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ECONOMIC

RECONSTRUCTION

PRELIMINARY ESSAY

In writing the following pages I have endeavoured to continue the extension of the National System of Economics considered in my previous works, and to the best of my ability to place before my fellow-countrymen some real problems of reconstruction. I crave indulgence for any errors and omissions that may appear therein, as I have written them in moments spared from an active business life.

There is a pacifist and rank and file movement in this country which has imbibed in an extreme degree the doctrines of Bolshevism and Karl Marx. From want of a better understanding, the spread of these doctrines has created an unsettled feeling in the minds of a certain class of workers. These men have been taught to believe that there is no difference between Kaiserism and democracy so long as Capitalism exists, which they consider to be their greatest enemy; but which in reality is their greatest

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friend if considered in true perspective. I have therefore in the following pages endeavoured to supply a definition of capital and other matters of kindred interest, in the hope that it may help them to pursue a rational and progressive line of thought.

Whilst I recognise there must be a certain anxiety as regards the future on the part of the workmen, such as, for instance, unemployment and oppression of taxation, problems of this kind that may arise for consideration can only be overcome by all sections of society working harmoniously to this end during and after the war. And the following pages have been written with a view to assisting in this course.

In peace as in war, however, we must abandon ourselves to wise and beneficent leadership if our inheritance of Liberty, Freedom, and Justice is to be effectively preserved for our children.

Democracy has not yet found that system of Government which can give shape and form to the great ideals which it nurtures. It is too prone to indulge in the delegate theory or Laissezfaire form of Government, forgetting all the while that there is such a thing as Art rule, in being led by men of genius in conformity with certain agreed principles, who can give to the people more than they already possess, who

can see

"disorder and confusion where, very

often, the ordinary person imagines everything to be admirably arranged," who can "value and interpret things for us and put a meaning into reality which, without them, democracy would never possess." The democratic system of Government, as we have experienced it, requires to be thoroughly re-examined; and if anything I have suggested in the following pages will assist to that end, I shall have been amply repaid for the time devoted to the subject.

As I state on p. 215, a free democracy satiated with the doctrines of Laissez-faire and the theories of Karl Marx can impose worse tyrannies than any autocracy can impose. I am, of course, deliberately attacking the whole school of Laissezfaire because I believe with Colwell that the extent to which Governments have gone, and must necessarily go, in protecting and promoting industry, clearly contradicts the idea that men and business should be allowed to go their separate ways without regard to the general welfare of society as a whole. There must be laid down for general guidance certain principles which should "run through and be the foundation of the laws of the nation," but subject to which each man may then " pursue his own interests in his own way." I quite realise that I may again be the object of counter-attacks by the scholastic professors of Laissez-faire. But in

defence I need only refer my readers to one of the many brilliant thoughts contained in Bacon's Novum Organum, p. 279:

"But for the treatises upon this subject which have no tincture of experience, and are only drawn from general and scholastic knowledge, they commonly prove empty and useless performances; for though a bystander may sometimes see what escaped the player, and although it be a kind of proverb, more bold than true with regard to prince and people, that a spectator in the valley takes the best view of a mountain,' yet it were greatly to be wished that none but the most experienced would write upon subjects of this kind; for the contemplations of speculative men in active matters appear no better to those who have been conversant in business than the dissertations of Phormio upon War appeared to Hannibal, who esteemed them but as dreams and dotage."

The fact that moral considerations are expressly excluded from the science of Laissezfaire may go far to explain the extremely bitter controversies that have existed between management and labour in the past in this country. That such a science should have been taught in our public schools and universities will one day be regarded as among the intellectual and moral shortcomings of our age.

In saying this, however, I do not wish it to be assumed that I have no respect for the opinions of those whose business it is to develop the theory of the science. Far from it. I recognise that theoretical knowledge is as essential to society as practical knowledge. But there are many theorists who go too far with their theoretical reasonings, and who unconsciously in my opinion do far more harm than good to our national prosperity and well-being. The old saying that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory has never been so fully demonstrated, in so far as the science of Economics is concerned, as it has in the course of the present war.

The great error made by the professors of Laissez-faire is in developing economic science as a science of wealth and not as a science of production and distribution; it is here that men of theory and practice intellectually take their point of departure.

Now I contend that if these professors were accustomed to think clearly and accurately the public-and it has a certain instinct in such matters-would insist upon electing the best of them to the most prominent positions in the Government. But what happens? The popular cry is for practical men-for the men who have mastered the science of production and distribution. But when we stop to think, is not this

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