HOW WAR WOULD INTENSIFY POVERTY 53 

 affair did, and it is our business to understand what it 

 does mean to us. 



Here is an extract on the subject from the work before 

 quoted : Our National Peril. 



" Now think what that [a barely fourteen weeks' 

 supply of wheat in the country just after harvest] would 

 mean in time of war. I mean a war waged against us by 

 one or more great naval Powers. ' Oh, but the Navy,' 

 perhaps you say. But does it not strike you that perhaps 

 our Fleet would have something better to do than con- 

 voy grain ships across the Atlantic during war time? 

 that its operations might be seriously hampered by 

 having to perform this big service? Easily, then, the 

 country might run short of food; for it is not only wheat, 

 but all sorts of foodstuffs, for which we are largely de- 

 pendent upon imports. That is to say, famine prices 

 would at once result. Corn merchants estimate that the 

 commencement of a naval war against this country 

 would mean the immediate rise of wheat to anything 

 between one hundred shillings and two hundred shillings 

 a quarter. What would be the effect of that to-day upon 

 the working classes? With trade disorganised, and wages 

 therefore lower or non-existent, it would mean grievous 

 suffering, bread riots, revolution — unless the country 

 sought peace at once upon an}^ terms the enemy would 

 give it. But would there be any grain to convoy ? By 

 a few smart and secret operations agents of the enemy 

 could corner the world's wheat supply ; and as this would 

 be the most effectual method of bringing England quickly 

 to her knees, it is more than probable that such a course 

 would be followed." 



