between prices and wages, and between profiteers and Excess Profits tax-gatherers, which was to cause so much unrest and bitterness, which added so enormously to the cost of the war and the amount of debt that it left behind, which sowed the seeds of the after-war outburst with its feverish madness and of the subsequent collapse with its bankruptcies and disillusionments, which made it more profitable to squander than to save, which taught business men that economy in production was an irrelevant absurdity because the continuous rise in prices was certain to pour profits into their pockets if only they opened them wide enough, and taught the ignorant multitude to believe that producers, merchants and dealers were a set of ruthless extortioners who were wantonly flaying the skin off the nation in its need and off everybody else who had to buy goods. Mr. W. A. Orton in his very interesting work on Labour in Transition, in describing the workers' suspicions and apprehensions in the early years of the war, says that "by far the most potent factor of all was the question of the profits made by the armament firms; the suspicion—to quote an official report—'that while they (the workers) were called upon to be patriotic and refrain from using the strong
Page:Bankers and Credit (1924).pdf/63
