ort time. But out of more than a million men
whose services the employers have thus temporarily dispensed with, some
nine hundred thousand are being clothed, or are going to be clothed, in
khaki, and given Government pay. Thus the actual unemployment among men is,
except in (certain) black patches, only sporadic and scarcely more than
we are accustomed to. Very different is the situation of the women
wage-earners. Of these apparently half a million are now unemployed, and
twice as many are working only short time. Though the industrial situation
is considerably better than would have been predicted for the end of the
second month of a world war, it was, in fact, worse than it has been at
any time during the past quarter of a century" _(New Statesman,_ Oct. 3,
1914).]

The month of October saw a further recovery and a more normal state of
affairs. The percentage of unemployment in insured trades continued to
decline;[1] but whilst the number of men on the Labour Exchange registers
fell (from 28,664 on October 2 to 24,690 on October 30), the number of
women registered remained almost stationary. At the end of three months
from the beginning of the war the condition of men's employment was about
normal; but women were suffering from excessive unemployment, whilst
short time was still common in many industries in which women are largely
employed.

[Footnote 1: The percentages are as follows: Oct. 2, 5.11; Oct. 9, 4.80;
Oct. 16, 4.46; Oct. 23, 4.29; Oct. 30, 4.16.]

The large volume of unemployment, which it had been anticipated would
accompany a great war, was avoided, partly because of prompt State action
in maintaining the fabric of commerce and finance, and therefore the supply
of raw materials, and partly because of the large demand for commodities
for the Army and Navy--a war demand vastly in excess of that in any
previous war. In other words, State intervention and the Navy have
placed Great Britain in a much superior economic position to that of her
adversaries.

3. _Trade Unions, Co-operative Societies and Distress_.--Before the
outbreak of the war there were signs that the wave of industrial activity
which reached a high point in 1913 was receding, and that unemployment was
beginning to increase; but the trade unions did not anticipate that the
ordinary ebb and flow of trade was to be disturbed by a great war. Within a
very short time after the declaration of war, the trade unions experienced
a heavy drain on t