Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/199

 asked the Major to lunch and spent some very pleasant and interesting hours with him, at the end of which there had been no deflation in my bewilderment. I knew that this was probably my fault, and I was really cheered when Mr. Kitson, having first stated that the problem of unemployment "when properly understood is so simple that the average schoolboy ought to be able to furnish a satisfactory answer," went on to the Douglas scheme as a solution. For it seemed safe to suppose that if the matter was really as simple as it seemed to Mr. Kitson, he would be able to translate the Douglas scheme into something that an ordinary intelligence could grasp. And as he went along in his leisurely discursive manner he certainly let fall by the way some most encouraging gems of assertion, as for instance (on page 33) when he said that "even to-day the labour of less than 10 per cent. of the population will readily suffice to maintain the entire inhabitants of this country in a high state of comfort." But it is when he begins to summarize Major Douglas that the prospect really begins to dazzle (page 55): "The potential wealth of this country is far beyond the dreams of avarice, and under a system of co-operation and goodwill everyone might by contributing a trifling amount of labour, receive a share of all the