ESSAYS IN PERSUASION

PART

I36

deceived. But to-day we have involved our-selves in a colossal muddle, having blunderedin the control of a delicate machine, the workingof which we do not understand. The result isthat our possibilities of wealth may run to wastefor a time—perhaps for a long time.

I doubt whether I can hope to bring what isin my mind into fully effective touch with themind of the reader. I shall be saying too muchfor the layman, too little for the expert. For—though no one will believe it—economics is atechnical and difficult subject. It is even be-coming a science. However, I will do my best—at the cost of leaving out, because it is toocomplicated, much that is necessary to a com-plete understanding of contemporary events.

First of all, the extreme violence of the slumpis to be noticed. In the three leading industrialcountries of the world—the United States ,Great Britain, and Germany —10,000,000workers stand idle. There is scarcely animportant industry anywhere earning enoughprofit to make it expand—which is the test ofprogress. At the same time, in the countriesof primary production the output of mining andof agriculture is selling, in the case of almostevery important commodity, at a price which,for many or for the majority of producers, doesnot cover its cost. In 1921, when prices fellas heavily, the fall was from a boom level atwhich producers were making abnormal profits;and there is no example in modern history of sogreat and rapid a fall of prices from a normal