A PROSPEROUS YEAR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1913, Page 19

A PROSPEROUS YEAR

-»■'■"" 4>/- — — SMALL PERCENTAGE OF UNEMPLOYED. Mr. Philip Snowdeh, Labour M.P. for Blackburn, spcakitlg in London at A Conference on "the War against poverty," convened by tlie Fabiah Society and the Independent Labour Party, said we Were at present passing through the most prosperous trade boom ever known in this country. , Statistics to !>e published later Would prove that the year 1912 had been more profitable than any previous year in our industrial history. Profits were larger today than thoy had ever before, and fortunes were being rapidly accumulated. Yet wages during, the boom had not increased very much. The percentage of unemployed to-day was only a little over two, whereas throo years ago it was eight or nine. That showed that thcto_ wa« a Very much larger nuttiWr.-. ofvvwo^ldng^m&n,., jji repeipt of wages "to'day 1 than tttreeoriour years ilgo, for tho difforencet- between two per cent; and eight pfer cent, of unemployed inoatit two million rnoro worktnen being employed. Practically ihfi wllolo explanation of Unj present prosperity of tho retail. trade of the country was the fact that something _ like two million more men wei-e earning wa.ges than was the case two or three yeal'a ago, and that there wao this great increase in their spending powew.