HC Deb 24 March 1920 vol 127 cc493-508
Mr. HOLMES

On this Bill, it is customary for the House to change from one subject to another, and I am now going to ask it to turn its attention to the subject of high prices, in which the defects and the delays of transport are a minor contributory factor. It is true the House had a long Debate not many days ago upon this subject, but the ground was not fully explored, and, having regard to the fact that this subject is one which creates, possibly, more discussion and agitation in the country, and breeds, or may breed, unrest, I feel sure no apology is needed for once more raising the subject. In the Debate that took place on the 15th March, the various causes which were contributory to high prices were given to the House by various speakers. Amongst them were the shortage of commodities, profiteering, the inflation of currency and credit, and several minor ones, such as the one I have just mentioned, the delays and defects of transport. For one or two of those reasons the Government cannot be held responsible. The shortage of commodities, for example, is world-wide, and no one would suggest that our Government, or any other Government, was responsible for that. It is one of the unfortunate results of the War. But I want to ask the House, in the first place, to consider to what extent profiteering in this country is the cause of high prices, and also to ask whether the Government are doing all that is possible at the present time to check profiteering. The new Food Controller, in the speech he made on 15th March, said that, in his opinion, quite a small percentage of the total—that is the increased price total—is to be attributed to the operations of the profiteer.

I would venture to remind the House that the Government considered profiteering as a sufficiently important factor in the rise of prices to appoint, in the first place, a Select Committee to go into the matter, and, in the second place, to introduce and pass through this House a Bill which was called a Bill to check Profiteering. It is true that that Bill appeared to be in the nature of panic legislation. It was passed rapidly through the House with very little discussion, the Committee stage taking place between a quarter to 4 one afternoon and something like 5 o'clock the next morning. Perhaps if more time and consideration had been given, a better Bill would have been forthcoming. Sir Auckland Geddes, on the Second Reading, said that it would do much to remove the evils which arise from the making of unreasonable profits in our domestic trade. To what extent has that Act checked profiteering? We have seen tribunals set up all over the country, shopkeepers have been harassed before those tribunals, and time and money have been spent by various people sitting upon those tribunals, with the result that 1½d., 2d. or 6d. have been ordered to be repaid by shopkeepers. Everyone knows perfectly well that that sort of thing merely touches the fringe of the profiteering problem.

There are black sheep in every fold, and there may be some amongst the shop keepers; but where they have profiteered they have profiteered in threepences and sixpences. The man who has profiteered and really affected prices has been the big man whom the Profiteering Act has not touched. Beyond these local tribunals, committees have sat and have reported on various trades and industries. When the house is burning the important thing is to get the fire out and not to hold an inquiry into the cause. The important thing last August in regard to profiteering was to stop it, and not to make an inquiry into its causes. I am going to try to show how the Government might have used this Act if they had been willing, not merely to get at the small shopkeeper, but at the big man who was responsible for the real increase of prices which are due to profiteering.

The Profiteering Act contains one good feature. This was a definition of profiteering. This definition said that profiteering was "making an unreasonable profit," and an unreasonable profit was defined as "the making of a higher rate of profit than was made by the individual in the pre-War years." That was a perpectly satisfactory definition, and one which everyone could understand. If a shopkeeper was brought before the tribunal he could defend himself by comparing the rate of profit made on a certain transaction with that made on a similar transaction in his business before the War. Unfortunately, however, that provision has not been carried out throughout all the processes of manufacture in the country. For example, an offer was made under a scheme by which men and women's clothing was offered to the public at a reasonable rate of profit, compared to pre-War profits, and chargeable to every process of manufacture. That offer was not accepted by the Board of Trade. Consequently, increased rates of profit are being unnecessarily made in clothing throughout the country. The great difficulty of prices is that there is a huge demand from abroad for our goods. In every industry the seller and manufacturer charges the same rate to the home consumer as he charges to the foreign buyer. He says: "I can sell my goods abroad at such and such a price: why should I take less by selling them in this country?" There is one industry where we are making a distinction, and that is in the coal industry. Every hon. Member knows we are selling our exported coal at the best price we can get, while the price at home is regulated and is 10s. per ton less for domestic use than for home industrial use. That can only be done if you have Government control.

It would be ideal if in every industry in the country one could say, "Sell your goods abroad for the highest price obtainable, while at home you must keep to a certain margin of profit," so that there would always be a consistent price for every sale at home or abroad. This means Government control over every industry. I am sure that everyone would reject that as a possible solution. But there is a plan that could be adopted. It has already been adopted in more than one trade. That is that the trades themselves have been asked to take in hands their own affairs, and to get rid of the profiteers from their own ranks. When they have been appealed to to do that there are cases in which they have done so. I believe that the trades, if they were appealed to, would be able to make that differentiation between themselves, and they would sell their goods at the highest price they could get for export, and would keep down their cost here to what is a reasonable profit. In such an arrangement they would have to see that each man has his fair amount of the home trade as well as his fair amount of the export trade. I believe that by leaving them to act by and through themselves, and not attempting Government control, prices would be brought down in this country to a much more reasonable level.

There is one element which causes increased prices in very many materials which do not come under the Profiteering Act at all. That is the result of speculation. Many cases could be quoted to the House where the raw material coming from abroad has been sold three, four, or five times before it reached the manufacturer. None of these speculators need have made more than a reasonable profit, but the result of the accumulated profit of each speculator being added to the cost of the raw material has necessarily caused the price of the finished article to be unnecessarily high. When the Profiteering Act was before the House, the Government refused an Amendment which would have met this particular point; and speculation in raw material still goes on all over the country. The very fact that the profits of speculation of this sort are not subject to Income Tax or Super-tax has made it all the more preferable, and it is undoubtedly true that speculation of this sort has largely added to the high prices paid for almost every article of consumption. So I wish in the first place to say that profiteering still continues, and that the Profiteering Act has been of little avail in checking it, and that the high prices we are paying to-day are, in part, due to the operations of the profiteer.

The only other point to which I want to refer in regard to high prices is the effect which inflation of the currency and credit has in this matter. I cannot help referring to the two speeches made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this House. On 7th August last he made a very striking speech in which he pointed to the position of the country in regard to finance in a very true, if somewhat despondent tone. The right hon. Gentleman then said: I have tried to put the situation fairly to the House as I see it now. It is worse than it was when I spoke on the Budget. It is worse temporarily and to some extent permanently."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 7th August, 1919, Col. 645, Vol. 119.] I believe that that speech had a great effect upon the country, and made people realise the necessity of spending as little money as possible, and checking, so far as they could, the extravagant habits which so many had been developing. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer undid all the good of that speech by another which he made here on 29th October. He then said: The position, though less good than I had expected at the time of the Budget statement, is distinctly better than I feared when I spoke in August."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1919, Col. 410, Vol. 120.] The right hon. Gentleman finished up by saying: No additional taxation will be required to balance future Budgets. No fresh borrowing will be required on Revenue Account after this year. Next year a substantial surplus should be available for the reduction of debt.…Our position is sound."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1919, Col. 757, Vol. 120.] The speech of the right hon. Gentleman concluded with a peroration which I remember brought loud cheers from every quarter of the House.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain)

The hon. Gentleman is not quoting my words?

Mr. HOLMES

Not the peroration, but the others are the words of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I have not the exact words before me, but I do not think my hon. Friend quoted the sentence about taxation.

Mr. HOLMES

On 29th October, if the right hon. Gentleman looks at his speech, he will find that these are the complete words of the sentence: No additional taxation will be required to balance future Budgets.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

There were other conditions?

Mr. HOLMES

Oh, quite! But the unfortunate result, I should almost say the mischievous result, of that speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in October was that it was a further encouragement to people to spend money. One of the great results of the War has been to increase the purchasing power of the community as expressed in terms of money, and to reduce the volume of purchasable goods. This has been a contributary cause of the rise in prices. Money in the hands of the community does not become a danger if it is used for the purpose of sending to the Government. But if it is used to obtain consumable goods it has the effect of putting up prices, and the Chancellor's speech in October did practically say to the people that "all was for the best in this best of possible worlds." It encouraged men and women to go on using their increased purchasing power to obtain for themselves commodities of all kinds. I venture to say that the fact that prices are higher to-day than they were in October is, in part, duo to the effect of the Chancellor's speech upon the public generally.

But the most serious cause of the inflation of the currency and credit at the present time is the fact that we have a floating debt of £1,200,000,000. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been unable to meet national expenditure out of taxation or out of national war loans of various kinds. He has got to create banking credits. It is, perhaps, well that we should remind ourselves of the operation that takes place. The Government accomplishes this by borrowing from the Bank of England on the security of Ways and Means. The bank makes an entry in its books increasing the item "Government borrowing" on the one side, and on the other increasing the item "Government securities." Let us assume that there are some ten million pounds treated in this way. This is withdrawn from the Bank of England. The Government pays it to its various creditors all over the country, and the money finds its way to the credit of the banking accounts of these various creditors. They in their turn have to demand currency notes for the payment of, at any rate, part of their wages, and they also in their turn pay out cheques to their creditors, who in turn demand currency notes for wages and other purposes. The real defect of this operation is to create £10,000,000 currency, and it is very little different from the plan which has been adopted by France in paying its creditors by the issue of new currency notes. The creation of this new currency puts so much increased purchasing power into the hands of the community. There is an increased demand for goods of which there is already a shortage, and so a rise in prices occurs The most essential thing, therefore, at the present time is to reduce the floating debt either by paying it off, or by funding it. It is necessary to add that precipitate deflation may be as dangerous as a continuance of the floating debt, I think it is generally agreed that a minimum reduction of the floating debt by £300,000,000, and its gradual further reduction month by month is of paramount importance To my mind the reduction of £300,000,000 in the floating debt which we require immediately would already have been accomplished if the Budget of last year had been sound. In his Budget statement the Chancellor of the Exchequer included among the receipts of the year a sum exceeding £200,000,000, which he expected to receive from the sale of the assets of the Ministry of Shipping, the Ministry of Munitions and other Government Departments. These assets were purchased in previous years out of moneys borrowed by the State, and surely it was a matter of sound finance that when such sums were repaid to the Treasury they should be specifically ear-marked for the repayment of debt. I suggest that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had ear-marked those sums for debt, and had omitted them from his ordinary revenue, he would already have materially accomplished a substantial reduction in the floating debt, and he would have obtained that deflation of currency and credit which is so necessary at the present time.

It should further be recalled that the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that the amount of £200,000,000 was all he could reasonably expect to receive by this means, but that the value of the assets I have alluded to largely exceeded that sum and would come in later, and larger proceeds would be received during the next and the following year. That undoubtedly is correct, and therefore if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had used these sums of money for the reduction of the floating debt he would already have reduced that debt by £200,000,000, and he would at the same time have had in sight sums which would further and regularly reduce the floating debt, and would have produced that gradual and steady deflation which is so much required. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will probably say if he had not taken this £200,000,000 for his ordinary revenue it would have been necessary to raise £200,000,000 by increased taxation. That is of course true, and it is probably the best thing that has happened. When the Budget was introduced no one for a moment dreamed that the Income Tax would be left at 6s. in the pound, and no surprise would have been expressed if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had raised the rate to 7s. 6d.

I know it was anticipated that the Excess Profits Duty would be reduced from 80 per cent., but nobody expected that it would be reduced to 40 per cent. The business world would have been quite satisfied if it had been reduced only to 50 per cent. But apart from this the Chancellor of the Exchequer not merely reduced the Excess Profits Duty from 80 per cent. to 40 per cent., but he dated the reduction back to the 1st January, 191S, although he announced this four months after that date. There was no necessity to go so far back as that, and if he had increased the Income Tax he would have raised this extra £200,000,000, and it would not have been difficult to find other means of taxation to have made up the difference. If he had acted in this way-he would have reduced the floating debt by over £200,000,000 at the present time. He would have decreased by extra taxation the purchasing power of the community by £200,000,000, and there would have been less demand for the goods of which there is already a great shortage, and prices would not have risen so much. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, by the unsound principle of his Budget, has been responsible in part for the high prices prevailing at the present time.

We must all have been struck during the past few weeks and months with the number of prospectuses announced in the daily Press for companies appealing for fresh capital, and money has poured into industrial concerns of all kinds during the past year. We can, therefore, anticipate with some degree of confidence that this money will shortly be producing goods which will relieve the shortage, and will be earning profit and providing taxes for the Exchequer. We must, however, recognise the fact that this demand for money for post-war industrial development is bringing back an unprecedented state of affairs so far as the money market is concerned. The banks have made advances to the very limit of their resources, and individuals who can offer first-class security are unable at the present time to obtain money thereon. Practically the whole financial resources of the nation are locked up in the industries, and even if the Chancellor of the Exchequer attempted at the present time to fund the Floating Debt of £1,200,000,000 the problem he would have to face is not what amount of interest he would have to give in order to get the money, but where the money was to come from, whatever rate of interest he offered. It behoves him therefore, in the coming year, to provide out of taxation sufficient to pay all the national expenditure, and to gradually reduce the Floating Debt, and at the same time to prevent every Government Department from spending a penny more than is necessary. The right hon. Gentleman gave a good lead to the nation last August, but he spoiled that lead by his speech in October. It is as necessary to-day as ever it was that the community shall not use their purchasing power beyond what is absolutely necessary, and the Government must practice what they preach. One of the reasons why the general community see no reason for themselves avoiding extravagance at the present time is that they believe the Government are spending money right and left with a lavish hand. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer can convince the country that nothing beyond what is necessary is being spent by Government Departments, he can again appeal to the public to keep their own purchasing within the least possible limits.

Mr. E. WOOD

rose—

Mr. SPEAKER

Does; the hon. Member rise to move the Amendment standing in his name on the Paper?

Mr. WOOD

Yes, Sir.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

rose—

Sir D. MACLEAN

I wish to raise a point of Order.

Mr. SPEAKER

I presume the Chancellor of the Exchequer will now reply upon this question, and he will also reply upon the Amendment. It is just a question whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will reserve his speech in order to deal with the question of prices and the discussion of the Amendment at the same time, or whether he will prefer to deal with the question of prices now and answer the arguments in connection with the Amendment later on.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am ready at once to reply to the speech of the hon. Member (Mr. Holmes). I am a little embarrassed because high prices, although they formed the topic in the beginning of the hon. Member's speech, they did not constitute the main theme, and he devoted a considerable part of his speech to reviewing last year's Budget and the unwisdom of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He then proceeded to deal with other matters, and if he had continued on those lines I should have asked the President of the Board of Trade to reply to the hon. Member rather than undertake the task myself. The hon. Member made some observations with which I agree. I agree with him that any suggested system of reform which involves as a necessity the universal control of all the trades in the country would really be a worse remedy than the disease. You must in the very special circumstances of the coal trade have the control we now have in existence, but to apply that kind of control to all the industries in the country would have a hampering and deadening effect on industry which none of us would contemplate.

7.0 P.M.

The hon. Member referred to the Profiteering Act. I do not wish to over-estimate its value, but I think that Act has done more than the hon. Member gives it credit for. The hon. Member's speech seemed to suggest that the value of the Profiteering Act should be measured by the number of prosecutions arising out of it, but no one would ever think of valuing the capital penalty for murder by the number of hangings which took place in a year. I should have thought the true test was the number of cases in which the Act succeeded in preventing a man who would otherwise have shown homicidal tendencies from losing his self-control. It is of course obvious that in so far as an Act which is effective to restrain action which if committed it affords the means of punishing, you can have no exact measure of its success, but it must not be supposed the Profiteering Act has had no success, because I think it has had considerable success. The hon. Gentleman suggested that there was a form of control, not the one exercised over the coal trade, but a self-control which might really be useful. In this matter the Government have been active, and they have been in conference with various trades for the express purpose of getting them to exercise amongst themselves that kind of control over the supplies of those goods which are most required in the home market. As far as imported luxuries are concerned, I do not mind that charges are made to the home consumer, and I would like the prices to prohibit their purchase altogether; but where you are dealing with goods in daily household use then a control of the kind suggested by the hon. Member, exercised by members of the trade, in consequence of which they limit their profit on those articles of common necessity to the home consumer, is, I think, a very valuable form of control. We are constantly doing that.

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL

Has it not occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that we have rather broken an economic law by setting up an artificial export trade, in order to raise the dollar exchange by a short cut, with the result that we have depleted the home supply and created a dearth of goods for our home market and thus brought about the very high prices which we wished to avoid?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I do not think so. As far as luxury goods are concerned, I do not imagine my hon. Friend differs from my statement. I think that luxury goods should go abroad in the largest possible proportion, and the less money spent upon them at home the better for the country at large. Whether these luxury goods are home produced or impored, even though they are not imported but are home produced, if you can find a market for them abroad at the present time you will be doing a service to the country.

Mr. SAMUEL

I was referring to necessities.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

Yes. When you come to articles of common production, then I agree, of course, that, to send abroad the whole supply of things which are in necessary daily use, even if you could do it, would be asking for trouble at home, and the situation would be very much more dangerous for us. I do not think, however, that that process has gone on to any dangerous length. As far as I know, what has happened is that manufacturers have expected, and not unreasonably, that they should obtain the world's price in whatever market they sold. I think there are reasons for urging that for particular lines of objects of com- mon necessity at home they should forego part of the profits which the world's price would yield, and supply the public at home at more moderate rates. That is a form of control which is being exercised by certain trades amongst themselves voluntarily, either after consultation with or sometimes at the invitation of the Government, and sometimes entirely of their own accord; and whether we are assisting by such an arrangement or not, we are glad to strike at profiteering and to reduce the ill-effects which follow it. But do not let us deceive ourselves. Gross cases of profiteering strike the imagination, but not all cases of profiteering described as gross are gross. In the second place, even if you could stop profiteering altogether and completely, you would have dealt with but a very small section of the problem of high prices. I think there we are on common ground, as expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith), the other day with as much clearness and directness as I have tried to express it to-night.

After all, the circumstances of trade and manufacture are affected by the altered values of money. The amount of capital locked up in business is much greater. The expense of making, handling, and transporting goods is also much greater. The services of everybody employed are more costly. It must not be supposed that every increase of to-day's prices above the pre-War prices of any article indicates that someone, or that a number of people are profiteering to the extent of the difference between the two. If, as we are constantly told, wages are only worth half what they were, then capital is only worth half what it was, and the same rule applies to all classes of the community. The hon. Member connected these high prices with the finance of the Government, and particularly with the finance of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Of course, he realises that the inflation of credit of which he spoke is not all of it, or even a major portion of it, my personal work. At one moment he suggested it was a kind of corporation sole. He did not make it altogether clear what were my personal responsibilities.

Mr. HOLMES

Last year's Budget.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am at one with the hon. Member in desiring to reduce and keep down Ways and Means advances. I am at one with him in desiring to reduce gradually and steadily the Unfunded Debt. But I am not at one with him as to the course he thinks it would have been prudent to adopt in the present financial year. I understand that his view is that I ought not to have taken into current revenue any part of the proceeds of the sales of stores and Government property which we have been enabled to make since the War was brought to a conclusion, and that I ought to have raised taxation to an amount equivalent to that figure. He suggested it would have been wise to have put up the Income Tax to Vs. 6d., and that nobody would have been surprised. I think there would have been considerable surprise and some indignation if I had done that last year. I differ from the hon. Gentleman fundamentally. I am not averse to raising new taxation by suitable measures and at suitable times. The actual increases which I proposed last year were estimated at something over £120,000,000, on the top of all the increases in taxation imposed by my various predecessors. Would it have been right, when in the expenditure of the current year there was included large sums directly traceable to the War, and in consequence of the War, but not part of the normal expenditure: of the country, that I should have met the whole of that by a sudden and immense increase of taxation at the same time that I have falling in resources set free from the War and of a similar abnormal character? I do not think so. I think we were entitled to set abnormal receipts against abnormal expenditure, and to employ them for the purpose of meeting that abnormal expenditure.

Where I come nearer to agreement with my hon. Friend would be in this, that I think it would be wrong to use these abnormal receipts instead of taxation to pay, not abnormal expenditure, but normal recurrent expenses. That, I think, would be wrong. It has not been done. Chancellor of Exchequer after Chancellor of Exchequer has looked in his Budget to see what would be the position if the War closed at the end of the financial year with which he was dealing, and he has made it his pride and object to produce such a revenue from taxation as, if the War ended at the close of the year, would meet the peace expenditure. In these calculations no room was ever left for abnormal overlappings, for war expenditure does not cease when operations cease. Still, it was a good enough standard to measure effort by, and that is the standard which I set up for the normal year—a standard by which we could measure that constantly recurrent expenditure which ought to be provided for by taxation, and for which we ought not to have recourse to abnormal and fortuitous receipts. I think if the hon. Member will cast his mind back to the time at which the Budget was framed, he will see that the prospects looked less favourable for the revival of industry and trade than they have since proved to be. Very large and heavy taxation for the temporary services, such as he suggests I ought to have made at that time, might have checked the revival of trade and industry; it might, I will not say, have killed the goose which lays the golden eggs, but it might have so seriously disturbed her as to greatly affect the number which she lays. I think it was a wiser course to take the line which I adopted.

The hon. Member has referred to two speeches which I made last year—in August and October. The one in August he thought was pessimistic and wise. The October one he characterised as optimistic and unwise. There is a good deal more similarity between the two speeches than critics often realise. Both were spoken subject to conditions which were clearly-expressed. The first was at a time when too many people seemed to think that all our troubles were over, that we had a bounding revenue, and were on a wave of prosperity. But the speech concluded, if I may say so, in a note of prudent hope. In October the circumstances were different. Instead of finding, in the first place, a public which had been encouraged to think that extravagance needed no check, and that everything was for the best, I found a public which was daily having preached to it the most pessimistic accounts of our position. I spoke at a time when criticism was taking forms which were affecting our credit, not merely here, but in the world at large, and when we were being represented as being on the verge of that bankruptcy which I had said we should rush into if we continued to spend at our then existing rate and if we could not increase our then existing production. Already steps had been taken, when I spoke again in October, to secure great reductions in expenditure. Already the revival of industry was proceeding, and prospects were becoming more favourable, and they have continued to do since. It is very difficult to use language which always observes the exact mean, not merely for the candid student in his study, but for any audience whom you happen to-be addressing. If you say that things are doing fairly well, and that with patience, perseverance, and resolution we shall overcome our difficulties, and surprise the world once again by our recuperative force and our financial strength, people hurry away and make speculative purchases of stock. If, on the other hand, you say that, if people are reckless, if the course of trade revival is interrupted by interminable or critical trade disputes, if national finance is conducted recklessly, whether by Government or by Parliament, if public extravagance goes unchecked, then we shall be in serious danger—people go out and talk as if our bankruptcy were immediate, and as if no effort of ours could save us. The truth is that we can save ourselves by our own exertions steadily pursued, but there are no short cuts to removing the ravages of war, or getting back from the immense convulsions which five years of war have caused.

I am not now going to foreshadow my next Budget. We are getting too close to the time to prophesy, and we are still too far away from it for a precise statement. There is, however, just one observation that I should like to make. The hon. Member quoted me as saying last year that there would be no need for new taxation. I do not think he quoted the whole sentence, but I rose before I expected to, and therefore I have not looked it up. The House will remember, however, that I said there would be no need for new taxation unless further expenditure were incurred which was not then provided for, or unless the House wished, as it would be very desirable that it should, to make an earlier and a greater effort towards the redemption of debt. I merely refer to that because the statement was quoted baldly, as if I had promised that there would be no new taxation. On the contrary, I more than once repeated that new expenditure meant new taxation, and I still maintain that a larger Sinking Fund than that which I have included in my figures is very desirable for the credit of the country and the restoration of sound finance.

I have done my best to cover the observations made by the hon. Member. Time, patience, perseverance—those are the three main requisites for a happy issue from our present troubles. The danger, I think, would be great if people in this country were to get it into their heads that there was some single stroke of policy, which a really able Government could produce, which would wipe all our difficulties off the slate, and would allow everybody to slack through life for the rest of their days. That cannot be so. The world, I hope, will be a better world for the victory of the Allies in this great struggle. I hope that the lot of the masses and of the least paid among our community will be, by comparison, a better lot in the future than it has been in the past; but to think that the next ten years can be easy years for anyone is to think the impossible, and by dreaming of the impossible you distract attention from those remedies which are practicable and possible, and which ought to be daily and continuously applied.