OUTPUT CAPACITY AND NATIONAL INCOME 19

still in the Age of Plenty. It means that the Ageof Scarcity has arrived before the whole of theavailable labour has been absorbed. I am notsaying that our output cannot be increased beyondits present level. Surely it can and must be soincreased as our organisation improves. But weare already making all we know how. We haveto learn how to make more; and that takes time.

Our ability, for the time being, to draw on stocksis another factor which is obscuring from our eyesthe transition to the Age of Scarcity. There canbe little doubt that during the first months ofwar our rate of private consumption has exceededour surplus of production on a scale which cannotbe continued indefinitely. Government demandhas been greatly increased. There is no reasonto suppose that private consumption has beensufficiently diminished. It is by drawing on ourstocks of commodities and foreign resources andon our working capital that the deficiency hasbeen met. The task of adjusting private expend-iture to the supply which will be available is, there-fore, more urgent than appears on the surface.It is not true that we can postpone action untilafter full employment has been reached.

The magnitude of the problem is now stated.The reader will appreciate that there is unavoid-able guess work and crude approximation in thefigures which I have given. If anyone knowsbetter, his criticism will be welcome. But Ibelieve that the size of the result is roughly rightand that more accurate details would not changethe broad outline of the picture.