The Labour Party are starting a campaign to get 1,000,000 new members. Vast numbers of their potential recruits are pronounced individualists, owners of their own houses, even perhaps to be called petty capitalists, precisely the sort who would take right at the vision of a Socialist State as conjured up in recent Labour manifestos and speeches. Obviously they must be made unafraid if they are to be induced to vote Labour, and the conference of the T.U.C., which notoriow: dictates the Labour policy, is a good opportunity for reassuring them.
Meanwhile the records of employment continue to tell a pleasant tale of general activity. The returns for August show that 45,000 people more were at work than in July, and 490,- 000 more than a year ago. Unemploy ment, including those temporarily stopped and those casually employed, fell from 1,379,459 in July to 1,358 621; and since the beginning of the year the drop in unemployment is over 255,000. How little a time it seems since we were hourly expecting the 3,000,000 mark. Practically all trades showed improvement, though cotton was unfortunately down. There was a welcome increase in agriculture, Thiscallsto mind a most interesting speech. The speaker, a great authority, drew attention to the fact that while we are preparing in everything else on the basis of the expectation of a world war in a few years' time, we were making no preparation in respect of food supplies. And he argued that the only solution of the agricultural problem that he could see was state ownership of the land—which plainly implies state dictatorship of how it is to be used.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.