Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of lectures in volume 2 (1956-2009)
- Contributors to opening chapters
- The benefactor Joseph Fisher
- The lectures
- The lecturers
- 1 1904 – Commercial education
- 2 1906 – Commercial character
- 3 1908 – The influence of commerce on civilization
- 4 1910 – Banking as a factor in the development of trade and commerce
- 5 1912 – Australian company law, and some sidelights on modern commerce
- 6 1914 – Problems of transportation, and their relation to Australian trade and commerce
- 7 1917 – War finance: Loans, paper money and taxation
- 8 1919 – The humanizing of commerce and industry
- 9 1921 – Currency and prices in Australia
- 10 1923 – Money, credit and exchange
- 11 1925 – The Guilds
- 12 1927 – The financial and economic position of Australia
- 13 1929 – Public finance in relation to commerce
- 14 1930 – Current problems in international finance
- 15 1932 – Australia's share in international recovery
- 16 1934 – Gold standard or goods standard
- 17 1936 – Some economic effects of the Australian tariff
- 18 1938 – Australian economic progress against a world background
- 19 1940 – Economic coordination
- 20 1942 – The Australian economy during War
- 21 1942 – Problems of a high employment economy
- 22 1946 – Necessary principles for satisfactory agricultural development in Australia
- 23 1948 – The importance of the iron and steel industry
- 24 1950 – The economic consequences of scientific research
- 25 1952 – Australian agricultural policy
- 26 1954 – The economics of Federal-State finance
18 - 1938 – Australian economic progress against a world background
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of lectures in volume 2 (1956-2009)
- Contributors to opening chapters
- The benefactor Joseph Fisher
- The lectures
- The lecturers
- 1 1904 – Commercial education
- 2 1906 – Commercial character
- 3 1908 – The influence of commerce on civilization
- 4 1910 – Banking as a factor in the development of trade and commerce
- 5 1912 – Australian company law, and some sidelights on modern commerce
- 6 1914 – Problems of transportation, and their relation to Australian trade and commerce
- 7 1917 – War finance: Loans, paper money and taxation
- 8 1919 – The humanizing of commerce and industry
- 9 1921 – Currency and prices in Australia
- 10 1923 – Money, credit and exchange
- 11 1925 – The Guilds
- 12 1927 – The financial and economic position of Australia
- 13 1929 – Public finance in relation to commerce
- 14 1930 – Current problems in international finance
- 15 1932 – Australia's share in international recovery
- 16 1934 – Gold standard or goods standard
- 17 1936 – Some economic effects of the Australian tariff
- 18 1938 – Australian economic progress against a world background
- 19 1940 – Economic coordination
- 20 1942 – The Australian economy during War
- 21 1942 – Problems of a high employment economy
- 22 1946 – Necessary principles for satisfactory agricultural development in Australia
- 23 1948 – The importance of the iron and steel industry
- 24 1950 – The economic consequences of scientific research
- 25 1952 – Australian agricultural policy
- 26 1954 – The economics of Federal-State finance
Summary
To regard economic progress as the normal and natural condition of human affairs is to betray the limitation of one's mind in both time and space. of the continents of the globe, Northern Europe, America, Australasia, and Japan have, during the last century, made genuine and striking economic progress. But in Southern and Eastern Europe the evidences of progress are much more dubious. The great bulk of Africa's population remains in an entirely primitive stage of economic development; while in Asia, other than Japan (in which continent over half of the world's population is to be found) there is evidence of actual economic retrogression during the period which we are pleased to call “the century of progress”. Even within the favoured minority of countries where genuine economic progress has been made, the rate of this progress is often grossly exaggerated. Alleviating the colossal total of the world's poverty will take much longer than some people think.
The attention devoted to statistics by certain economic historians, particularly that great pioneer Thorold Rogers, is now enabling us to see that our economic history in past centuries by no means consisted of that steady improvement in standards of living which some would have us believe in. Sufficient figures indicative of wages and retail prices in England are available to give some indication of the real standard of living of artisans in England from the beginning of the eighteenth century onwards.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Australia's Economy in its International ContextThe Joseph Fisher Lectures, pp. 443 - 474Publisher: The University of Adelaide PressPrint publication year: 2009