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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Britain has the idea that this world has 

 seen the last of over-production. It has 

 become convinced that the real difficulty 

 that gets' things out of economic kelter 

 is under-consumption. So it proposes 

 that the ladies shall keep on working, the 

 men shall join them, and arrangements 

 shall be made for such a distribution of 

 their joint product that there will be no 

 over-production ! 



the lesson of consumption 



The greatest lesson the British people 

 have learned from the war is this of con- 

 sumption. They have acquired the habit 

 of being steadily employed at good wages. 

 They have learned how to spend their 

 money carefully, sanely, thriftily. They 

 have learned to save ; the bond-selling 

 campaigns have taught that. Thrift came 

 from ebriety, serious-mindedness, and the 

 necessity of stretching all supplies to 

 make them go round. Money ceased to 

 mean so much when one, though he had 

 a bushel of bank notes, wasn't allowed 

 to spend more than "one-and-thrippence" 

 for afterno n tea, with other meals in 

 proportion. 



London is full of great houses vacant. 

 Income taxes have done part of it, the 

 fuel controller much. Who wants a 40- 

 room house when the coal administration 

 allows only fuel to heat seven rooms, and 

 when servants cannot be had at any 

 wage? So the great places stand empty, 

 while there is a scarcity of middle-class 

 houses ; palaces are too expensive, hovels 

 no longer good enough. 



The leveling-up-and-down process is 

 actually happening, and England as a 

 whole likes it. Lincoln said, "God must 

 have loved the common people, for he 

 made so many of them." As for Eng- 

 land, the war filled them with the con- 

 viction that they are the people, and the 

 government gave them all — men and 

 women — the ballot. 



THE FUTURE OE THE HOUSE OE LORDS 



The minority that doesn't like the new 

 order will have no power of veto. The 

 House of Lords is far advanced on the 

 way to a reorganization that will make it 

 almost another United States Senate — 

 elective and without hereditary right to 

 seats. A parliamentary commission has 

 reported the plan, and it is nearer adop- 



tion than woman suffrage seemed on the 

 day war broke out. 



After that will come adaptation of the 

 federal system to the kingdom. Pre- 

 monitory rumblings in public thought are 

 telling of it. There will be legislatures, 

 like those of our American States, for 

 Scotland, Wales, metropolitan London ; 

 probably two for Ireland ; one and per- 

 haps more for England outside London ; 

 and all these States will be represented 

 in the Westminster Parlaiment as ours 

 are in the Congress at Washington. 



Perhaps the Dominions will at length 

 send their delegates there, too; if not, 

 some sort of truly imperial parliament 

 will make place for them and for closer 

 political union of members that the war 

 has drawn into a new spiritual com- 

 munity. 



A BETTER RACE OE BRITISHERS 



A better race of British men and 

 women will come out of this war. Not- 

 withstanding the physical misfortune to 

 the race of having so many of its best men 

 killed or maimed, Britain will gain vastly 

 more than it will lose through the train- 

 ing, discipline, and physical improvement 

 of its manhood; through teaching re- 

 liance, self-respect, realities, true values. 

 The world will gain greatly by a renais- 

 sance in Britain of the spirit that made 

 Britishers its pioneers, colonizers, civil- 

 izers, administrators. And that renais- 

 sance has been achieved. 



There will be a movement of English- 

 men to the distant quarters of the world ; 

 but enough will remain at home to build 

 the motherland to a greater and better 

 position. 



Misgivings about Britain sinking to 

 second rate among the powers are at any 

 rate some centuries premature. The tight 

 little island will continue "the power- 

 house of the line." It will be developed 

 as never before. It has found itself 

 anew. There is today a perfect mania 

 for efficiency, quantity production, elimi- 

 nation of lost motion, suppression of 

 waste. 



One thing that Britain has done during 

 the war will have an effect on the na- 

 tional life not yet to be measured, but 

 certainly far-reaching. That is the re- 

 habilitation of agriculture. In 1918, we 



