PART V

THE FUTURE

359

which ensue relate to not more than "j\ percent of the national income; we are muddlingaway one and sixpence in the £, and have only18s. 6d., when we might, if we were moresensible, have ^1; yet, nevertheless, the 18s. 6d.mounts up to as much as the £1 would havebeen five or six years ago. We forget that in1929 the physical output of the industry ofGreat Britain was greater than ever before, andthat the net surplus of our foreign balance avail-able for new foreign investment, after payingfor all our imports, was greater last year thanthat of any other country, being indeed 50 percent greater than the corresponding surplus ofthe United States . Or again—if it is to be amatter of comparisons—suppose that we wereto reduce our wages by a half, repudiate four-fifths of the national debt, and hoard our sur-plus wealth in barren gold instead of lending itat 6 per cent or more, we should resemble thenow much-envied France . But would it be animprovement?

The prevailing world depression, the enor-mous anomaly of unemployment in a world fullof wants, the disastrous mistakes we have made,blind us to what is going on under the surface—to the true interpretation of the trend of things.For I predict that both of the two opposederrors of pessimism which now make so muchnoise in the world will be proved wrong in ourown time—the pessimism of the revolutionarieswho think that things are so bad that nothingcan save us but violent change, and the pessim-