VI

EUROPE AFTER THE TREATY

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side of destruction, and does it in a manner whichnot one man in a million is able to diagnose.

In the latter stages of the war all the belligerentgovernments practised, from necessity or incompetence,what a Bolshevist might have done from design.Even now, when the war is over, most of them con-tinue out of weakness the same malpractices. Butfurther, the Governments of Europe , being many ofthem at this moment reckless in their methods aswell as weak, seek to direct on to a class known as" profiteers" the popular indignation against themore obvious consequences of their vicious methods.These " profiteers " are, broadly speaking, the entre-preneur class of capitalists, that is to say, the activeand constructive element in the whole capitalistsociety, who in a period of rapidly rising pricescannot but get rich quick whether they wish itor desire it or not. If prices are continually rising,every trader who has purchased for stock or ownsproperty and plant inevitably makes profits. Bydirecting hatred against this class, therefore, theEuropean Governments are carrying a step furtherthe fatal process which the subtle mind of Lenin had consciously conceived. The profiteers are aconsequence and not a cause of rising prices. Bycombining a popular hatred of the class of entre-preneurs with the blow already given to socialsecurity by the violent and arbitrary disturbanceof contract and of the established equilibrium of