The World in Chains Part 5

[Footnote 48: Since this chapter was written I have seen a pamphlet with the following t.i.tle: "The Chance for British Firms in the Rebuilding of Belgium, by a Belgian Contractor. London, Technical Journals, Limited, 27-29 Tothill Street, Westminster."]

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The Luxury Trades don't do so badly

The most obvious if not the only exception to our tale of war profits is to be found in the case of the parasitic industries which specialise in the production of the unnecessary. It is not easy rigidly to define the luxury trade, for the luxury of one generation is the necessity of the next; but it is enough to suggest a broad idea of the industries that fall under this heading. "The income-tax a.s.sessments show," says _The Times_,[50] speaking of Berlin after nine months of war, "that among the trades which have suffered most are fruiterers, breweries, public-houses, bars, cafes, chemists and perfumers, goldsmiths and silversmiths, jewellers, milliners, furniture and piano dealers, and music and booksellers. Landowners, land speculators, builders and the carrying trade have also suffered." We may also notice that in the early months of the war Florence, the great market of the shoddy "souvenir"

and the "tourist's delight," suffered a good deal more than London, although Italy still remained neutral. In London itself a good example of the parasitic industry are the firms which make ingeniously useless silver toys for rich people to give each other at Christmas.[51]

Many such industries may indeed have suffered in England, although many of the trades mentioned in the Berlin list have not been affected in London, and at least two of them have made conspicuous profits. But in any case it is probable that they suffered if at all only during the first period of the war, when the general feeling of strangeness and insecurity was strong enough to inhibit the shopping instinct of the wealthier cla.s.ses. As soon as these became accustomed to the state of war they reverted with even greater energy to their old pastime of spending money: and meanwhile the luxury trades had acquired an entirely new set of customers, for a large part of the profits acc.u.mulated in other trades were now being spent by a newly enriched cla.s.s who were unaccustomed to save, for the simple reason that they had never before been in a position to do so. Consequently the luxury trades after a year of war had not only recouped their temporary losses but were doing a bigger business than ever. The natural adaptability of the trades which pander to fashion must also be taken into account. A number of them after the first panic recaptured the failing demand by advertising very simple modifications of their ordinary supply. Some, for instance, turned to the manufacture of equally plausible superfluities of military equipment--such as silver and gold ident.i.ty disks and watches with luminous dials and queer little hieroglyphs in place of the ordinary figures. Trades already so well organised for exploitation could easily defeat any general attempt at social economy. Thus for women of the upper middle cla.s.s the most obvious form of war economy was to carry on with only a slight alteration of last year's dresses; and such was their declared intention when their hands were forced by the Dressmakers'

revolutionary change in the fashion which subst.i.tuted the full skirt for the tight skirt of 1913-14. The extraordinary ingenuity of this move was, not only that it thwarted any good intention of not buying a new dress this year, it being manifestly impossible to "alter" a tight skirt into a crinoline, but also that the extra cloth required for the unusually full skirts more than compensated the trade for the continued abstention of a few unfashionable obstinates, as well as for the extra cost of labour.[52]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: One Jewish contractor supplied corn and fodder to all three armies. As soon as his Turkish customers had capitulated, he tendered for the supply of the victorious Greeks, and he still had enough to spare for the Bulgarians when they entered the town.]

[Footnote 50: May 17, 1915.]

[Footnote 51: Such "labour-saving devices," for instance, as "poached egg servers."]

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Trade Profits in war not shared by the Nation but confined to Employers

The trade profits which are thus directly stimulated by the conditions of war, do not imply the prosperity of the Trade as a whole, if a Trade is understood to mean a certain section of the nation including in a sort of guild or hierarchy representatives of every cla.s.s engaged in a particular Trade. They do imply the prosperity of a particular cla.s.s, for they are all employers' profits, profits on the capital involved.

Unfortunately the profits of the Capitalists do not involve the profits of the Labourers, and cannot therefore be tested by statistics of unemployment. But of course the fluctuations of unemployment do very materially affect the opportunities of Trade, and it might reasonably be argued that the apparent profits created by War are really modified by the conditions of the Labour market or otherwise equitably distributed among the general population. Unfortunately it is quite easy to show that the one policy of employers during the present war has been to maintain their profits without any concern for the general population, and that the effect of war has been to increase the profits of Capital not only by increasing the demand but also by making the Employers increasingly independent of the labourers' claims.

At the beginning of War the Employer, on the grounds of general insecurity and "not knowing what was going to happen next," cut down wages and raised the cry of "Business as Usual"; which meant that business was so much better than usual that he was afraid it could not possibly last. So he cut down wages, laughed at buyers who offered him the usual prices, and charged 48 a ton for hides and 6s. 10d. for a yard of cloth that usually cost half a crown. If the private buyer would not pay his prices the Government would. It was indeed too good to last, for such prosperity became impossible to conceal:[53] it also reduced the margin of unemployment on which he had always depended, and he soon found himself obliged to return to the normal rate of wages which he had paid before the war. He was disappointed to find that "Business as Usual" meant wages as usual, but he struggled on, imploring the a.s.sistance of the Government in order to "capture Germany's Trade."

Worse was to follow: after nine months of war recruiting for the army had begun in earnest, and "there was on the whole less unemployment in Great Britain than at any previous moment in the present century."[54]

But he was determined to "carry on," and for the sake of the Government introduced child labour into his workshops.[55] Meanwhile, however, the cost of living was steadily rising, and after a year of war, and of profits, the labourers' demand for an increase of wages could not be altogether ignored. The employer decided to carry the war into the enemy's country. The nation must hang together, he said, and all work was practically national work. So he boldly accused his workmen of lack of patriotism, and roundly declared that "but for the trade unions the war would probably have been over by this time, with a victory for the Allies.... Organised labour is the rotten limb of the body politic, which must be cut off if health is to be restored to the system."[56] It was hard work, but in spite of the shortage of labour and in spite of the rise in the cost of living, he managed to hold wages down by repeating that any demand for a rise in wages was unpatriotic.[57] One by one, on the plea of urgent Government work, he obtained the suspension of all Trade Union rules and thus deprived his workmen of even the natural rights of negotiation; and when after fifteen months of war they again ventured to raise their voices on the Clyde, he openly accused them of being paid by German agitators.[58] On the whole therefore he has been extraordinarily successful in keeping his profits to himself, and as the present demand is likely to continue for some time after the war, his chief anxiety at present is to maintain after the war the compulsory relaxation of Trade Union rules which nothing less than war could accomplish. The slight danger that a prolonged war may kill off a considerable part of his margin of unemployment is more than balanced by his successful introduction of women's labour: and he means that War, in addition to the actual profits of his Trade, shall give him the enormous potential advantage of having broken the Trade Unions.[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 52: As a matter of fact, nearly all the luxury trades cut down their scale of wages during the first year of the war; and many of these ostentatiously gave to some War Charity a fraction of the sum thus extracted from their employees. I suppose it would be libellous to give examples.]

[Footnote 53: Though frantic attempts to conceal it have been made since the Tax on War Profits was introduced.]

[Footnote 54: The _New Statesman_, May 22, 1915.]

[Footnote 55: See above, p. 47, note 4. Some illuminating details are given in the _Nation_, May 22, 1915, concerning the unscrupulous plea of Government work in order to excuse the employment of children.]

[Footnote 56: The _Sat.u.r.day Review_, September 18, 1915.]

[Footnote 57: "The shortage" too was a permanent excuse just as good for holding prices up as for holding wages down. Cf. a correspondent in _The Times_, May 17, 1916: "This position of affairs makes one doubt if the shortage in these articles (bottles, jars, tins, boxes, etc.) is as stated, or that the shortage pays better and the various trades do not wish the tension to be in any way relieved."]

[Footnote 58: I hope it will not soon be forgotten that _Punch_ was not ashamed to endorse this charge.]

[Footnote 59: Cf. Mr. Emil Davies in the _New Statesman_, April 8, 1916: "My impression is that the annoyance of Clyde manufacturers at the present labour troubles is not wholly free from a certain grim satisfaction. They are not anxious to see carried out the pledge that shop conditions should go back to the pre-war basis, and, they argue, if the men are discredited with the public, it will be all to the good of the employers in the big industrial struggle they look upon as inevitable after the war. They regard this struggle without anxiety and are acc.u.mulating funds; some of them talk of special funds being created for the purpose by the employers in a.s.sociation. These are the impressions gained from conversations with prominent members of the Glasgow business world."]

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Trade Profit and National Loss

It need not therefore be supposed that the War Profits, of which there is such abundant evidence, conflict at all with Mr. Norman Angell's contention[60] that all modern war, even if the military operations end in a military success, is futile and unprofitable from the national point of view. The general truth seems to be that War, whether it be apparently victorious or apparently unsuccessful, is always profitable for a small commercial cla.s.s in each belligerent nation.[61]

Unfortunately the profits thus earned by the economic effects of war are not diffused vertically throughout the whole nation from top to bottom, but rather horizontally along a shallow commercial stratum in every nation. In every nation war diminishes the national wealth, but concentrates the residue with greater inequality in one particular cla.s.s. The representative of this cla.s.s, commonly called the Capitalist, is the real cosmopolitan, because his interests in each belligerent nation are identical, and the war, successful or not, contributes to his financial advantage. It is an illuminating coincidence that the cla.s.ses in every nation which most enthusiastically demand the violent prosecution of the war seem to be proportionately anxious to annul the hardly-won privileges of democracy. Thus the _Sat.u.r.day Review_, in a pa.s.sage already quoted, solemnly, openly and unforgettably declares the secret wishes of the militarists; and we may be surprised to consider how many safeguards of democracy, how many rights of free thought and free speech, how many of the precarious limitations of sweating and child-labour and wage-slavery have been quietly suppressed since the beginning of the war. But if war is ultimately unprofitable for the nation as a whole, it might be argued that Trade itself must ultimately be involved in the national loss. The answer is that even if the Trader's interests were identical with those of the nation and were ultimately bound to suffer with the nation as a whole, he would undoubtedly ignore the possibility of a loss so much remoter than his immediate and obvious profits; especially as he is certainly ignorant of the economic fact that in modern times military victory and military defeat are equally unprofitable, and if he ever did pause to consider the results for the whole nation he would certainly, perhaps in good faith, identify the national interest with his own, and a.s.sume, for psychological rather than economic reasons, that his own interests demanded a military victory; real ignorance and emotional excitement sufficing to explain his apparently hypocritical professions of patriotism. As a matter of fact however his private interests are not dependent on those of the whole nation; for commercial wealth is not the same as national wealth, and prosperous Trade is quite consistent with national unhappiness. The average citizen of Switzerland is more contented than the average citizen of any of the great commercial powers of the world; and some of the causes that make for commercial prosperity, causes of which War is not the least effective, actually decrease the civic efficiency of the greater number of the population, and reduce their chances of happiness. "If an expanding trade," writes Mr. R. B. Cunninghame Graham,[62] "is the sure sign of national happiness clearly the four countries, the figures of whose trade are tabulated (Chile, Peru, Brazil and Argentine) should be amongst the happiest in the world. Yet still a doubt creeps in whether expanding Trade is the sure test of happiness; for recently I have revisited some of the countries of the River Plate that I knew thirty years ago, and it appears to me that they were happier then. True, they were not so rich.... Wealth has increased, but so has poverty...."

War is an artificial process for accelerating that concentration of wealth in the hands of a small cla.s.s which distinguishes the present unholy stage of political development.[63]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: _The Great Illusion, pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 61: This is not necessarily inconsistent with H. N.

Brailsford's similar remark (_The War of Steel and Gold_, p. 163): "War is a folly from the standpoint of national self-interest; it may none the less be perfectly rational from the standpoint of a small but powerful governing cla.s.s."]

[Footnote 62: Reviewing a work on South America in _The Nation_, November 6, 1915.]

[Footnote 63: This process is further accelerated by the fact that the War is being paid for very largely by means of Loans, subscribed naturally by the richer cla.s.ses; in future the richer cla.s.ses will be receiving the interest on these loans. But in order to pay this interest the State will have to resort to taxation, some part of which will fall presumably on the poor. See Professor Pigou's _Economy and Finance of the War_.]

CHAPTER IV

Candide etait etendu dans la rue et couvert de debris. Il disait a Pangloss: Helas! procure-moi un pen de vin et d'huile; je me meurs.

Ce tremblement de terre n'est pas une chose nouvelle, repondit Pangloss; la ville de Lima eprouva les memes secousses en Amerique l'annee pa.s.see; memes causes, memes effets: il y a certainement une trainee de souphre sous terre depuis Lima jusqu'a Lisbonne. Rien n'est plus probable, dit Candide; mais, pour Dieu, un peu d'huile et de vin. Comment, probable? repliqua le philosophe; je soutiens que la chose est demontree.

Candide perdit connaissance, ... et Pangloss lui apporta un peu d'eau d'une fontaine voisine.

VOLTAIRE, _Candide_.

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Dialectics round the Death-bed

Philosophical aloofness is all very well in its way, but while we argue about economic causes and attempt to induce a philosophy of earthquakes, our bright young democracy lies bleeding under the ruins. The urgent necessity is a little first aid, a little cessation of the killing. I don't know how many young men in different parts of the world have been deliberately and scientifically murdered during the writing of this protest. England alone, who has been criticised for her delay in exposing her youth to the slaughter, is having about half a million of her best citizens stabbed or pierced or crushed or mutilated or poisoned or torn to pieces in one year[64] of modern warfare. And life is not the only instrument of vital progress that is being thrown away. Britannia has beaten her trident into a shovel, and with it is shovelling gold; and not only gold, but youth and love and happiness into the deep sea.

The belligerent nations are frantically engaged in destroying two thousand years of education and all the acc.u.mulated capital of humanity.

Only the enemies of civilisation, the sellers of arms and the sowers of hatred, are growing rich on its ruins. It is impossible to deny that the longer the war continues the greater will be the subsequent sufferings, spiritual and material, of every nation engaged. It is impossible to maintain that any nation or cla.s.s or individual will be any better in any respect for the Great War, with the single exception of that parasitic cla.s.s who, as a cla.s.s, and therefore perhaps not consciously, are chiefly responsible for its inception. We must have Peace first and congresses afterwards. The survivors of civilisation cannot discuss a lasting settlement while they are still under fire.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 64: The total British casualties from the beginning of the war till July 18, 1915, were given as 321,889, of whom 61,384 were killed.]

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