lest the cake be after all consumed, prematurely, inwar, the consumer of all such hopes.
But these thoughts lead too far from my presentpurpose. I seek only to point out that the principleof accumulation based on inequality was a vital partof the pre-war order of Society and of progress aswe then understood it, and to emphasise that thisprinciple depended on unstable psychological con-ditions, which it may be impossible to re-create. Itwas not natural for a population, of whom so fewenjoyed the comforts of life, to accumulate so hugely.The war has disclosed the possibility of consumptionto all and the vanity of abstinence to many. Thusthe bluff is discovered; the labouring classes maybe no longer willing to forgo so largely, and thecapitalist classes, no longer confident of the future,may seek to enjoy more fully their liberties of con-sumption so long as they last, and thus precipitatethe hour of their confiscation.
IV. Tlie Relation of the Old World to the New
The accumulative habits of Europe before the warwere the necessary condition of the greatest of theexternal factors which maintained the European equipoise.
Of the surplus capital goods accumulated byEurope a substantial part was exported abroad,where its investment made possible the developmentof the new resources of food, materials, and trans-