VIII. FROM PEDLAR TO PREMIER 258


THE WAR AFTER THE WAR




I--_The Coming War_


While the guns roar from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and the
greatest armed host that history has ever known is still locked in a
life-and-death struggle on a dozen fronts, another war, more potent and
permanent perhaps than the one which now engulfs Europe, lurks beyond
the distant horizon of peace.

Its fighting line will be the boundaries of all human needs; its dynamic
purpose a heroic rehabilitation after stupendous loss. It will be the
far-flung struggle for the rich prize of International Trade, waiting at
the end of the Crimson Lane that sooner or later will have a turning.

Embattled commercial groups will supplant embroiled nations; boycotts,
discriminations and exclusions will succeed the strategies of line and
trench; the animosities fought out to-day with shell and steel will have
their heritage in ruthless rivalries.

How shall we fare in this tumult of tariff and treaty? Where shall we
stand when the curtain of fire fades before a task of regeneration that
will spell economic rebirth or disaster for millions? Will fiscal