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262 Laissez-faire did through a couple of generations gradually assimilate the whole texture of British society, so that it has taken this World-War to overthrow the vested interests which grew up.

At present, it seems to me, we are thinking out our Reconstruction piecemeal, according to this and that detached ideal of the pre-War philanthropist—housing, temperance, industrial conciliation, and the rest of them. But if you build three hundred thousand new houses, and put them merely where they are 'wanted,' you may but be drifting again, though with heavier ballast.

In the War we have gradually risen to the conception of the single strategical command, and of the single economic control. Have you the courage for measures of like scope in regard to Peace, though more subtle and less executive, because they will deal with growth and not with destruction?