I have often wished that (if only for an afternoon)
I might move, like Mr. Compton Mackenzie, in financial circles that stand to gain from war. There are many good people who have been so anxious not to gain from war that they have sold any shareholdings they possessed in the big armament firms. One sensible old lady of my acquaintance has found her conscience quieted by the performance of her Vickers shares during recent months. In the piping days of 1937 she could have sold them at more than thirty shillings. During the September crisis their quotation collapsed to seventeen and sixpence. After Munich they rose three shillings in a week. If it were true, as the American isola- tionists believe, that such concerns as Vickers employ agents to foment European strife, the shareholders would have good reason to quarrel with the directors. It was one of the most tiresome features of that tiresome play Idiot's Delight that it depended upon this preposterous Transatlantic legend. In real life, the armament manufacturers, having great possessions, rank among the foremost of the Munichois.
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