of feathers in the same shops has served to provide employment for those who would otherwise be thrown out of work at the close of the season during which artificial flowers are customarily made.

The further development of this plan, so that the transfer from one industry to another may readily be made, is worthy of most careful consideration.

(b) Decentralization of Urban Population.

It may be suggested that the Homestead Commission in Massachusetts might properly consider the feasibility of some plan for providing plots of ground (not necessarily homesteads) on which enterprising workmen could find opportunity to employ themselves profitably when not employed at their usual trades. In Belgium the "decentralization of town populations" has been partially accomplished by this method. In his description of the Belgian method, Mr. R. S. Rowntree, in a summary paragraph, has written as follows:1

We have shown that much might be done to increase the security of industrial workers, and to mitigate the consequences of unemployment, if facilities were given for town workers to reside in the country and to cultivate a plot of land. This would provide them with an alternative to industry, which might be developed as the latter failed them. No doubt in the first instance only the most enterprising workmen would adopt this mode of living, but when the advantages which they derived from it were recognized, others would follow their example, and the children, being brought up in the country, would often settle there. Thus in time, increasing numbers of industrial workers of all grades would be resident outside the towns and cultivating their plots of land when they had no other work.

E. UNEMPLOYMENT LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1913. Although the subject of unemployment has reached a point of wide discussion the legislation during the year bearing directly on the problem could hardly be considered more than a series of tentative efforts to meet the local situation in the eight States which enacted laws bearing on unemployment. The following is a summary of the legislation of this character enacted during the year:2

Eight States California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, South Dakota, and Wisconsin-enacted laws bearing on unemployment. In Illinois a commission was created to study its causes and effects, and among the many very wide duties conferred upon the new California commission of immigration and housing is the duty to "obviate unemployment." In four States provision was made

1 See Unemployment — A Social Study, by R. S. Rowntree and Bruno Lasker, page 309.

2 Quotation from the "Review of Labor Legislation of 1913" in American Labor Legislation Review, Vol. III, No. 3 (October, 1913), page 420. A digest of the several Acts appears on pages 420-424 of the same publication.

for free public employment bureaus, and in five States the regulations governing private bureaus were strengthened excessive fees, fraudulent placements, unsuitable location of offices, and sending applicants to immoral resorts being the main points of attack. In California and Wisconsin entire new codes dealing with the private bureaus were adopted. The free public employment office authorized in Boston under the Massachusetts acts is for minors only. 1

4. COMPARISON OF CHARTED RETURNS FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM, GERMANY, NEW YORK STATE, AND MASSACHUSETTS FOR THE YEARS, 1908-1913.

Owing to the great lack of reliable and comprehensive data relative to unemployment, it is very difficult to arrive at any definite conclusion as to the causes, extent, and incidence of unemployment. Furthermore, in those countries and States which publish statistics of this character the methods of obtaining the returns are so distinctly different that the absolute figures are by no means comparable. The principal objections offered to international comparisons of this character are as follows:

1. The disproportionate manner in which the various trades are represented in the statistics for the different countries.

2. The returns are not confined to trade unions paying unemployment benefits.

3. Even where the returns are furnished only by trade unions which pay unemployed benefits, they are not free from the liability to understate the unemployed at any given time.

4. The percentages of unemployment are materially affected by the age distribution of the workmen included in the returns.

These objections to international comparisons must be admitted, but with reference to the second objection attention should be called to the fact that, inasmuch as the payment of unemployment benefits by the unions in the United States is extremely rare, any statistics of unemployment based exclusively on returns from unions which pay benefits would be so meagre as to be practically valueless. The unemployment returns secured from American trade unions by the Bureaus in New York State and Massachusetts are obtained without reference to the payment of unemployment benefits by the unions.

It should, therefore, be pointed out that the local secretaries from whom the reports are received directly are, if anything, more thoroughly conversant with the local employment conditions at the time a report is submitted than would be an international secretary who must of neces

1 This office should not be confused with the State Free Employment Office in Boston administered by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics. The Act (Acts, 1913, c. 389), referred to, authorized the Boston School Committee to establish and regulate a free employment office for minors, the expenses of which office are to be paid from the school appropriation.

sity base his report upon the number who apply for unemployment benefits, rather than upon any intimate knowledge of local conditions in any particular industry. For example, the quarterly reports on unemployment are obtained by the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics directly from local secretaries of labor organizations, the average membership of which in 1913 was only 172, while the reports based on payments of unemployed benefits (as in the case of those obtained by the Department of Labour Statistics of the British Board of Trade and the Labor Statistics Division of the German Imperial Statistical Office) are obtained from the secretaries of international unions having a membership in some cases reaching well up into the thousands.

Notwithstanding the incomparability of the absolute figures of unemployment obtained in the several countries, such figures furnish a fairly good representation of the fluctuations of unemployment in each country and may therefore be used in the preparation of a chart showing the curves of unemployment for a period of time in the several countries, thus indicating, graphically, the extent to which the industrial activity in one country corresponds with that of another. For purposes of such comparison1 this Bureau has prepared a chart showing the curves of unemployment owing to lack of work for Great Britain, Germany, New York State, and Massachusetts and additional curves for New York State and Massachusetts based on the statistics of unemployment for all causes. (See Chart on page 35.) An examination of the chart shows a remarkable correspondence in the fluctuations of the curves for New York State and Massachusetts with some degree of correspondence between these curves and similar curves for Germany and the United Kingdom. It will be observed that the fluctuations in the curves representing the returns for Germany and the United Kingdom are by no means as violent as the corresponding fluctuations in the curves representing the conditions in New York State and Massachusetts. This, no doubt, may be explained by the fact that the British and German returns refer to far larger numbers of employees than do the returns for New York State and Massachusetts, and consequently a large variation in the number unemployed in a few industries does not affect the general percentages in the one case as noticeably as in the other.

1 It should be borne in mind that the fluctuations only in the curves should be compared, because the method of securing the material and the sources of the information vary so greatly in the several countries that any attempt to compare the level of unemployment fails utterly.

2 At the end of December, 1913, returns relating to unemployment were furnished to the Labor Statistics Division of the German Imperial Statistical Office by 49 trade unions with an aggregate membership of 2,023,051 Reichs-Arbeitsblatt, Jan., 1914, No. 1, page 10. The British returns for the same date represented a net trade union membership of 965,500 - Board of Trade Labour Gazette, Jan., 1914, page 1. The returns for New York State at the end of December, 1913, were supplied by 237 representative unions with an aggregate membership of 156,910 New York Labor Bulletin No. 58, Feb., 1914, page 17. The returns for Massachusetts covered 1,081 unions with an aggregate membership of 178,182 (see Table on page 37).

On comparison of the fluctuations of the curves, year by year, it will be noted that the upward rise during the winter periods of each year is common to each curve. In the main, the Massachusetts curves correspond more closely in their fluctuations during the five-year period, 1909-1913, with the curve for Germany than with any of the other curves represented on the chart. The curve for the United Kingdom, like the other curves, shows, in general, a downward trend from the high point at the beginning of the period, but, with the exception of the winter rises, its fluctuations do not appear to correspond in any marked degree with the fluctuations of the other curves. In fact, early in 1912 this curve moved violently upward as a result of the strike of coal miners in England, reaching the maximum point at the close of March of that year, then as rapidly descended and toward the end of the year, actually crossed the curve for Germany, since which time its level has been lower than that of the German curve, whereas, during at least four years prior to 1912, its level had been continuously, and for three years, decidedly higher than that of the German curve.

The Massachusetts curve representing unemployment for all causes for the five-year period under consideration shows in general a downward inclination during the first two years of the period, interrupted by upward fluctuations at the points representing the close of the last quarter of each year, followed in 1911 by a high level at the close of March, a downward movement during the summer period, a sharp upward rise at the close of the year continuing upward until March, 1912, followed again by a sharp trend downward during the Summer and Autumn of 1912 with an upward trend at the close of the year; while in 1913 the curve rose still further at the close of March, was followed by a comparatively low level during the Summer and Autumn and was succeeded by the usual upward winter rise. The curve thus represents the gradual improvement in the conditions of employment following the industrial depression of 1907, while the upward fluctuations at the close of each year represent the usual increase of unemployment occurring during the winter months. The very high point reached at the close of March, 1912, was due principally to the unemployment of a large number of textile workers who were on strike in Lawrence, Lowell, and other textile centers.

It will be observed that the Massachusetts curve representing unemployment for lack of work follows closely the trend of the curve (for all causes) above described, at a fairly constant distance below the former curve. A marked exception to this rule is found in the high point

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