Automation and the labour force of the future

I was discussing the Henniker‐Heaton report on day release with a most fervent, earnest young engineering managing director. We talked about the target increase of 250,000 more juveniles over a period of five years, the target set by the committee. We recalled that a similar target had been set in 1956 in the White Paper and that it had not been achieved. The engineer gripped me by the arm and said, excitedly and with a feeling of intense impatience at society for being so dense as not to see his point, ‘Of course it was not achieved. How could it be. There was no feedback’.