War-Time Financial Problems by Hartley Withers
page 44 of 270 (16%)
page 44 of 270 (16%)
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adroitness from a bad crisis in the City, were entirely tame, and
would have suffered anything in the way of taxation or financial conscription if the need for it had been properly put before them. It is almost amusing to remember now that in those early days of the war the shareholders in Home Railway companies were thought lucky. The Government were taking the railways over, and were guaranteeing that their proprietors should receive the same dividends as they had had before the war. Such was the view in financial and property-owning circles of results of war that, so far from any expectation of the huge profits which war has put into the pockets of certain classes, they were only too thankful if they could be assured that their gross incomes were not going to be reduced. Such was the spirit with which the Government of that day had to deal. A spirit in all classes earnestly patriotic, and so thoroughly frightened of the economic consequences of the war that it would have been ready to face any sacrifices that the Government had asked of it. How, then, would the Government have dealt with this spirit if it had taken the trouble really to think out the problem of war finance on a long view instead of proceeding along a haphazard line, adjusting peace methods to war without any consideration as to their adequacy? If the problem had been really thought out beforehand the Government must have seen clearly that the real economic problem in war-time is not merely a question of raising money, since that can at any time be done easily by means of a printing-press, but of diverting the industrial energy of the nation from peace to war purposes, that is to say, transferring from the enjoyment of the individual citizen the goods and services that used to contribute to his comfort and amusement, and turning them over to the provision of the things needed |
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