THE CAUSES OF UNREST.
WE have dealt with the issue in hand, the issue of preventing the country from starving, and with the need for making it clear for all time that no section of the people shall be-allowed to usurp the will of the majority and blackmail it into submission. But though this is the duty which lies nearest and must first be performed by the newspaper writer, we must look beyond and below our immediate dangers and difficulties. The foundation of our troubles, that which gives the temptation and opportunity for revolutionary action, that which causes the social and moral malaise of the country and makes revolution a possibility, is our economic disarray. What is troubling us, as it is troubling the whole world, is the change in values. That is the universal dissolvent. Men are granted nominal rises in wages which for the moment seem to satisfy them. They soon find, however, that these increases in pay are useless. As the price of their labour rises, so rises the price of almost all the things the labourer uses. The world of Labour is learning the great lesson that it is not by the nominal amount of wages that it can benefit. What men want is not a rise in money but a rise in the amount of food they can obtain for themselves and for their families, in the number of pairs of boots and suits of clothes procurable for them in the year—a rise, in fact, in the amount of all the material things they need for livelihood and enjoyment, for health and happiness. The diversion of human energy from the supply of the things mankind needs to pure destruction compelled a resort to borrowing, to paper money, and to high taxation, and this, coupled with a low production and the necessary increased demand which goes with an unsettled state of society, has altered and upset all values. Hence universal unrest. Worst of all, this upsetting of values impedes resort to the only remedy for the after effects of war— namely, increased production. We cannot get properly to work largely because our standard of values has so greatly altered. Men do not know how they stand or where they are economically. Therefore they fear to engage in that speculation, that looking to the trade of the future, which is as essential to plenty and prosperity as is peace.
Now that high wages and high prices have been established, it is very doubtful whether we shall be any better off for another violent reduction of prices, even though that would theoretically be a change for the better. It may be laid down, indeed, that almost any system or almost any standard of prices is a good one as long as we can maintain it and let things adjust themselves to it. The danger is not so much in the high figures as in the fluctuations which make looking ahead in business impossible, or at the very best a violent gamble. Steadiness in values is what we need as the pathway to that increased production which alone can remedy the material evils of the world. We are very near a solution of our material troubles through increased production if the world only knew it, and could only be induced to attend to its main duty of more work and less waste.
" Oh, for Heaven's sake stop theories and abstract reasoning, and tell us what we ought to do ! " That is what we are sure many of our readers will be saying. We agree. But remember that we shall not do wise things unless we first think wisely, and thinking wisely is very apt to be called indulgence in useless abstractions when people are alarmed. We will give our practical suggestion. What we want just now is a Government who will insist upon steadfastness, who will neither rock the boat themselves nor allow anybody else to rock it. If we could have our way, we should like to see done for the country what is often done with very good results in business. A firm gets into trouble, partly due to maladministration by the partners and partly from the force of circumstances. There are, however, plenty of assets, and any impartial man looking at the facts can see that with due care and the practice of strict economy for a few years, the business can be re-established on a thoroughly sound basis. In such circumstances if a committee of sensible men are consulted they will probably say : " Let the whole business f or the time be handed over to Trustees who will ruthlessly cut down all unnecessary expenditure. By thinking only of efficiency and economy they will be able to pull the business round and put it in a satisfactory condition. But while this operation is in process there must be no attempt at speculation, no launching out into new expenditure, or giving this or that partner more leisure or a larger share of dividends. For a fixed period, say four or five vears everybody concerned in the undertaking will have to work harder and spend less. It may be that the office and the chief factory ought to be rebuilt, central heating put in, and all sorts of other improvements carried out, but these will all have to wait." Following the analogy, if we could have our way, we should like to see a set of men installed as Ministers who would make it their business, not to carry out merely sensational forms of retrenchment, in which the chief thing desired is a personal triumph for this or that Minister or Party, but to prevent waste regardless of all external circumstances.
That the thing can be carried out on the lines we have suggested has been proved in the case not only of businesses but of nations. When we entered upon the military occupation of Egypt the country was in a condition both economically and socially which can only be described as appalling. Not only was Egypt burdened with a vast Debt, but the Army was in a state of mutiny and the Administration in ruins. Taxation was enormously high ; Alexandria, the chief commercial city, had been well-nigh destroyed by the insurgents ; and many of the muchboasted public works, such as the Barrage, were found to be worthless. A more hopeless situation than that which confronted Lord Cromer when he virtually took over the Government can hardly be imagined. He was exactly in the position of a trustee put in to try to bring a ruined business round. Yet, owing to the fact that he was given a free hand and that he was a wise and far-seeing man, he was able in a very few years to reach a state of equilibrium, and at the end of his fifteen years' work he left Egypt by far the most prosperous of Eastern countries, and for its size one of the most prosperous countries in the world.
Perhaps the most interesting thing in Lord Cronier's administration was that there was nothing new or sensational about it, no patent political contrivances or wonderful discoveries. The British Agent-General merely went on the sound principle that a country like a man must keep its word, pay its debts, and build up its credit. Above all, it must take nothing more from the pockets of the people by way of taxation than is absolutely necessary to maintain civilized conditions, keep order, and pay the interest on the National Debt.
Probably our plan of a Ministry of National Trustees appointed with the single policy of getting the nation financially straight again will be regarded as Utopian. Possibly it is. At the same time we feel sure that the suggestion is not without its use. It sets up a standard towards which we ought to work. For the next few years, the nearer the Government can assimilate themselves to a Government of Trustees, put in to re-establish the nation's business, the nearer they will be to the Administration which the circumstances of the case demand.
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