xvi. How to Pay for the War 



own in the future.' I am fully aware that to most people 

 of all classes the Tropics are an unknown quantity and of 

 as little interest and as little known to the man in the 

 street as the North or South Pole. "Lunatics" who 

 choose to go to any of these places at present awake 

 neither gratitude nor interest in the minds of those whom 

 they are benefiting unless it is by coming home and telling 

 " travellers' tales " of what they have not done, and of being 

 sternly silent of the excellent work they have been putting 

 in for the benefit of the country to which they belong. To 

 expect the general public, therefore, to be interested in this 

 book, and what I have to say, would be almost as silly as 

 to expect the crowd in a margarine or tea queue to be 

 interested in a lecturer like Mr. Wilson-Fox who can, and 

 does, so ably explain to us what the nation needs and how 

 it can satisfy these wants. It must be owned, therefore, 

 that probably 80 per cent, of this country, and the Empire 

 of which it forms part, are unable to realize the important 

 part that the latent resources of the Empire must be made 

 to play, and how it is everyone's duty to help them to do 

 so within the very near future, if we are to pay off our 

 fair share of the War debt that has been accumulated in 

 order to save our women and children, as well as our 

 national industries and prosperity, from the aggressive 

 brutality and greed of the Huns of Europe. Thus it is 

 that we are left with only about 20 per cent, of the total 

 population who are capable of judging how much we owe 

 to those willing and able to help us develop our re- 

 sources, or who are in a position to judge how our output 

 of foodstufls and other materials can be sufficiently in- 

 creased, both to feed the public at the lower wages which 

 are bound to come after the War and still leave a margin 



' See p. 84 regarding the views of Lord Bryce and Professor Hiram 

 Bingham as to the harm that educated Germans in Latin America have 

 done and will again do to the interests of this country. 



