r 4

ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

and. a given volume of products would repre-sent but a portion of the human effort whichit represents now. In this case all standardsof “capacity” would be changed everywhere.But the fact that all things are -possible is noexcuse for talking foolishly.

It is true that in 1870 no man could havepredicted Germany’ s capacity in 1910. Wecannot expect to legislate for a generation ormore. The secular changes in man’s economiccondition and the liability of human forecast toerror are as likely to lead to mistake in onedirection as in another. We cannot as reason-able men do better than base our policy on theevidence we have and adapt it to the five or tenyears over which we may suppose ourselves tohave some measure of prevision; and we arenot at fault if we leave on one side the extremechances of human existence and of revolutionarychanges in the order of Nature or of man’srelations to her. The fact that we have noadequate knowledge of Germany’ s capacity topay over a long period of years is no justifica-tion (as I have heard some people claim thatit is) for the statement that she can pay tenthousand million pounds.

Why has the world been so credulous of theunveracities of politicians? If an explanationis needed, I attribute this particular credulityto the following influences in part.

In the first place, the vast expenditures of thewar, the inflation of prices, and the depreciationof currency, leading up to a complete instability