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THE ECONOMICS OF UNEMPLOYMENT

acting forces, political and social as well as purely economic, strengthening the position of the workers must be taken into account. In all great industrial countries the numerical strength of trade unionism has been growing. The temporary failure of organised workers to retain, during the present depression, the whole or the bulk of the wage-gains made during the war must not be allowed to obscure the substantial advances made, particularly by the lower grades of workers. Organisation, politics and public sentiment contribute to sustain a definite rise in standard of living for the workers in these countries.

The growing liberty of migration from country to town, from poorer and less developed countries to richer and more developed ones, has been, notwithstanding legal, social and other barriers, continually drawing larger numbers of workers into environments, where higher standards of living have been established and where better organisation of workers for pressing their economic claims and interests is practicable. Even before the War it was generally agreed that part of the rise in prices of important foods and raw materials was to be attributed to the increasing proportion of world-workers found in countries, like the United States, with a high standard of living, and to the successful demand for a rising standard, especially of food, in large sections of the working populations of India, Japan, China and other backward countries entering upon careers of modern industrialism. This progressive migration from areas of lower standards of consumption to areas of higher standards is not in itself conclusive proof of a better general