Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/202

 national consumption of commodities at any given moment is to be estimated, unless almost half the population is kept busy weighing, measuring and checking the consumption of themselves and the other half; and if so, what becomes of the theory that the labour of less than 10 per cent. will suffice to keep us all in a high state of comfort? And what is the total national production of credit, and who is to measure it and how?

As to how the system was to work by which goods were all to be sold below cost price, and the difference between prices realized and cost of production was to be made good by a draft on the national credit account, was another matter that cried aloud to be explained. Apparently, to take a concrete example, a bootmaker who made boots out of materials that cost him fifteen shillings a pair and with the help of labour that cost him five shillings a pair, would have to sell them for something less than a pound a pair and could get back the difference from the Treasury in the shape of a draft on the national credit account, whatever that may mean. He has thus made nothing out of the transaction, but has received with the assistance of the Treasury as much as he paid out. Is he expected to go on carrying on the business of a bootmaker for nothing to the extent of the