156 ESSAYS IN PERSUASION part

such a muddle. But we are not inefficient, weare not poor, we are not living on our capital.Quite the contrary. Our labour and our plantare enormously more productive than they usedto be. Our national income is going up quitequickly. That is how we do it.

Let me give you a few figures. As comparedwith so recent a date as 1924, our productiveoutput per head has probably increased by 10per cent. That is to say, we can produce thesame amount of wealth with ro per cent fewermen employed. As compared with pre-war theincrease in output per head is probably as muchas 20 per cent. Apart from changes in the valueof money, the national income—even so recentlyas 1929 with a great mass of unemployment(it cannot, of course, be quite so good to-day)—was probably increasing by as much as£ 100,000,000 a year; and this has been goingon year by year for a good many years. At thesame time we have been quietly carrying throughalmost a revolution in the distribution of in-comes in the direction of equality.

Be confident, therefore, that we are sufferingfrom the growing pains of youth, not from therheumatics of old age. We are failing to makefull use of our opportunities, failing to find anoutlet for the great increase in our productivepowers and our productive energy. Thereforewe must not draw in our horns; we must pushthem out. Activity and boldness and enter-prise, both individually and nationally, must bethe cure.