PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 457 
general and central administration. But in a young country developing under 
modern conditions the system of local administration is consciously devised. 
It rather derives its existence from the central Government than furnishes the 
material out of which this latter is gradually evolved. 
Fourthly, a modern new country has before it the example of older countries 
which, after passing through the phase in which it is, have developed the more 
complex economic system towards which it is tending. Their conditions and 
institutions record the results of forces which, though nascent in it, are 
yet in operation. It may have something to imitate, it certainly will see much 
to avoid. This is true from many points of view. It is true in a technical 
sense. Everyone knows the importance of ruthlessly scrapping plant; but there 
are parts of the national plant, as it were, whicli cannot be scrapped. Though 
neither the English railways nor the English canals if laid out’ anew would be 
constructed on their present lines, they are too elaborate and costly to be 
destroyed and reconstructed. It is equally, if not more, true when we consider 
the industrial system in its more general aspects. In this instance we know that 
Germany, to take an instance, enjoyed one advantage because her development 
followed, and was not contemporary with, industrial development in England. 
Perhaps it is truest*of all in respect of the social consequences of industrial 
development. Take, for example, the large cities and manufacturing districts 
in the old countries with all their social problems; housing, sanitary, and 
social. A country in the early stages is in this truly-advantageous position 
that action in its case means prevision and not reform. Hence the crucial 
importance at the present time, in such a country as this, of the Town Planning 
movement. Again, there has occurred, in those lands in which manufacture 
has made its greatest strides, a gradual exodug from the rural districts, partly 
no doubt because of the larger wages to be obtained in the towns and industrial 
districts, but partly owing to a past, if not present, disregard of agricultural 
interests, and to the comparative lack of attraction in the country. It may be 
looking ahead to suggest that such may affect a country like Australia; but 
time brings many changes. In any case the time to provide against a movement 
such as this is not when it has acquired force, but when agriculture is pros- 
perous and before town life has begun to exert its curious lure on the 
population. 
Fifthly, older nations became critical and self-conscious at a comparatively 
late stage in their history; that is, after customs had been formed and structure 
had lost its former flexibility. In such cases remedial movements and changes, 
however wisely initiated, encounter a natural and quite comprehensible conser- 
vative opposition. Whatever their possible gain, in the progress towards this 
destruction is involved. Nor is it incorrect to conclude that in many instances 
the immediate and certain losses rightly outweigh the problematic if ultimate 
advantages. Far otherwise is the case in a new country where the period of self- 
consciousness begins with the early days of growth, and conscious action towards 
a given goal has an easier path and suffers less from the knowledge that it 
must destroy in order to achieve. Even if social experiments fail, in such 
countries they cost less than they would in countries more stable and more 
firmly based in habit and tradition. Of course, there is loss as well as gain in 
this. In the one type of country there is greater stability, in the other greater 
confidence or courage in novel directions. 
Lastly, and following to some measure on what has just been said, we have 
to take into account the smaller part played by social conventions in the 
economic life of new countries. In older countries, primary development took 
place under conditions as to social life and order not. due wholly to economic 
causes, but often arising from reasons which existed outside that domain. Social 
position, accepted without question, and forces like caste, rather indicated what 
various classes were to do than grew out of the necessities or nature of their 
respective occupations. _ No doubt some correspondence was required, since 
regulations unsuited to progress led to the supersession of the races less apt to 
meet the needs of the time, and so the usages which survived bore the stamp 
of economic fitness. Still, in the main, economic activities rather followed than 
created class divisions. But the economic situation changed, and thus in later 
years we have the curious spectacle of distinctions which have survived from 
the past and with time lost much of their meaning, lingering on side by side 
