industrial
depression, in order to balance the wage loss at such times. This is a
well-nigh incredibly small proportion, hardly as great as that of the
weight of the gyroscope compared with the car or ship to which it is
applied. It is hardly to be doubted that hitherto, in America, public
undertakings have been executed much more largely in periods of
business prosperity, and have been diminished during "hard times,"
thus greatly accentuating the harmful swing of the labor-demand.
Finally, unemployment insurance, which has already been applied
by parliamentary legislation in Great Britain to a group of nearly
3,000,000 wage-workers, is an indispensable and highly hopeful
measure of relief. The place of this in a general system of industrial
insurance will be indicated in the next chapter.

[Footnote 1: See above, ch. 20, sec. 1.]

[Footnote 2: See ch. 23, secs. 5-7, on the old law of employer's
liability.]

[Footnote 3: See Vol. I, pp. 292-293.]

[Footnote 4: See Vol. I, p. 304.]

[Footnote 5: See Vol. I, pp. 293 and 303.]

[Footnote 6: See above, ch. 12, sec. 2.]

[Footnote 7: Great importance should not be attached to these
figures for they contain errors resulting from the inexact notions
of inexperienced enumerators as to what constitutes unemployment,
and from the inclusion of all persons gainfully employed, whether
self-employed or in professional, salaried, or wage-earning
positions.]

[Footnote 8: See Vol. I, p. 207, on irregularity of employment as
influencing wages, psychic income, and choice of employment.]

[Footnote 9: On static, see Vol. I, ch. 32; on the scarcity of labor,
see Vol. I, ch. 18, sec. 2 and references there; on value of
services and wages see Vol. I, ch. 18, especially sec. 3, and ch. 19,
especially sec. 7.]

[Footnote 10: See above, ch. 21, sec. 9 on the minimum wage.]

[Footnote 11: See Vol. I, p. 223, on friction in the adjustment of
wages.]

[Footnote 12: See above, ch. 10, secs. 6 and 7, on the industrial
crisis.]

[Footnote 13: See Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor
Statistics, No. 159 (April, 1915). ]

[Footnote 14: See above, ch. 8, secs. 6, 7; ch. 9, secs. 6, 8; ch. 10,
secs. 14, 16; ch. 14, sec. 12. ]

CHAPTER 23

SOCIAL INSURANCE

Sec. 1. Purpose and meaning of social insurance. Sec. 2. Increasing need
of social insurance. Sec. 3. The new era of social insurance. Sec. 4. Features
of social insurance. Sec. 5. Historical roots of ac