238 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE ch.

large, but not beyond what firm and prudent states-manship could bridge. The shortening of the hoursof labour may have somewhat diminished our pro-ductivity. But it should not be too much to hopethat this is a feature of transition, and no one whois acquainted with the British working man candoubt that, if it suits him, and if he is in sympathyand reasonable contentment with the conditions ofhis life, he can produce at least as much in a shorterworking day as he did in the longer hours which• prevailed formerly. The most serious problems forEngland have been brought to a head by the war,but are in their origins more fundamental. Theforces of the nineteenth century have run theircourse and are exhausted. The economic motivesand ideals of that generation no longer satisfy us:we must find a new way and must suffer again themalaise, and finally the pangs, of a new industrialbirth. This is one element. The other is that onwhich I have enlarged in Chapter II. ;—the increasein the real cost of food and the diminishingresponse of Nature to any further increase inthe population of the world, a tendency whichmust be especially injurious to the greatest of allindustrial countries and the most dependent onimported supplies of food.

But these secular problems are such as no age isfree from. They are of an altogether different orderfrom those which may afflict the peoples of Central