ss trades "short
time was reported in several districts." In the potteries "most of the
firms" were running short time (see the _Board of Trade Labour Gazette_,
Sept. 1914).]

During the month of September, however, employment revived.[1] Besides
Government work in shipbuilding yards, certain branches of the woollen
industry were working at full pressure on the production of blankets and
cloth for uniforms; the leather and boot and shoe industries on some sides
received an impetus from the large orders placed for army boots; hosiery
and knitted goods were required in large quantities. Speaking generally,
industries whose products were required for the army and navy were strained
to the extent of their resources. But each industry supplies a large
variety of goods of many different grades, and machinery and works
equipment cannot always be easily converted to the production of other
classes of commodities; so that even in the woollen and boot trades, for
example, the whole industries were not uniformly busy. The many industries,
however, to which the war brought no orders, enjoyed but a slight recovery,
and in some cases none at all. As the month of September proceeded,
the newspapers triumphantly referred to the fall in the percentage of
unemployment. The truth is that the decline was by no means general or
uniform, but was brought about, not so much by the gradual revival of
normal activity, but by the rush of Government orders. For instance, the
cotton industry remained in the trough of a deep depression, and the
furniture and piano making trades profited little. Further, no account was
taken of the prevalence of short time, though over a large field it was
widespread especially amongst women. What the real position of the labour
market was after we had been at war two months, cannot be precisely
determined, but it was certainly more serious than the Board of Trade
percentage would seem to indicate.[2]

[Footnote 1: The percentage of unemployment at the beginning of October in
the trades compulsorily insured against unemployment was 5.1, as compared
with 6.3 at the beginning of the previous month.]

[Footnote 2: "Certain confidential statistical enquiries on a large scale
are said to support the inference to be drawn from the figures published
by the Board of Trade, that at least 10 per cent of the fifteen million
wage-earners in the United Kingdom are not at work at all, whilst quite as
large a proportion are on sh