Page:The Great problems of British statesmanship.djvu/30

10 It led to a series of wars in the course of which the Treaty of Vienna was torn to pieces.

The great international questions mentioned will not be definitively solved at the Peace Congress. They will occupy the nations during many ensuing decades. However, during the period immediately following the peace the problems of foreign policy will probably be overshadowed by economic problems and by questions of domestic policy. The gigantic War has created huge national debts and has destroyed incalculable values. The British War debt seems likely to amount to at least £5,000,000,000. It seems questionable whether the British people will receive any compensation from their opponents, for the devastated countries, Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Roumania, France, and Russia, have the first claim upon German indemnities. It may also happen that Britain's allies will not be able to repay the bulk of the sums advanced to them. The experience of the Napoleonic wars, when England financed the Allies, may repeat itself.

British taxation has been trebled in the course of the War, and trebled taxation may continue indefinitely. The vast war expenditures incurred may, however, not ruin Great Britain. I have shown in two lengthy chapters devoted to the economic problems that the War, far from impoverishing the country, may greatly enrich it. The twenty years' war against Republican and Napoleonic France created a gigantic burden of debt. It led to the trebling of taxation. The vast increase in taxation stimulated the latent energies of the nation. I have shown that Great Britain's industrial prosperity arose during and after the Great War, and was caused chiefly by the vastly increased demands of the tax-collector. I have further shown by most interesting and important statistics that the American workers engaged in manufacturing, mining, transport, agriculture, &c., produce per head about three times as much as their English colleagues because they employ better and three times as powerful machinery and possess a better