Europe after the World War

The Peace Conference of 1919 worked out-on paper- a political reconstruction of Europe.It has proved a very ramshackle structure, but so far it still holds together in its principal features.The Conference made no attempt at economic reconstruction.It only discovered afterwards, when it was too late for effective action, that that was the most important part of its task.It had, however, created an offshoot in the League of Nations, to which all sorts of odd jobs might be assigned.The League, though originally intended solely for a bulwark of the world's peace, had a very elastic constitution, which might embrace an endless variety of functions : among others to take over the economic and financial duties of the Peace Conference.It is finding them a stupendous task and cannot as yet be said to have made much impression on it.But it has served a useful purpose in acting as a common centre and rallying point for the vari- ous national efforts to restore the war devastated countries.The object of this book is to present to British readers a general view of the many economic difficulties and perplexities with which the reconstructors of Europe have to grapple and may have to keep on grappling for many years to come.In other words, it is intended to diagnose the political, industrial and financial diseases which have been inherited from the war.Pre-war society has broken down at a thousand different points.It is fast losing its old instincts of honour, honesty, prudence and sobriety.The comfort and content of thirty or forty years ago are vanishing.The whole science of econo- mics is being revolutionised.International relations are being re-cast on all hands.All the nineteenth century pro- X.Preface.blems which our grandfathers flattered themselves they had definitely settled are re-opening around us in more complex forms.The damage caused by the war is not to be measured by debt and taxes.These are mere monetary details, while the injury to the moral and economic life of the nation may be vital and lasting.A war which cost so many millions of lives and so many thousands of millions of property ought, in order to justify itself, to have proportionate results.But it may be many years before a final balance can be struck between the pre-war and the post-war worlds.So far as it has gone it would seem to be considerably on the wrong side.But that may be because we have had to deal chiefly with its grosser material aspects.The moral value of our world victory has been obscured by the base juggleries of politics and the sordid excitements of finance.;Until it has cleared itself of these earthly elements the spiritual victory we have won will not shine forth in its full radiance.What we are feeling most to-day is the damage it has done to our pre-war lives.It has undermined them, thrown down some of their strongest supports, shattered many of their fondest illusions, falsified some of their brightest hopes and up- rooted more than one of their most sacred principles.Sentiments which before the war were a national heritage are now the scoff of anarchists and revolutionaries.Customs of centuries* growth have been pushed aside by the jazz fashions of yesterday and to-day.Policies worshipped by generations of loyal Englishmen have been exchanged for the ravings of Bolshevists and other blood-curdling maniacs.It is in these mad excesses that the full measure of our moral shock is revealed.But there may be some negative excuses to make for the war.It may with a certain amount of truth plead that it is not solely responsible for the world-wide debacle in which weThe Economic Reconstruction of Europe.xi» have been plunged.Without it there might have been volcanic changes in our social system.Symptoms of them had begun to show themselves before 1914.A proletarian war was looming on the horizon, while the Prussians were preparing for their ruthless crime.Without the Kaiser we might have had Lenin and Trotsky.The revolt of labour would have come in due time, war or no war.It is even arguable that the war mitigated its ferocity and diverted much of its energy into better and more patriotic channels.Times of crisis and commotion are most favourable to financial and economic investigation.Theories can then be quickly put to the test ; old errors and fallacies can be corrected; practical experience can be enlarged ; a firmer grasp can be taken of tested truths and a stronger denial given to false- hoods.But the sensible reader will not expect cut and dried conclusions at the close of each chapter.He should, as a rule, be content with intelligible descriptions of the problems.Solutions are as yet few and far between.In this vast wilder- ness of mysteries, hallucinations and contradictions, the cleverest of mankind have to be content with the role of spectators, rather than of actors.The best we can do is to watch closely the kaleidoscopic changes taking place in the post-war panorama and piece them together as we best can.[While these final pages have been going through the press another national crisis has broken out.It threatens to be the most formidable which the nation has ever had to face.Under many different names and disguises the funda- mental question to be settled is-Who are to control the destinies of the British Empire and the Anglo-Saxon race-the forces of order or the forces of disorder ?Every sane and honest citizen will, of course, be on the side of order.]Worthing

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