: The Blizzard in the West Being as Record and Story of the Disastrous Storm which Raged Throughout Devon and Cornwall and West Somerset On the Night of March 9th 1891 by Unknown - Cornwall (England : County) History; Blizzards England Cornwall (County) His

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I OUR DAILY BREAD 3

II THE OLD ECONOMY AND THE POST-WAR STATE 61

V PATRIOTISM AND POWER IN WAR AND PEACE: THE SOCIAL OUTCOME 142

VI THE ALTERNATIVE RISKS OF STATUS AND CONTRACT 169

ADDENDUM: SOME NOTES ON 'THE GREAT ILLUSION' AND ITS PRESENT RELEVANCE 253

SYNOPSIS

OUR DAILY BREAD

An examination of the present conditions in Europe shows that much of its dense population cannot live at a standard necessary for civilisation except by certain co-operative processes which must be carried on largely across frontiers. The present distress is not mainly the result of the physical destruction of war . The Continent as a whole has the same soil and natural resources and technical knowledge as when it fed its populations. The causes of its present failure at self-support are moral: economic paralysis following political disintegration, 'Balkanisation'; that, in its turn, due to certain passions and prepossessions.

A corresponding phenomenon is revealed within each national society: a decline of production due to certain moral disorders, mainly in the political field; to 'unrest,' a greater cleavage between groups, rendering the indispensable co-operation less effective.

The necessary co-operation, whether as between nations or groups within each nation, cannot be compelled by physical coercion, though disruptive forces inseparable from the use of coercion can paralyse co-operation. Allied preponderance of power over Germany does not suffice to obtain indemnities, or even coal in the quantities demanded by the Treaty. The output of the workers in Great Britain would not necessarily be improved by adding to the army or police force. As interdependence increases, the limits of coercion are narrowed. Enemies that are to pay large indemnities must be permitted actively to develop their economic life and power; they are then so potentially strong that enforcement of the demands becomes correspondingly expensive and uncertain. Knowledge and organisation acquired by workers for the purposes of their labour can be used to resist oppression. Railwaymen or miners driven to work by force would still find means of resistance. A proletarian dictatorship cannot coerce the production of food by an unwilling peasantry. The processes by which wealth is produced have, by increasing complexity, become of a kind which can only be maintained if there be present a large measure of voluntary acquiescence, which means, in its turn, confidence. The need for that is only made the more imperative by the conditions which have followed the virtual suspension of the gold standard in all the belligerent States of Europe, the collapse of the exchanges and other manifestations of instability of the currencies.

European statesmanship, as revealed in the Treaty of Versailles, and in the conduct of international affairs since the Armistice, has recognised neither the fact of interdependence--the need for the economic unity of Europe--nor the futility of attempted coercion. Certain political ideas and passions give us an unworkable Europe. What is their nature? How have they arisen? How can they be corrected? These questions are part of the problem of sustenance; which is the first indispensable of civilisation.

THE OLD ECONOMY AND THE POST-WAR STATE

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