46 HOW TO PAY FOR THE WAR

Government. Meanwhile they should not reckonin calculations arising out of the Means Test oreligibility for old age pensions or the Capital Levy to be proposed below or the like.

The appropriate time for the ultimate releaseof the deposits will have arrived at the onset of thefirst post-war slump. For then the present positionwill be exactly reversed. Instead of demand beingin excess of supply, we shall have a capacity toproduce in excess of the current demand. Thus thesystem of deferment will be twice blessed; and willdo almost as much good hereafter in preventingdeflation and unemployment as it does now inpreventing inflation and the exhaustion of scarceresources. For it is exceedingly likely that a timewill come after the war when we shall be as anxiousto increase consumers' demand as we are now todecrease it. It is only sensible to put off privateexpenditure from the date when it cannot be usedto increase consumption to the date when it willbring into employment resources which otherwisewould run to waste.

If the deposits are released in these circum-stances, the system will be self-liquidating bothin terms of real resources and of finance. In termsof real resources it will be self-liquidating becausethe consumption will be met out of labour andproductive capacity which would otherwise run towaste. In terms of finance it will be self-liquidatingbecause it will avoid the necessity of raising otherloans to pay for unemployment or for publicworks and the like as a means of preventingunemployment.