
from the active life and growth of modern industry, therefore, operate
here with greater relative intensity than in other countries. An
industrial disturbance is more serious in Great Britain than in other
countries, for it aff