The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 2 (June 1, 1931)
Job for Economists
Job for Economists.
With the passing of the Great War there came a remarkable change in public thought. Political proposals of a constitutional character (new voting systems, the referendum, bi-cameral amendments, etc.) ceased to interest the public as they had done. Even the House of Lords issue in Britain entered into a period of slumber. In the place of these came problems of social economics, of production and wages, pensions, debts, taxation and tariffs. The huge legacy of war debts no doubt was one of the causes of this change in the centre of gravity. But, over and above that, the immense new material wealth of the Twentieth Century world was bound to give a bias towards economics and away from high politics. The academic food of last century's politicians could not satisfy the new materialism.