May 13.
The undoubted signs of world~ recovery have unfortunately not flattered hopes that emergence from economic depression would facilitate an immediate return to normality. The violent oscillations of the political machine have—disappointed expectations of seeing the world composing itself to q state of stable equilibrium, That is in effect the view with which Dr. Harold Butler begins his annual report (dated March 1, 1937) to the International Labour—Conference.
Admitting that great progress had been made in the previous twelve months, the report holds that "at most what has been achieved up to date is to set the economic machine again in motion after a serious breakdown". The cheerfulness induced by the recovery is damped by the "growth of armaments and the uneconomic activity which it represents" and by the general unrest indented by the open pre~ parations for war in Europe and in the Far East"—a "formidable dam in the path of the stream of pros perity". Last November Sir Robert Kindersley told the American Club at Paris that it was impossible for business to carry on if it believed that there would be another war, That is the fear which prevents the sober-minded observer from taking an excessively cheerful view of the situation, Dr.
Butler weightily sums up:
All the financial, commercial and social measures by which the "rear crisis of the past five years is bein overcome are nothing but vanity of the whole political and economic fabric of our present-day eiviliza~ tion is under the constant menace of disruption by another interna~ tional conflict. Until that_menace is swept away by a really organized ence guaranteed by a reinforced League of Nations, economic and social progress can only advance haltingly and on sufferance, The precarious equilibrium now being secured inspires, however, the comforting view that "the worst effects of the slump are now matters of past history." It is possibi therefore to consider the lessons which may have been Jearnt, Dr. Butler's report devotes a chapter to them, It is of exceptional interest.
The traditional view of the unemployment problem has, for example, been rudely shattered:
Until 1930 it was very widely. though not universally. held that there was no such thing as involuntary idleness. With a robust indifference.to the facts of previous depressions, "many people still maintained' that every honest man could get a job and that all schemes for insurance or assisting the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.