ANOTHER UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS.
Only three years had elapsed since the last unemployment crisis ended, but at the September 1908 quarterly meeting the chairman felt under the necessity of stating that they were in the midst of the worst unemployment crisis of the last thirty years, and voiced the sympathy of those present with the sufferers, a sympathy which he had no doubt would take practical form ere the meeting ended. Later in the meeting it was agreed that £100 be subscribed to the Lord Provost’s Fund for the unemployed, and, in the course of the discussion of this proposal, it was stated that the Baking Society had already given free bread to the value of £300. It was decided that in order to avoid overlapping the distribution of free bread in Glasgow should cease, but the directors were empowered to deal with applications received from outside Glasgow. The unemployment epidemic continued right through 1909 and well into 1910, and had not quite disappeared in 1911. It was the most serious in its results which had ever been experienced by Britain since it became an industrial nation.