) &. — ECONOMICS. 1*23 



extensive connections with undamaged countries, and by our willingness 

 to buy most things which any nation has to offer. The situation would 

 be still further eased if countries such as Germany and Eussia were to 

 develop in turn what might be called a reconstruction demand, to take 

 the place of the satisfied reconstruction demands of our Allies. But the 

 fear, as I think the quite reasonable fear, expressed in some well- 

 infoi'med quarters, is that, in view of the complicated and dangerous cur- 

 rency position in many countries ; in view- of the difficulty which the war- 

 damaged nations have in collecting taxes enough to meet their obliga- 

 tions ; in view of the slowness with which some of them are raising 

 production to the level of consumption ; in view of the complete uncer- 

 tainty of the political and economic future in much of Central and 

 Eastern Europe — that in view of these things, and quite apart from pos- 

 sible political disturbances, we shall have to go through a genuine crisis, 

 as distinct from a depression ; a crisis beginning in the field of finance, 

 when some international obligation cannot be met or some international 

 credit cannot be renewed, spreading to industry and giving us a bad spell 

 of unemployment, comparable with the unemployment of the post-war 

 jicriod a century ago, and more dangerous because of the high standai'd 

 of living to which the people in this and some other countries is becom- 

 ing accustomed. 



Personally, I am less apprehensive for the industries of this country 

 than are many whose opinions T should ordinarily be disposed to prefer 

 to my own. A demand, an effective demand, exists for many things 

 that We can supply in great regions outside the war area — in China, 

 for instance, where there is said to be at this moment a keen demand 

 for machinery which the United Kingdom is too much preoccupied with 

 other work (o supply. Nor do I fear that a crisis will oiiginate here, 

 as I am disposed to think that our currency and taxation position is 

 already relatively sound. But we should be bound to feel the reactions 

 of a crisis which might occur elsewhere; to what extent is, however, quite 

 impossible to foresee. 



One final comparison. An extraordinary feature of the gi-eat wars 

 of a century ago was that they coincided with a steady growth of popu- 

 lation, and were followed by a period of rapid growth. For the 

 United Kingdom that fact is well known and not surprising. We 

 lost i-elativelv few men in war. But the official French figures, 

 27,500,000 in 1801 and 29,500,000 in 1816, are so remarkable that 

 one is tempted to doubt the first enumeration. Though remarkable, 

 the figin-es are, however, not impossible ; and it must be recalled that 

 the losses were spread over many years. British population has grown 

 a little since 1914 ; in spite of separations of man and wife and our three- 

 quarters of a million dead. A main reason has, however, been the 

 suspension of emigration, which was proceeding at a rate of over 200,000 

 a vear just before the war. France estimates a dead loss of over 

 3,000,000 (on 39,700,000) between 1913 and 1918 on her old territory. 

 Her census is due next year. Comparatively early in the war the 

 German civilian death rate was above the birth rate ; so presumably she 

 is in much the same position as France. But, owing to changes of 

 frontier and continued vmrest, it is as vet too earlv to estimate the total 



