THE CURSE OF MODERN INDUSTRIALISM

Southland Times, Issue 17627, 16 April 1914, Page 6

THE CURSE OF MODERN INDUSTRIALISM

f'HIiEBRATBD ECONOMIST ON UN-M-’rom Our Lady Correspondent). LONDON'. March 6. Unemployment : P. v Professor Pigou. (HOnio University Uihrary). We find it ditTicnlt nowadays to realise the enormous awakening which took place during the latter hal£ of the nineteenth century with regard to rational thought and scientific discovery. In pre-Darwinian days theology supplied to the great majority of people a satisfactory and to them the only theory of the universe as well as of conduct. The “evolution" contraversy brought into the field doughty antagonists such as Professor Huxley and Mr Charles Bradlaugh on side of the nationalists. and Mr Gladstone and Dean Llddon from the camp of the orthodox-. Ridicule gave way to bitterness and bitterness to Sheer stupidity before “rationalism" became for some time the accepted .tenet of a considerable proportion uf thinking men and women. Popularly however, the victory of the scientific tliinkers was little more than

a change of dogma with an added tinge of magic and mysticism. Only the miraculous in science obtained a hearing and a popular ad vertisement. Millions of miles of interstellar space, the 'miracles” of electrical experiment, the surprises of synthetic chemistry in pyrotechnics —these were the crowning apotheosis of scientific thought according to the popular mind. Edison was vaunted not because of his keen analytical and constructive brain but because of his supernatural powers as a magician. With the establishment of an act of magic such as this the popular mind felt itself satisfactorily flattered, and in consequence talked much of ‘progress’ and the 'advance of civilisation.' The world became one of wheels and illusions and awe-inspiring large-scale productions and or even thought to examine men's economic relations in the comparatively new industrial society which the substitution of large-scale capitalist production for the domestic system had* brought about. These few who did care were, for the most part, hopelessly classprejudiced and inadequately experienced to bring the picture which they drew into contact with human life and its wants. So little did they regard man subjectively that tliey were forced to invent a man for themselves—(he •economic' man satirised by Carlyle in his jeremiads at The dismal science' of economics. ' JIACIC ACCOM PL. Iri 11 ED. The force of economic necessity, however. is fast persuading even the least thoughtful amongst ns to consider the social and economic results of modern industrialism, and to present the wonders of science to our children, who as yet have time and inclination for such pleasant dissipation. The supreme stfoke of magic lias been accomplished. W§ have begun to think out man's relation to man economically and socially. Even the economists are now entering into the spirit of the game and decentlv obliterating all trace of their erstwhile fi'ieml the economic man from their books and utterances, Cambridge Eniversity lias probably the strongest school of English economic thought, and Professor Pigon is one of its most distinguished members. The Home I’diversity Eibrary has done well to induce him to contribute a volume and so help to maintain the high standard of its serie.s of up-to-date works. Those who have read the more genera! treatises in this series on Political Ecohomv by Professor Chapman. The Science of Wealth, by Mr .1. A. Hobson, and the Evolution of industry, by Professor Macgregor. will welcome this more detailed discussion on a particular problem of industry—unemployment—■ one of the most vital and distressing problems so acutely felt in modem industrialism. Though Professor Pigott has found it difficult to escape from the imprisonment of an academic vocabulary,’ he does not allow himself to forget the human, elements in unemployment so easily ignored by the average economist. His recognition that ‘The sear'eh for work is more wearying titan work itself," is eloquent testimony to the sympathy with which he approaches his subject, and links up established facts of actual conditions with the more abstract theorising of economic science. 1-ike all books in the series ttie present one is admirably concise, and Professor Pigou is no exception to the general, rule that where economists have to condense their arguments they gain much in clearness of exposition and lose little in essential matter.