THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 9 



tion of scientific effort, and the greater sub-division of industry, the 

 possible dislocation becomes more frequent and the ways of meet- 

 ing such change of greater public importance. This field of inquiry 

 includes widely diverse questions, e.g., patent laws, invention clear- 

 ing, obsolescence accountancy and costing regulation, taxation 

 adjustments, local rating pooling, trade union regulations, price 

 controls, technical education, age and other discriminations in 

 unemployment relief, transfer bonuses, pension rights, housing 

 facilities, and more selective direction of financial support of intensive 

 scientific research. In this neutral field the specialist scientist and 

 the politician are both amateurs. It is to be covered by each 

 extending his studies, and by specialists who treat impact and 

 change as an area of scientific study. 



I do not propose to go over all the ground, so old, so constantly 

 renewed, as to the effect of machinery upon employment. It is 

 known as an historical induction that in the long run, it makes more 

 employment than it destroys, in providing work in making the 

 machinery, in reducing price so that far greater quantities of the 

 commodity concerned may be consumed, and in enabling purchasing 

 power to be diverted to increase other productions. It has even 

 facilitated the creation of a larger population, which in turn has pro- 

 vided the new markets to work off the additional potentiality of the 

 machinery. It does all this in ' the long run,' but man has to live 

 in the short run, and at any given moment there may be such an 

 aggregation of unadjusted ' short runs ' as to amount to a real 

 social hardship. Moreover, it comes in this generation to a people 

 made self-conscious by statistical data repeated widespread at 

 frequent intervals, and to a people socially much more sensitive to 

 all individual hardship and vicissitude which is brought about by 

 communal advance. 



There are two important aspects of the change induced by science 

 which are insufficiently realised, and which makes a profound 

 difference to the direction of thought and inquiry. The first I will 

 call the ' balance of innovation ' and the second the ' safety valve ' 

 of population. 



The changes brought by science in economic life may be broadly 

 classified as the ' work creators ' and the ' work savers.' The latter 

 save time, work, and money by enabling the existing supply of par- 

 ticular commodities to be produced more easily, and therefore at 

 lower cost, and finally at lower prices. People can spend as much 

 money as before upon them and get larger quantities or they can 

 continue to buy their existing requirements at a lower cost. In this 

 second event they ' save money ' and their purchasing power is 

 released for other purposes. By a parallel process, producing or 

 labouring power is released through unemployment. The released 



