es the gravest dangers to, the
existing economic and social order.

Sec. 19. #Remedies for seasonal fluctuations.# But of late there has been
a growing hope that an answer may be found to this economic riddle of
the Sphinx. A number of different measures are being experimentally
tested and applied. Many years of effort will be required for the
perfecting of these plans separately and collectively. Some of these
plans may be here indicated, however briefly. To remedy seasonal
fluctuations within the establishments output may be regularized by
taking orders in advance; by producing various products successively
in the same factory; by overcoming weather conditions as has been done
successfully in brick and tile making, ditch digging, and building
operations; by transferring workers from one department of an
establishment to another; by improving the employment departments so
as to build up a more stable force, thus reducing the great expense
of "hiring and firing" and the loss through training "green hands"; by
varying the length of the working day while keeping the same working
force throughout the year; by cooeperating with other industries
to build up a regular working force and transferring it from one
establishment to another with seasonal changes.

Of great aid in a number of these measures is a broader industrial
training for the workers, making them more able to change from one
occupation to another. For this purpose every period of unemployment
and of temporary shortening of the working day ought to be used as
a time for trade education, by the recently devised and successfully
applied "short-unit courses for wage-earners."[13]

Sec. 20. #Reducing cyclical unemployment and its effects.# The
maladjustments due to the movement of the business cycle are even more
difficult to remedy completely, but are diminished by every measure
that helps to reduce the great financial fluctuations.[14] Further,
many communities have already begun to plan large public works more
systematically so that they may be carried on mainly when private
business is more slack. A comparatively small amount of such work
would serve as a gyroscope to preserve the balance of employment for
a large part of the less skilled workers. It has been estimated by
Bowley, an English statistician, that in the United Kingdom, it would
be necessary to set aside only 3 per cent of the annual expenditure
for public works to be used additionally in years of