part ii INFLATION AND DEFLATION

119

revolutionise the industrial equipment of thecountry; or to proceed from what is heavy towhat is lighter, it would provide every thirdfamily in the country with a motor car or wouldfurnish a fund enough to allow the wholepopulation to attend cinemas for nothing to theend of time.

But this is not nearly all the waste. There isthe far greater loss to the unemployed them-selves, represented by the difference betweenthe dole and a full working wage, and by theloss of strength and morale. There is the lossin profits to employers and in taxation to theChancellor of the Exchequer. There is theincalculable loss of retarding for a decade theeconomic progress of the whole country.

The Census of Production of 1924 calculatedthat the average value of the net annual outputof a British working man when employed isabout £ 210 . On this basis the waste throughunemployment since 1921 has mounted up toapproximately £2,000,000,000, a sum whichwould be nearly sufficient to build all the rail-ways in the country twice over. It would payoff our debt to America twice over. It is morethan the total sum that the Allies are askingfrom Germany for Reparations.

It is important to know and appreciate thesefigures because they put the possible cost ofMr. Lloyd George’s schemes into its true per-spective. He calculates that a developmentprogramme of £100,000,000 a year will bringback 500,000 men into employment. This