NATURE 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 



PRINCIPLES OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

 TVJOW that the armistice has been signed and 

 ^ ^ the prospeci of peace in the near future is 

 happily assured, il is inevitable thai the whole 

 nation should be impatient to gel back to its 

 normal activities. Four years of interruption in 

 the ordinary life of a community is a serious b 

 in the reg c conl inuitj ol its exist- 



ence, but whether it is an unmixed evil will depend 

 . upon the lessons and • o which' il has 



rise, and upon the extenl to which those 

 lessons anil experiences are heeded. There has 

 necessarily been a great dislocation ol industry, 

 and the forces of production have to a very large 

 extent been made subservient to the demands of 

 war. The immediate problem before us now is 

 how to divert, with the least amount of friction 

 and in the shortest possible time, the enormous 

 amount of energy which has been devoted to the 

 prosecution of war into the manifold channels of 

 civil life and peaceful occupation. 



" Business as usual " was a silly and futile cry at 

 the beginning of the war, uttered by thoughtless 

 people with no conception of the grim reality of 

 the struggle into which we had been forced. In 

 a certain sense the cry would be scarcely less 

 futile now, since it is absolutely certain that busi- 

 ness in the future will be very different, in many 

 respects, from what it has been in the past. The 

 centre of gravity of the whole system of inter- 

 national trade has been changed. Many years 

 must elapse before the nations of Central Europe 

 will be able to exercise any very great influence 

 upon the world's commerce, and the present 

 chaotic condition of Russia affords no hope that 

 she can resume her pre-war position as a trading 

 nation for some lime to come. 



The prestige and commercial credit of the larger 

 part of Europe have, in tact, been so profoundly 

 shaken 1 hat it is well-nigh impossible to forecast 

 the trend ol the world's trade in the immediate 

 futu . lighl of Germany and Austria is, of 



course, further d by tin- political up- 



1 n In. h has followed hard upon their military 

 Collapse. In Stich limes of social and political 

 stress it is not to be expected that their workers 

 will settle clown to the peaceful pursuits of pro- 

 duction. The relations of capital and labour, 

 already strained before the war, under the demo- 

 cratic rule which is now supreme in the shattered 

 Empires will probably end in open rupture. The 

 victorious nations, on the other hand, have an 

 opportunity which, if they are wise, they will not 

 be slow to seize. We did not desire this war, and 

 NO. 2560. VOL. I02] 



1 rtainly did nol enter upon it with any idea 

 ommercial supremacy, but it would be the 

 > . riest lolly not to attempt t<> realise the advan- 

 tages of the good fortune which our triumph has 

 placed within our reach. Prudence, indeed, should 

 compel us to take occasion by the hand, and grasp 

 the skirts of happy chance. We 1 our 



treasure without stint in the effort to crush one 

 of the greatest conspiracies against humanity of 

 which history has any record. We have saddled 

 ourselves with a stupendous debt as a conse- 

 quence, which no indemnity that we are likely 

 to get or any increase of Colonial territory that 

 may tail to our share as an Empire will adequately 

 liquidate. Our only method of meeting the pecuni- 

 ary obligation we have incurred is by augmenting 

 our wealth by means of trade .and commerce, and 

 this can best be done by increasing our pro- 

 duction, both in variety and amount. 



The future, in fact, rests with labour, and it is 

 upon the sanity and prudence of the workers and 

 their employers that everything depends. The 

 war has been attended with much social unrest, 

 even in those nations which have come out vic- 

 torious. The workers everywhere demand better 

 conditions of life, a wider intellectual outlook, 

 and a higher standard of comfort, and the nations 

 which have fought the great fight in the interests 

 of humanity sympathise with them in their 

 demands. But as the world is constituted these 

 can be secured only by a better organisation of 

 our economic forces, by increased efficiency in 

 management, greater skill, knowledge, industry, 

 and marketing ability — matters in which the 

 employers are concerned no less than the workers. 

 It will be unspeakably sad if the nation should 

 now throw away its golden opportunity in an 

 internecine strife between capita! :im\ labour. 



There are anarchical forces at work among us 

 which are bent upon provoking this conflict, and 

 it will require no little ability and courage on the 

 part of labour leaders to counteract the mischiev- 

 ous efforts of those who would take a demoniacal 

 delight in wrecking the industrial welfare of this 

 nation. We believe the great mass of the workers 

 in this country have too much sense to let them- 

 selves be infected by the spirit of Bolshevism, 

 which leads to nothing but social chaos. Hut just 

 as a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, that 

 n ions spirit may be very troublesome before 

 it is finally exorcised. What, therefore, is wanted 

 is a reasonable spirit of conciliation on the part 

 of employers and employed, and a determination, 

 honest and sincere, on both sides to find an equi- 

 table solution. The spirit should he that of the 

 King's message to his people, delivered on Tues- 

 ! day in reply to addresses from both Houses of 



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