discussion on mr. shimmin's paper

Discussion on Mr. Shimmin's PaperSource: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Vol. 89, No. 1 (Jan., 1926), pp. 120-128Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2341486 .

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120 Discussioub [Jan.

The Vice-Chancellor having retired, the PRESIDENT announced the receipt of letters of apology from Professor J. H. Jones, Professor of Economics in the University of Leeds, and from Colonel the Hon. F. Vernon Willey, Chairman of the Wool Textile Delegation.

DISCUSSION ON MR. SHIMMIN'S PAPER.

Mr. A. W. FLUX, in moving a vote of thanks to Mr. Shimmin for his paper, said that the Council of the Royal Statistical Society had delegated to the longest in service of its honorary secretaries the moving of a vote of thanks. In doing this, it desired to express its appreciation of the paper and of its great intercst in the experi- ment with which that paper was associated, viz., the holding of meetings outside the limits of London. It was to him a great personal pleasure to undertake this function. Mr. Shimmin had, above all things, stressed in various parts of his paper the need for more statistical information about cur leading industries. He had dealt particularly with one of these industries, but there were several others of at least comparable importance in the life of the com- munity about which the same fact was true, that we are groping in lamentable darkness because the need of scientific and carefully compiled statistics had not been adequately appreciated. Too often such information could not be got because the necessary records were not kept in time. What they could determine was not to allow any more time to pass without setting to work to provide an adequate structure of statistical information about the great industries. It was worth while reflecting upon the sad lack of information about the past, and there were two things in regard to the future to which he felt tempted to refer in this connection, directly moved to that by the subject and language of Mr. Shimmin's paper. One was the Census of Productioxi. In regard to that, the reports he had from his staff itdicated that the woollen and worsted industries had played up very well indeed compared with most of the industries in responding to the request for information conveyed by the issue of thc_ Census schedules earlier in the year. He would like to ask those who had not yet dealt with that request-and there were a certain number of such cases-to deal with it without delay. They might be receiving a reminder from the Board of Trade before very long. He would be personally indebted to them as the official in charge, and they would contribute to their country's welfare if they attended to that reminder. When the officials had cleared their minds of the anxiety as to whether they had got the full information they would be able to get on with their work of computing the totals of the different classes-woollen and worsted textiles, apparel, engineering and so forth. He stressed this appeal to the industries to give a return as soon as possible if a return was properly due, and to tell them if they had made any mistakes in issuing schedules to firms not liable to furnish a return. A good deal had been changed



1926.] on Mr. Shimnin's Paper. 121

since the last Census of Production. Industry had been turned topsy-turvy by the war, and he asked firms to have as much sym- pathy with the officials conducting the new Census as possible. They recognized that they were liable to mistakes and they asked all good citizens to help them as quickly as they reasonably could.

He regretted the absence of Sir Josiah Stamp, who had talked about the need of an Index of Productive Activity fof this country. He was absolutely in agreement with Sir Josiah in believingf that such an index needed to be constructed. But it would only be constructed by the growth of that spirit which Mr. Shimmin urged -a willingness on the part of the heads of industry to contribute information. It was by no means improbable that, as soon as they got guidance from the returns of 1923, they might invite assistance from the leaders of industry to enable then to compile an Index of Productive Activity of this country which would be better than anything that could be prepared from the information at present available. He was grateful to those who had given information, and Mr. Shimmin's paper showed the kind of figures which were possible of access. He hoped this paper would induce those who had heard it or who might read it to lend their assistance to the efforts to which he had referred.

In reference to a point raised in the paper, he hoped that the summarized returns of the Census of Production of 1924 would give a skeleton summary of the largest industries of the West Riding which would be of value and might to some extent begin to meet one of the laments of Mr. Shimmin in his survey of the figures at present available.

He would like to say how good it was to have keen and accurate writers collecting information of the character embodied in Mr. Shimmin's paper. In the nain the information dealt with was information which, in its original compilation, had not the public need for statistics in view at all. The Labour Exchanges drew ulp their lists for the information of their own officials, so that they might be able the more efficiently to place applicants for employment. It was proper to remember this fact in view of the question raised by Mr. Shimmin that. the classifications used by the Census authorities and those used by the Ministry of Labour were not identical. For the purpose for which the lists were made the question of comparability with other information did not arise. The primary object of the Labour Exchanges was to place men in employment, and their lists were framed to facilitate dealing with individual applications for work which an applicant could do, and this was quite different from the object of getting a clear idea of the industrial structure of Yorkshire and of the country. There was the 4urther point that where there were two classifications it was important to see that they were not miiixed, and he was not certaiin that they were not sometimes mixed in the paper. He had the honour of presiding over the Committee which drew up the Classification adopted in the Census. They had two definite objects in view and



122 Disoussion [Jan.

they had two difficulties. One was the grouping of persons, whatever their occupation, in the category of workers with which they were associated for the moment. An invoice-clerk was quite capable of being employed in a dozen industries; a carman could carry woollen goods or machinery or anything one asked him to carry. These were not specialized industries, but the workers were for the moment attached to an individual industry. The Census aimed at getting a cross-section of the industry of the country at an actual moment, and of finding out how many people were in unspecialized processes in connection with each industry. In the earlier Census returns occupation stood in the foreground. In the building industry, for instance, bricklayers, masons, carpenters and so forth, wherever they were employed, were grouped with the building occupations, and the building industry in the returns of the Census of 1901 was an aggregate of this kind. In 1911 attention was given to seeing that such workers were enumerated under the industrial group to which they were attached, and in 1921 this -was done more systemati- cally. On this point he would like to read a letter from Mr. John Hilton, who regretted that it was impossible for him to be present at that meeting. Mr. Hilton's comments relate chiefly to the parts of the paper in which Mr. Shimmin refers to the classifications of workpeople used by the Ministry of Labour. He says:-

" In these references Mr. Shimmin appears to be confusing two quite separate and distinct classifications: (1) the industrial classification used solely for compiling the statistics of unemployment in insured industries, and (2) the occupational classification used solely for placing persons in employment.

"Mr. Shimmin quotes me, and correctly quotes me, as saying in March, 1923

'It may be possible in the future to substituite for the present industrial code of the Ministry of Labour one of more commendable structure, preferably one coincidental, as far as possible, with the industrial code adopted in connection with the 1921 Census of Population.'

and he quotes me further as elaborating the point in the discussion which took place on the same occasion.

" Mr. Shimmin has, however, overlooked the point tbat what I said related solely to the industrial classification used in connection with unemployment insurance statistics, and, in consequence, his comments upon the classification question are likely to be misunder- stood. .At the date at which I was speaking, the industrial classification in use was one built up piecemeal as a result of successive extensions of the scope of the Unemployment Insurance Acts, which was far from commendable either in principle or arrangement. Three months after the giving of my paper, an entirely new industrial classification was introduced, framed on lines alimost identical with those adopted for the industrial classification of the 1921 Census of Population. Mr. Shimmin's paper does not make it clear that the



1926.] ont Mr. Shitnun's Paper. 123

change foreshadowed by nme actually took place, and that, as a result, since 1923 the industrial statistics of unemployment in inisured industries have been as nearly comparable as it is humanly possible to make them with the Census tabulations.

" Mr. Shimmin's paper gives the impression that I was contemplating in May, 1923, and that we are still contemplating, the substi- tution of the Census occupational classification for the occupational classification in use for placing purposes at Employment Exchainges. That change has never been in question. The occupational classification used at Employment Exchanges is specially designed for a particular administrative purpose. It has the merit, as Mr. Shimmin rightly says, of following fairly closely the actual sequence of processes as one finds them referred to most frequenitly in inidustry. The Census classification has been designed to serve a wide range of purposes: the Employment Exchange classification is primarily intended for one purpose-the placing of workpeople-and everything else must be subordinated to that.

" It would be from some points of view useful if the occupational record of persons registered for work at Employment Exchanges could be made comparable with the Census occupational classification, but these unemployment statistics are a by-product of the workings of a vast administrative machine, and where, as in this case, the obltaining of statistics in modified form would inevitably impair the efficiency of the administration, statistical considerations must take a second place.

" As regards the areas into which the occupational figures for the woollen industry are given in each issue of the Ministry qf Labour Gazette, I should like to say that there would be no difficulty in adopting Mr. Shimmin's suggestion for giving the figures separately for all the principal centres of the industry. The information, when we begin to compile it, relates to the separate Employment Exchange centre. We have, however, to keep a very strict eye on the space available in the Labour Gazette, and we could not go into greater local detail in regard to the woollen and worsted industry without throwing the article relating to that industry ouLt of scale with the articles devoted to other industries. To go into local detail for all the industries with which we deal would take up very much more space than we have available. It is this very practical consideration which compels us to our present course.

" I am very sorry not to be able to be present to say this in person and to express my general appreciation of Mr. Shimmin's paper. It is particularly gratifying to those responsible for improving the informational value of official statistics to find the results of their efforts turned to useful account."

Mr. Flux, continuing, said that the areas of the Popullation Census and the unemploymenit lists differed. Mr. Shimmin had pointed that out. In the early days the scope and work of the Labour Exchanges were very limited. They had regard to employment in a certain range only. The scope had since



124 Discussion. [Janl.

been enormously extended and this had led to some modifications in the original scheme. The Employment Exchanges were in the same position as many firms. If they were replanning and rebuilding their factories they would alter things considerably, but they had factories and machinery already in existence and they were not prepared to scrap them. That, perhaps, was the situation with the Employment Exchanges in some respects, both in certain features of the classifications and in certain features of the areas. For instance, the area for which the Census of Population provided statistics was the county borough, but it was not the Employment Exchange area, and therefore the figures must not be expected to be identical. Mr. Shimmin had referred to another particular defect of information. The figures in the reports of the Population Census relating to the woollen and worsted industries did not show how nipany belonged to the combing section, how many to spinning, how many to weaving, and it did not quite correspond with Mr. Shimmin's classification. If he understood correctly, Mr. Shimmin made the latest process which took place in a factory the basis of his classification, not the dominant process. If a firm sorted wool, combed it, spun it, and also bought some yarns and wove cloth, he classed it as a weaving firm. In that way they had a weaving firm employing sorters. The occupation of wool-sorting was shown in actual figures in the occupational classification. The fact was that there was nothing to prevent one firm conducting two or three different industries, and this was a comiplex feature of the industries of Yorkshire which rendered the textile industry figures very difficult indeed.

Mr. H. SUTCLIFFE SMTTH (Bradford Dyers' Association) seconded the resolution of thanks. He said he had great admiration for the work which Mr. Shimmin had already done, and he appreciated the fact that this paper had involved an enormouis amount of work. Mr. Shimmin had built uip his case with the very few figures available, and this was all the more credit to him. He had made very good bricks with very little straw and had clearly shown the paucity of available statistics. Another point, also, he had brought out well, namely, the great number of small firmus engaged in the trade. That was quiite correct; the number of firms in the trade was certainly amazing. But he himself believed that the future of the trade of Great Britain would be more and more with the big business concerns rather than with a multiplicity of small businesses. All those engaged in business were rather at sea at tinies for want of statistics, and were often'like a ship without a rudder. He was faced with the same difficulties as Mr. Flux in the matter of getting correct information and of ascertaining stocks. All those like himself engaged in trade needed, very badly, clear and accurate statistics so that they might judge both the home and the foreign trade. It was the uincertainty of the position which made business very difficult. They needed statistics of the volume of trade in the different branches so that they might know whether they themselves were getting their



1926.1 onr AMr. Sitimint'.s Paper. 125

share, whether they were gaining or losing in proportion to the trade as a whole. This knowledge was of great importance to them in telling whether they ought to cut prices or not. Many people cut prices when trade fell off without knowing whether or not they were getting their due proportion, and because they feared that they were losing ground. That, only made the position worse. In this country there were two trades which seemed to have proper statistic.s -the coal and the steel trades. The information available enabled one to arrive at the coal position quite accurately. He was interested in the dye-ware trade, for, as some present knew, he was Chairman of the Colour Users' Association. In that position he had been agitating for accurate records of what British dye-makers were producing. At present they had no figures. They were called upon to pay for the establishment of a British trade, but they had no means of ascertaining whether this trade was being established or not. They ought to be given full statistics to show whether progress was being made with this trade or not, and on what particular lines they were making progress. The onlv way to make statistics really helpful to the whole trade was through the development of a spirit of willingness on the part of traders to give information voluntarily. It was amazing that firms would not give information which they knew would be for the benefit of the whole of the trade. It was very important that trade figures, should have proper sub-division. In some statistics he had met with, woollens and worsteds were mixed together. He could not blame the Board of Trade for that. The only people to be blamed were the people who gave the information.

Before he resumed his seat he would like to appeal to everyone, not only to co-operate theinselves, but to use their influence with others to get everyone engaged in the industry to give perfectly frank information and to work together, just as was done in America, so as to produce accurate statistics, which would prevent everyone in the trade doing foolish things and would show them whether they were gaining or were losing ground. He heartily thanked Mr. Shimmin for the trouble he had taken in preparing his paper.

Mr. G. H. WOOD said that Mr. Shimmin had put much labour into this paper and had handled the figures admirably, but he wished that the labour had been spent on something more worthy of it than the material he had used. He (Mr. Wood) could not tie-in the record Mr. Shinmmin was using with anything else in existence. He had wondered many times who were included in the number of insured persons on which the Department based its proportion and percentage of unemployment as given in the Labour Gazette, and Mr. Shimmin had given him some light. But the more he examined the figures the less value he put, upon any one of them. Th.at was not Mr. Shimmin's fault. In the first instance, look at the matter in the gross. It was only in 1921 that the Department attempted to tell how many insured persons there were in the woollen and worsted industries. They stated it as 274,870, but next time the figure



126 Discussion [Jan.

dwindled to 264,000. Then up it jumped again. He asked the Department what had brought about 5,000 persons into the woollen and worsted industry within a couple of months. He was told that, as he suspected, there had been no increase in the numbers employed; what had happened was that certain numbers had been trans- ferred from a general to a particular group, but that they did not know how many. So that the continuity of the record was immedi- ately destroyed. Mr. Shimmin spoke of 273,000 insured persons, but to-day the number had dropped to 257,700. He wanted to know how this came about.

In his opinion the first thing to be learnt from Mr. Shimmin's paper was the lesson which the Statistical Society had been teaching Government Departments for thirty years-that whether a record be good or bad its continuity should never be broken. Mr. Shimmin stated that this industry suffered from lack of certain forms of information. There was one record which was in existence from 1833 to 1904 and might, in his opinion, very well be revived. Under the Factory Act of 1833 the Factory Inspector was required to make inquiries and obtain returns of the owners of textile factories of the number of persons employed by them and of their classification according to certain ages and according to sex. This had not been done since 1904, but the power still rested in the hands of the Government, and could be used. From 1833 to 1904 the Home Office received information from each mill-owner of the number of looms, the number of combs, the number of carding machines, and of spindles, and he would venture to say that one of the most valuable steps that could be taken would be to issue that form again and make sure of getting it back. The Census of Production would not do. The divisions would not be the same. That was the only continuous record in existence which showed machinery and reflected the changes, and yet it had been dropped.

During the war he (Mr. Wood) had obtained periodical returns from wool-textile firms of the numbers employed and machinery used by them. These he had tabulated on similar lines to Mr. Shimmin's Table IX. Under t.e compulsory powers which he was using he could only find, in 1918, 6o wooi-combers who had machinery. Mr. Shimmin recorded 78. He was perfectly sure there had not been such an increase. He was perfectly sure that the Employment Exchange records contained a number of " wool-combers " who had no machinery at all. His figures disagreed in other respects with Mr. Shimmin's figures. Not only were there wool-combers who had no combs, but there wert; evidently " manufacturers " who did no weaving. They might have an office with, perhaps, one or two persons employed, but they did their manufacturing through commission weavers. In his -,idgment such persons ought not to be counted as in the wooltextile industry when they were endeavouring to ascertain the average slze of firms. A large number of such firms would not be included in the Home Office list of Textile Factories because they had no machinery. Therefore he suggested that Mr. Shimmin's analysis should be taken with this reservation.



1926.1 on Mr. Shimmin's Paper. 127

Mr. EWING said that he wanted to offer a commelnt as a business man who endeavoured to use such statistics as were within his reach. If the Statistical Society needed any justification for dealing with the subject of the paper, it was to be found in the critical exami- nation to which Mr. Wood had subjected Mr. Shimmin's paper. He agreed with Mr. Sutcliffe Smith in urging business men to supply information, and they should urge business men to make greater use of trade statistics. He had, however, no doubt that the Statis- tical Society got out a great many figures which were not generally understood, and unless these were spread among business men they could not apply those figures, nor could they learn from them how they could get more business, which was the main thing required. There was one deduction from Mr. Shimmin's paper which especially interested him-the number of small-scale businesses and the uneconomic effect of such business. If that paper led to these business men getting together for the diffusion of better and more enlightening statistics, then Mr. Shimmin would have achieved his object.

Prof. DOUGLAS KNOOP was called on by the Chairman, but he observed that he came from Sheffield, a place which had no practical contact with the subject. He had listened with very great interest to Mr. Shimmin's paper and also to the long contributions of those who had joined in the discussion.

(The vote of thanks was then put to the meeting and was carried unanimously.)

The PRESIDENT said that this had been a very successful and excellent discussion. There had been some criticism and a paper which gave scope for a good discussion. Statistics, it seemed to him, should always be looked at in the spirit of the Scotsman who remarked that he was open to conviction but " a dour deevil " to convince. That should always be their attitude towards criticism.

Mr. SHIMMIN, replying, said he appreciated the points put by Mr. Flux and was grateful for the exhaustive comment his paper had drawn from Mr. Hilton. Mr. Flux had pointed out that the Census and the Ministry of Labour classifications were originally drafted with different purposes in view, and comparability of the returns was not, therefore, to be expected. But the passage he (Mr. Shimmin) had quoted from the Census Reports seemed to foreshadow much closer co-ordination than had been achieved. His chief regret was that the most detailed return available (the Industry Tables of the Census) treated the whole of the West Riding as one area, and the distribution of woollen and worsted process workers in the chief centres in the Riding was not to be learned from that return. As the Ministry of Labour could not give the numbers employed in each process either in the Riding or at principal centres,



128 Discussion on Mr. Shtimminin's Paper. [Jan.

neither Census nor Ministry of Labour returns afforded that sub- division of the figures of employment which seemed desirable for the study of the shifting of employment from process to process or from town to town.

Mr. Flux had said that detailed figures for wool-sorters were given in the Occupations volume of the Census for each of the larger towns. That was true, but it was equally true that many of the remaining headings in the same group (Order XII-Textile Workers) included workers other than those in the woollen and worsted industry. This meant that no available return gave a clue to the actual distribution of workers employed in the different processes at the principal centres of the woollen and worsted industry. In asking for such detailed information from official returns, he realized that he might be asking for too much.

Mr. FLUX: It is entirely a question of expenditure.

Mr. SHIMMIN said he quite appreciated that difficulty, and knew that the Treasury had recently renewed its pressure on the expenditure. In reply to Mr. Wood's point about combers without combs, he (Mr. Shimmin) had expressly pointed out that some of the persons who called themselves combers were not entitled to that name. But the Ministry had to take people at their face-value when they made declarations of their businesses, and could not be expected to make investigations of the circumstances of each firm. In regard to the combers (or topmakers) without combs, and the manufacturers without looms, they were certainly engaged in getting work done. They were collecting orders in much the same way as the grocer's traveller, working on commission, would call for weekly household orders. These people collected the orders and got the work done and they were entitled to be counted in the industry. The present practice of the Ministry was to place these people in the classification in which they returned themselves.

Mr. Wood's point about dyers would be met, he thought, if he mentioned that dyers attached to " all-in " firms were included in the figures used in the paper. The figures did not include firms whose principal work was dyeing and who thus might cover textile goods other than woollen and worsted.



discussion on mr. shimmin's paper

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