I had known J. A. Hobson for, I suppose, thirty-odd
years. His death removes a figure which fits into no precise category. He was an economist of real distinction, but never recognised as orthodox by the orthodox ; his theory that unemployment was caused by under-consumption rather than over-production—however much to the layman it may seem to be the other end of the same stick—labelled him a heretic, and so he never got preferment in the shape of a university chair. But Hobson was much more than an economist. He had an almost lifelong interest in the ethical movement, and was a constant speaker on Sunday mornings at Moncure D. Conway's now vanished South Place Chapel in Finsbury. With his meticulously just and logical mind he always tended to be a severe critic of British policy (except possibly under a Labour Government) and politically one thought of him primarily as an associate of Lord Ponsonby, Sir Charles Trevelyan and others in the Union of Democratic Control in the last war. A gift for sardonic comment rather emphasised that impression, but Hobson was far too fair and good-tempered a man not to withdraw at once any criticism that obviously went beyond the mark.
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