meant sacrifice, and if we, as a people, had had wit to understand, as we had, I believe, the courage and the will to face the sacrifice demanded, then the whole story of our war finance would have been very different.
A real statesman in charge of the war finance of an ideal people would have seen, and seen that the people saw, that, apart from what might be done by borrowing abroad, it could only win the war by its own efforts in producing more and consuming less, so that the goods needed to maintain and equip the fighters might be provided; that industrial effort on the one hand and abstinence in consumption on the other were essentials to success; that what was needed for the fighters must be taken from the citizens, and that the simplest, cheapest and fairest way of doing this was by taxation, so that for every pound spent on the fighters there should be a pound less in the pocket of a civilian. For the devious devices and dodges of borrowing and currency creation do not make the sacrifice a whit less. The fact still remains that whatever the fighters consume the civilians have to go without, always excepting what can be done by borrowing abroad and selling securities and other assets to foreigners. A Government and a
