War-time financial problems

DIFFICULTIES AHEAD 183

widely-spread demand for their products. But in
many industries there will necessarily be a good deal
of doubt as to the kind of article which the con-
suming public at home and abroad is likely to want.
There will be the great difficulty of sorting out the
right kind of labour, of obtaining the necessary raw
materials, and of getting the necessary credit and *
capital.

That this huge problem can be solved, and solved
so well that the country can go ahead to a great
period of increased productivity and prosperity,
I fully believe; but this can only be done if it is
able to command the most efficient co-operation of
all the various factors in production—if employers
put their best brains and if workers put their best
energy into the business, and if everything is done
to make the whole machinery work with the utmost
possible smoothness. One element in the machinery,
and a highly important one, is the question of capital,
During the war the citizens of this country have
been trained to save and to put their money at the
disposal of the Government with a success which
could hardly have been expected when the war
began. Whether they will continue to exercise the
same self-denial when the war is over is a very open
question. At any rate, there can be no doubt that
there will be a tendency among a very large number
of people who have answered the appeal to save
money for the war to listen with considerable
indifference to any appeals that may be made to
them to save money in order to provide industry
with capital All the capital that industry can get,