EDITOR’S PREFACE 
instance toward the actual preparation of the history. Without 
documents there can be no history. The essential records of the 
War, local as well as central, have therefore to be preserved and to 
be made available for research in so far as is compatible with public 
interest. But this archival task is a very great one, belonging of 
right to the governments and other owners of historical sources 
and not to the historian or economist who proposes to use them. 
It is an obligation of ownership ; for all such documents are public 
trust. The collaborators on this section of the war history, there- 
fore, working within their own field as researchers, could only 
survey the situation as they found it and report their findings in 
the form of guides or manuals; and perhaps, by stimulating 
a comparison of methods, help to further the adoption of those 
found to be most practical. In every country, therefore, this was 
the point of departure for actual work ; although special mono- 
graphs have not been written in every instance. 
This first stage of the work upon the war history, dealing with 
little more than the externals of archives, seemed for a while to 
exhaust the possibilities of research. And had the plan of the 
history been limited to research based upon official documents 
little more could have been done, for once documents have been 
labelled © secret’ few government officials can be found with 
sufficient courage or initiative to break open the seal. Thus vast 
masses of source material essential for the historian were effec- 
tively placed beyond his reach, although much of it was quite 
harmless from any point of view. While war conditions thus 
continued to hamper research, and were likely to do so for many 
years to come, some alternative had to be found. 
Fortunately such an alternative was at hand in the narrative, 
amply supported by documentary evidence, of those who had 
played some part in the conduct of affairs during the War, or who, 
as close observers in privileged positions, were able to record 
from first- or at least second-hand knowledge the economic history 
of different phases of the Great War, and of its effect upon society. 
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