May ir, iqiG 
L A N I) cS: W A T K R 
15 
The World's Trade after the War 
By Lewis R. Freeman 
[This remarkable forecast of the World's trade after 
the war and the consequent competition is by Mr Lewis 
R. Freeman, an American journalist of high reputation, 
who for years has given close study to commercial 
affairs both here and abroad, and has travelled widely.] 
IN America there lias been a persistent tendency — 
not only among professional pacifists and politicians, 
but also among those bankers, manufacturers and 
economists who have not been in personal touch 
with the situation across the Atlantic — to picture the 
belligerent countries after the war as depopulated, dis- 
organised, crushed with debt and generally crippled in 
their power to carry on business at home and abroad. 
The present struggle does not promise to develop into 
another " Thirty Years' War," and the drawing in of the 
United States on the side of the Allies would tend to 
shorten rather than to lengthen it. It is not difficult to 
conceive of contingencies under which hostilities would be 
brought to an end by next autumn, and peace by the middle 
of i()iy is more than probable. The point for American 
bankers, manufacturers and exporters to get well in mind 
is that their two greatest commercial rivals, Great 
Britain and Germany, far from being depopulated, dis- 
organised cr industrially crippled by the middle, or even 
the end of iqij, will, in spite of their huge war debts 
and the killing of many thousands of their be'-.t men, 
be in a stronger position to wage aggressive and successful 
war for the world's trade than ever before. 
Organised Industry 
This is especially true of England, which as a direct 
consequence of the war, from being one of the least 
effectively organised and most wasteful of manual effort 
among all industrial nations, has developed an efficiency 
comparable to if not yet equal to, that of the United 
States and Germany, There is no doubt whatever that 
to-day anywhere from seventy to eighty British factory 
workers are doing as much labour as were, one hundreci 
in pre-war times, and this at the expenditure of very 
little more physical effort. There is still much room 
for improvement along the same lines, but the fact that 
so much has been accomplished in so short a time shows 
the potency of war-time conditions in breaking down 
what had comc^ to be regarded as the fixed-for-all-timc 
barriers of British industrial conservatism, and furnishes 
an illuminative object-lesson with which to encourage 
fiu'ther reforms after the war. 
Besides a greatly improved industrial organisation as 
a direct result of the war, an enormous material increase 
of British manufacturing facilities will have to be reckoned 
with. There is scarcely an important manufacturing 
plant in the coimtry which has not been greatly increased 
in capacity to accommodate the rush of war orders, while 
the jumrher of new factories built for munition work of 
one kind or another is also very large. Whenever an 
addition to a factory has been built, the fact has always 
been borne in mind so far as possible that it would 
ultimately be utilised for peace-time work. In many 
instances, such as those of shoe, automobile and motor 
truck factories, and ship-building plants of all descrip- 
tions, the war-time extensions will be ready to turn to on 
regular peace-time work without any change x^hatever. 
and at a moment's notice. In other cases, certain 
changes of machinery will have to be made to effect the 
transition. 
Even the huge new plants which have been erected by 
the British Government for the sole purpose of augment- 
hig its munition supply will ultimately figure as an 
industrial asset rather than as an economic loss to be 
written off as " war cost." These are invariably located 
at the most convenient points as regards raw material 
of all kinds, and also as regards rail and water transport. 
The plan now is to utihsc as many of these new plants as 
the (lovernment ultimately decides it can dispense with 
for the manufacture of products hitherto imported almost 
exclusively from Germanv. l^ritish chemists and en- 
gineers will have to bestir themselves to turn out aniline 
dyes, gas engines and electrical machinery as cheaply as 
the Germans did, but with the raw material supply 
rather in their favour there is no reason they should not 
prove equal to the task. At any rate, whatever is done 
with the new war plants, England will resume her light 
for the retention of her premier place in the world's 
trade with greatly augmented factory facilities as well 
as an improved organisation. 
Increase of Manufactures 
In spite of the five million men in her army and 
navy, and the huge numbers employed in such non- 
productive war effort as the censorship and the clerical 
work of the , various Government departments, the 
increase of England's manufactures— ^if munitions are 
included — in the last twenty months is enormous. What 
this increase amounts to, it is impossible — in the absence 
of any figures covering the output of mimitions, ships, 
etc. — to make even an approximate estimate. Judging 
however, from the fact that the country's exports have 
been fairly well maintained — as compared with i(»i3 
as a normal year — and have even been increased from 
month to month since the first sharp drop following the 
outbreak of the war, it must be very great, possibly 
so much as 50 or 75 per cent. 
Part of this increase, it is true, is due to causes which 
will cease to operate after the war — volunteer workers, 
suspension of trade union rules for the restriction of out- 
put, and sheer increase of nervous effort — but the much 
greater part is due to improved organisation and heightened 
efficiency. It seems reasonable to believe, therefore, 
that any losses of men which England is likely to suffer 
will be more than offset by the better application of 
national effort ; through not only making four men 
do the work five did before, but also through increasing 
the quality as well as the quantity of their work — raising 
the average of skill. 
That England's loss of merchant ships from submarines 
and other war causes will greatly handicap her commercial 
efforts after peace is restored is not probable, The 
seriousness of the ship shortage to-day is largely due to 
the fact that something like forty per cent, of the total 
merchant tonnage is in transport or other war service, 
so that the sinking of one of the remaining carriers has 
a significance considerably greater than the fractional 
percentage it represents in the total tonnage would 
indicate. But although it may well transpire that Eng- 
land will suffer even more severely before the war is 
over from shortage of ships than she is suffering to-day, 
this would not mean that she would necessarily be greatly 
embarrassed after the war. The release of the ships now 
under charter to the Government will give her more 
than enough bottoms to carry her goods in any likely 
event, so that, until the lost ships are replaced, she will 
merely have less tonnage than formerly with which to 
go after the carrying trade of other countries. The loss 
will, therefore, have a financial rather than a commercial 
bearing. The burden of the high freights which will rule 
for an indefinite period following the war will be, directlj 
and indii-ectly, distributed pretty well over all the 
industrial nations ; in the last analysis, indeed, ovet 
all the world. 
Germany, like England, will be stronger industrially 
after the war than she was before, though her gain, both 
relative and actual, will be far less pronounced. Eng- 
land's increased industrial effectiveness will be principally 
due, as has been stated, to improved organisation, and 
in this particular it happens that Germany had gone just 
about as far before the war as it was possible to go. 
There will, however, as in England, doubtless be a con- 
siderable increase in the average " quality " of the work 
performed, due to the training of women and hitherto 
unskilled men. There can be little doubt, also, thai 
Germany's increase of manufacturing plants has not been 
nearly so great as that of England. To begin with, the 
former's munition supply facilities were undoubtedly 
