These, for instance, are some of the reforms necessary:--
(1) To arrange definite _national_ routes of travel, and settle the migration stations along these routes, including ration stations (unless mid-day ration is given on leaving a station).[64]
(2) To close _unnecessary_ tramp wards, and publicly notify the available routes.[65]
(3) To arrange for centres of population some plan by which a man may make use of the tramp ward for three or five nights, and search for employment.[66]
(4) To arrange a national system of Labour Bureaux.[67]
(5) To arrange the incidence of taxation for support of the stations. The Poor-law Unions might be debited in proportion to percentage of vagrants over last 10 years, and deficiency nationalised, or tramp wards transferred to police.[68] (Appendix I.)
(6) To secure sufficient sanitary accommodation in every large centre and on national routes, both for the destitute and for the _bonâ fide_ working man.
(7) To make uniform the supply of rations, the accommodation, and the task of work, and see that the latter is on a proper business footing.[69]
(8) To arrange for public charity to flow into authorised channels, and discourage promiscuous almsgiving.[70]
(9) To provide detention colonies for the confirmed idler, vagrant, and habitual drunkard, if committed by the magistrate.[71]
(10) To arrange a system to distinguish between the idle and the "willing to work" unemployed.[72]
In addition to this, the facts in relation to unemployment show, that there are periods of good and bad trade, leading to wane and flux of employment.
Thus the wave from 1886 to 1893 in skilled trades was as follows:--
It will be seen that unemployment almost disappeared in 1890. There are also seasonal waves, summer and winter. It is for the equalisation of such differences that some provision must be made, as well as for the care of the "industrial invalid." In times of depression individuals are thrust out who become a burden on the country all the rest of their lives, either by idleness, beggary or crime. It must not be forgotten that each of these _at present_ costs the community a far greater sum than they would cost if provided with labour. Therefore:--
(11) Arrangements should be made whereby, by work specially arranged to coincide with seasonal unemployment, the national cost of the incapable, the inefficient, and the temporarily unemployed could be minimised. (See "How to Deal with the Unemployed": Chap. V., "The Labour Market," by the author.) (Brown, Langham & Co.)