It is hardly necessary to draw attention to the insistence with which we are told that in order to pay for the war we must produce more manufactured goods than ever before--a powerful section of the Press would have the whole military, political, social and industrial policy of the Allied Governments directed to the purpose, that, when by a complete victory we have acquired control of raw material and disposed of our most dangerous competitor, we may adjust our internal differences and settle down to an unfettered era of commercial activity, from which all other desirable things will, it is suggested, proceed naturally.
There are an almost infinite number of aspects to this proposition which is not dissimilar, so far as it goes, from that with which Germany went to war: it is possible to attack it from the point of view of the historian, the psychologist, or even the physiologist. It is even possible that certain quite indispensable suffrages have still to be obtained for it. But it is sufficiently interesting to take it as it stands on a frankly material, "practical" basis, and see what are its logical consequences.
