§ Mr. CHIOZZA MONEYasked the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been directed to the fact that the unemployment chart published monthly in the Board of Trade "Labour Gazette" is chiefly based upon Returns from three industries: coal mining, engineering, and textiles, which in January accounted for 446,000 out of 753,000 trade unionists reported upon; if he is aware that of the three industries named, two, namely, coal mining and textiles, meet unemployment in great part by working short time, so that their inclusion unduly weights favourably the average expressed in the chart; if he is aware that building, a great industry which severely suffers from unemployment, is represented in the table by only 56,000 men, which further unduly weights the mean in a favourable direction, and that the inclusion of 223,000 engineers and shipbuilders only sometimes adequately counterweights the mean as a fair expression of the general condition of 2298W unemployment; and if, therefore, he will in future publish, not merely the mean un employment rate of all the men reported upon taken together, but the mean of each group, in order that the public may not be misled as to the meaning of the table?
Mr. BUXTONI am aware of the details of the figures upon which the Employment Chart in the Board of Trade "Labour Gazette" is based, but I would remind my hon. Friend that the main purpose of the Chart is to indicate the fluctuations in employment rather than to measure the volume of unemployment throughout the country. I am, however, considering how far it is possible to adopt the suggestion in the last part of the question.