III. NATIONS IN LIQUIDATION


The war has become a war of exhaustion. One hears a great deal of the
idea that "financial collapse" may bring it to an end. A number of
people seem to be convinced that a war cannot be waged without money,
that soldiers must be paid, munitions must be bought; that for this
money is necessary and the consent of bank depositors; so that if all
the wealth of the world were nominally possessed by some one man in a
little office he could stop the war by saying simply, "I will lend you
no more money."

Now, as a matter of fact, money is a power only in so far as people
believe in it and Governments sustain it. If a State is sufficiently
strong and well organised, its control over the money power is
unlimited. If it can rule its people, and if it has the necessary
resources of men and material within its borders, it can go on in a
state of war so long as these things last, with almost any flimsy sort
of substitute for money that it chooses to print. It can enrol and use
the men, and seize and work the material. It can take over the land and
cultivate it and distribute its products. The little man in the office
is only a power because the State chooses to recognise his claim. So
long as he is convenient he seems to be a power. So soon as the State is
intelligent enough and strong enough it can do without him. It can take
what it wants, and tell him to go and hang himself. That is the
melancholy ultimate of the usurer. That is the quintessence of
"finance." All credit is State-made, and what the State has made the