GIPE-PUNE-OIIOI2 - DSpace@GIPE

274 WORLD-CRISIS: INDUSTRIAL ~EVOLUTIONS
that the countries were richer-when there Was no unemployment
than when there is. Absolutely speaking, theemployment~seekers
have to-day grown in numb~r.
Somehow or other, employments have to be created forthem.
This is not only an economic' but a social problem
as well.
Are we, then, justified in considering unemployment
in Germany, Great Britain and U.S.A. to be all but
a readion to war-time over-employment ~ No, there isa
second consideration.- The post-war currency depreciation
or inflation gave a fillip to industrial expansion ih
certain countries. The economic -activities -of the
country with lower currency flourished, specially those
in connection with export enterprise, down to 1923.­
(September) i.e., the beginning of currency stabilisation.
Employment in a rather intensive degree or for thatmatter,
over-employment became a phenomenon of
statIstics. Since then, -however, industrial and othereconomic
enterprises have be~ assuming more or less
normal proportions. Cuts in employment or retr~chments
have had to become the order of the day. Statistics
to-day have therefore to record an unemploym.ent situa-­
tion engendered by the inflation of yesterday. This
a,spect of unemployment as but a reaction to unnaturally
inflated employment, although associated with rare,_
peculiar hisklrical circuIjlstances, possesses perhaps more.
or less a seasonal character in a wide sense and may have
to be treated as a fundamental feature in the economic
structure of· modern times.. Should such seasonal fluct~ations
be regarded as cyclical in nature the inflation un-
. ep1ployment need no~ be taken to be really unusual or
exceptional as an economic or. social phenomenon in the: