Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

International Finance by Hartley Withers
page 99 of 116 (85%)

At least the war is teaching us that the wealth of a nation is not a
pile of commodities to be frittered away in vulgar ostentation and
stupid self-indulgence, but the number of its citizens who are able and
ready to play the man as workers or fighters when a time of trial comes.
"National prosperity," says Cobbett, "shows itself ... in the plentiful
meal, the comfortable dwelling, the decent furniture and dress, the
healthy and happy countenances, and the good morals of the labouring
classes of the people." So he wrote, in Newgate gaol, in 1810.[8] Since
then many reformers have preached the same sound doctrine, but its
application has made poor progress, in relation to the growth of our
riches in the same period. If we now decide to put it into practice, we
shall not long tolerate the existence in our midst of disease and
destitution, and a system of distribution of the world's goods which
gives millions of our population no chance of full development.

We need not, then, stay to shed tears over the civilization, such as it
was, which we thought we had and had not. Its good points will endure,
for evil has a comfortable habit of killing itself and those who work
it. All that we are concerned with at this moment is the fact that its
downfall has shaken an article in our economic faith which taught us
that specialization was a cause of so much more good than evil, that its
development by the free spreading of our capital all over the world,
wherever the demand for it gave most profit to the owner, was a tendency
to be encouraged, or at least to be left free to work out its will. This
was true enough to be a platitude as long as we could rely on peace. Our
capital went forth and fertilized the world, and out of its growing
produce the world enriched us. As the world developed its productive
power, its goods poured into us, as the great free mart where all men
were welcome to sell their wares. These goods came in exchange for our
DigitalOcean Referral Badge