52 AN BCONOMIST’S PROTEST: 1915—X 
State, and it is all the same whether it is acquired by taxation 
or by repudiation. How shall we borrow in the next war ? 
As no one will have any surplus income over mere necessaries, 
we shall not expect to be able to borrow, but we shall have got 
all we can in any case. 
We had fondly imagined that barbarians had to give a larger 
proportion of their time and energy to war than civilized people. 
Now we find that this is all a mistake. The barbarians, with 
their much smaller command over natural forces, were obliged 
to spend a very large part of their time and labour in providing 
themselves with the bare necessaries of life. On occasion they 
could put a large percentage of their total population in the 
battlefield for a short time, but they could not keep a large 
proportion continually engaged in warlike preparations. We can, 
because we have a much greater margin of power. Six great 
countries are at present just beginning to realize how easily an 
appreciable part of this margin may be diverted from its old 
employment of providing the comforts and refinements of life 
to the manufacture of munitions and other war services. ‘ Give 
him time,” says the Minister of Finance, “ and the taxpayer will 
be able to cut down his private expenditure so as to be able to 
meet the greater demands of the State.” It is perfectly true 
down to a certain limit, and that limit is simply the bare 
necessaries of life, which, with modern knowledge and appliances, 
can be provided with a very small proportion of the aggregate 
available labour. 
That man will permanently submit to having his definition 
changed to “ a munition-making animal *’ it is fortunately absurd 
to suppose ; the only difficulty is to foresee exactly what way out 
he will take. One thing is certain : the policy of bloated national 
armaments as “‘ insurance *’ (save the mark !) against war, and the 
policy of moderation in national armaments, are alike hopelessly 
discredited. Order cannot be maintained without force, it is true, 
but force must be economized, and the only way to economize it 
is for that large part of the world which desires peace and quiet 
to unite in maintaining sufficient force to defend itself against the 
small part which desires something else. The large part doubtless 
comprises more than four-fifths of the whole, but if it were only 
four-fifths it would be safe if it only devoted about a quarter of 
its possible maximum effort to defence when the other part was 
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