CHAPTER VII

REMEDIES

It is difficult to maintain true perspective in large affairs. I have criticized the work of Paris, and have depicted in somber colors the condition and the prospects of Europe. This is one aspect of the position and, I believe, a true one. But in so complex a phenomenon the prognostics do not all point one way; and we may make the error of expecting consequences to follow too swiftly and too inevitably from what perhaps are not _all_ the relevant causes. The blackness of the prospect itself leads us to doubt its accuracy; our imagination is dulled rather than stimulated by too woeful a narration, and our minds rebound from what is felt "too bad to be true." But before the reader allows himself to be too much swayed by these natural reflections, and before I lead him, as is the intention of this chapter, towards remedies and ameliorations and the discovery of happier tendencies, let him redress the balance of his thought by recalling two contrasts--England and Russia, of which the one may encourage his optimism too much, but the other should remind him that catastrophes can still happen, and that modern society is not immune from the very greatest evils.

In the chapters of this book I have not generally had in mind the situation or the problems of England. "Europe" in my narration must generally be interpreted to exclude the British Isles. England is in a state of transition, and her economic problems are serious. We may be on the eve of great changes in her social and industrial structure. Some of us may welcome such prospects and some of us deplore them. But they are of a different kind altogether from those impending on Europe. I do not perceive in England the slightest possibility of catastrophe or any serious likelihood of a general upheaval of society. The war has impoverished us, but not seriously;--I should judge that the real wealth of the country in 1919 is at least equal to what it was in 1900. Our balance of trade is adverse, but not so much so that the readjustment of it need disorder our economic life.[157] The deficit in our Budget is large, but not beyond what firm and prudent statesmanship could bridge. The shortening of the hours of labor may have somewhat diminished our productivity. But it should not be too much to hope that this is a feature of transition, and no one who is acquainted with the British workingman can doubt that, if it suits him, and if he is in sympathy and reasonable contentment with the conditions of his life, he can produce at least as much in a shorter working day as he did in the longer hours which prevailed formerly. The most serious problems for England have been brought to a head by the war, but are in their origins more fundamental. The forces of the nineteenth century have run their course and are exhausted. The economic motives and ideals of that generation no longer satisfy us: we must find a new way and must suffer again the _malaise_, and finally the pangs, of a new industrial birth. This is one element. The other is that on which I have enlarged in