The war after the war

Front matter

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Foreword

FOR nearly three years Europe has been drenched with blood and rent with bitter strife. Millions of men have been killed or maimed : billions of dollars in property have gone up in smoke and ruin — all part of the mighty sacrifice laid on the Altar of the Great War.

This tragic tumult must inevitably subside. The smoke of battle will clear: the scarred fields will mantle again with springtime verdure: the fighting hosts will once more find their way to peaceful pursuit. Time the Healer will wipe out the wounds of war.

The world already wearies of the Crimson Canvas splashed with martial scene. Heroism has become the most commonplace of qualities : it takes a monster thrill to move a civilisation sick of destruction. With eager eye it looks forward to the era of regeneration. War ends some time.

Business never ceases. Under the shock of mighty upheaval it has been dislocated

Foreword by the most drastic strain ever put upon the economic fabric. But it will march on long after Peace will have mercifully sheathed the Sword. Therefore the permanent world problem is the Business problem.

This is why I made two trips to Europe: why I submit this little book in the hope that it may point the way to some realisation of the immense responsibilities which will inevitably crowd upon the world and more especially upon the United States.

Peace will be as great a shock as War. Hence the need of Preparedness to meet the inevitable conflict for Universal Trade. We — as a nation — are as unready for this emergency as we are to meet the clash of actual physical combat. Commercial Preparedness is as vital to the national well being as the Training for Arms.

Nor will Commerce be the only thing that we will have to reckon with. When you have heard the guns roar and watched horizons flame with fury and seen men go to their death smiling and unafraid; when the pitiless panorama of carnage has passed before you in terms of terror and tragedy, you realise that there is something human as

Foreword 9 well as economic in the relentless Thing called War.

It means that just as there was no compromise with dishonour in the approach to the Super-Struggle for which nations are pouring out their youth and fortune, so will there be no flinching in that coming contest for commercial mastery — the bloodless aftermath of History's deadliest and costliest war.

We have reached a place in the World Trade Sun. Unless we are ready to hold it we will slip into the Shadow.

We must prepare.

I. F. M.

The Man Lloyd George .

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