THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS n 



purchasing power to new directions must then be a definite deduction 

 from the old directions, no longer made good by the steady increase 

 in the numbers demanding less per head from those old sources. 

 The impact of science upon a stationary population is likely, ceteris 

 paribus, to be much more severely felt than upon a growing popula- 

 tion, because the changes of direction cannot be absorbed by the 

 newly directed workers. Of course, the effects of a static population 

 can be mitigated if the per capita income is increasing, because a new 

 direction of demand can be satisfied out of the additional purchasing 

 power without disturbing the original directions of demand provided 

 by the original purchasing power. But the change from a growing 

 to a static or declining population is only one type of difficulty. 

 While the aggregate is altering but slowly, the parts may be changing 

 rapidly. Thus, in this country 40-4 millions in 1937 becomes 40-6 

 in 1942, 40 in 1947, 39-8 millions in 1952, 38-9 in 1957 and 37-5 in 

 1962. But the children aged 16 — which I take because of its influence 

 on schools, teaching and industrial entry — have been estimated, 

 taking those in 1937 as 100, to be 85 in 1942, 73 in 1952 and 62 in 

 1962. A fall of this magnitude means that industries and institutions 

 dependent upon the present numbers must not be merely static but 

 actually regressive. On the other hand, the old people from 65 to 

 74 will increase in this ratio- — 100, 113, 127, and 133. These 

 problems of static populations at home are accentuated by the 

 possibility of a similar tendency abroad, and need thought in advance. 

 The Australian farmer is more affected by the British conditions of 

 population than by his own. 



We have thus the first difficulty, that of a static total demand, the 

 second, that the safety valve of new industrial entrants is becoming 

 smaller, but a third difficulty comes from the present tendency of that 

 class. A stationary elderly population must be veryinflexible to change, 

 but a stream of new young life, even if it is to be smaller, would give the 

 opportunity for just that change of direction, in training and mobility, 

 which society needs. But unfortunately, in practice this does not 

 now seem to be very adaptable . For we learn from certain Unemploy- 

 ment Insurance areas that while the older people will willingly take 

 jobs at wages a few shillings in excess of the unemployment relief, 

 the younger men are more difficult. For every one that will accept 

 training under good conditions to suit them for eligible work, ten 

 may refuse, and the number who will not go any distance to take 

 work at good wages is also in excess of those who do. Attachment 

 to place for older people is understandable, and has been accentu- 

 ated by housing difficulties — one learns of miners unemployed in a 

 village where the prospects of the pit reopening are negligible, while 

 at the same time, only twenty miles away new miners are being 

 created by attraction from agriculture to more extended workings in 



