THE WAR AND WEALTH. 165 



can give currency to such fallacies we need not be 

 surprised that so many others should be equally de- 

 luded. It is true that our war of the rebellion was a 

 great event and greatly affected our industries. It is 

 also true that our industrial distress is a great disas- 

 ter, and that it comes after the war has closed. But 

 it is not true that the distress is in consequence of the 

 war. It may as well be said that the sun is the cause 

 of darkness. On the contrary, and the truth is, that 

 the only period of great industrial prosperity the 

 only period when our people have all been actively 

 employed and in receipt of compensations that per- 

 mitted of anything like comfort for all that they 

 have known for full fifty years, was during and the 

 direct result of the war, and that the distress came 

 upon us because the industrial conditions of the war 

 were not continued, nor other provision made for the 

 employment of those who were engaged in it. It 

 must be borne in mind that the conditions of pros- 

 perity that came upon us during the war were purely 

 industrial and trade ; and that the conditions of dis- 

 tress that followed and have so constantly increased 

 to the present time, are also trade and industrial, 

 having no relation whatever to the carnage and de- 

 struction of war, except so far as they made additional 

 demands upon the productive industries. 

 Adam Smith says : 



" Manufactures during the war will have a double demand 

 upon them In the midst of the most destructive for- 

 eign war the greater part of manufactures may flourish greatly ; 

 and, on the contrary, they may decline on the return of peace. 

 The different state of many different branches of the British 



