t of employment.
Since the amount of employment is determined by, and varies with, the
consumption of the community, the only sure method of increasing the
amount of employment is by raising the standard of consumption for the
community. Where, as is common in times of trade depression,
unemployment of labour is attended by unemployment of capital, this
joint excess of the two requisites of production is only to be explained
by the low standard of consumption of the community. Since the working-
classes form a vast majority of the community, and their standard of
consumption is low compared with that of the upper classes, it is to a
progressive standard of comfort among the workers that we must look for
a guarantee of increasing employment. It may be urged that the luxurious
expenditure of the rich provides as much employment as the more
necessary expenditure of the poor. But, setting aside all considerations
of the inutility or noxious character of luxury, there is one vital
difference between the employment afforded in the two cases. The demand
for luxuries is essentially capricious and irregular, and this
irregularity must always be reflected in the employment of the trades
which supply them. On the other hand, a general rise in the standard of
comfort of the workers creates an increased demand of a steady and
habitual kind, the new elements of consumption belonging to the order of
necessaries or primary comforts become ingrained in the habits of large
classes of consumers, and the employment they afford is regular and
reliable. When this simple principle is once clearly grasped by social
reformers, it will enable them to see that the only effective remedy for
unemployment lies in a general policy of social and economic reform,
which aims at placing a larger and larger proportion of the "consuming
power" of the community in the hands of those who, having received it as
the earnings of their effort, will learn to use it in building up a
higher standard of wholesome consumption.

Chapter VIII.

The Industrial Condition of Women-Workers.

Sec. 1. The Number of Women engaged in Industrial Work.--The evils of
"sweating" press more heavily on women workers than on men. It is not
merely that women as "the weaker sex" suffer more under the same burden,
but that their industrial burden is absolutely heavier than that of men.
The causes and the meaning of this demand a special treatment.

The census returns for 1