Business never ceases. Under the shock of mighty upheaval it has been
dislocated by the most drastic strain ever put upon the economic
fabric. But it will march on long after Peace will have mercifully
sheathed the Sword. Therefore the permanent world problem is the
Business problem.

This is why I made two trips to Europe: why I submit this little book in
the hope that it may point the way to some realisation of the immense
responsibilities which will inevitably crowd upon the world and more
especially upon the United States.

Peace will be as great a shock as War. Hence the need of Preparedness to
meet the inevitable conflict for Universal Trade. We--as a nation--are
as unready for this emergency as we are to meet the clash of actual
physical combat. Commercial Preparedness is as vital to the national
well being as the Training for Arms.

Nor will Commerce be the only thing that we will have to reckon with.
When you have heard the guns roar and watched horizons flame with fury
and seen men go to their death smiling and unafraid; when the pitiless
panorama of carnage has passed before you in terms of terror and
tragedy, you realise that there is something human as well as economic
in the relentless Thing called War.

It means that just as there was no compromise with dishonour in the
approach to the Super-Struggle for which nations are pouring out their
youth and fortune, so will there be no flinching in that coming contest
for commercial mastery--the bloodless aftermath of History's deadliest
and costliest war.