after-war pounds, and that the after-war pound is, thanks to the
profligate use by our war Governments of the printing-press and the
banking machine, just about half the size, when measured in actual
buying power, of the pre-war pound. Any one who pays L100 in taxes
to-day thereby surrenders claims to about the same amount of goods and
service as he did if he paid L50 in taxes before the war. So that in
making any comparison between the position now and the position then
we have to divide the figures of to-day by two.

In the second, we need not be misled by the Jeremiahs who tell us that
now that we have won the war we have before us the task of paying for
it. This is not true, or true only to a small extent--to the extent,
that is to say, to which we shall, when all these assets and
liabilities have been settled up and balanced, be afflicted with a
foreign debt. Let us leave this question on one side for the time
being, and consider what the position really is with regard to that
part of the war's cost that has been raised at home. In so far as that
has been done, the war cost has been raised by us while the war went
on. In fact, all the war cost has to be raised by somebody while
the war goes on, because the war is fought with stuff and services
produced at the time and paid for at the time. But when Americans lend
us money to pay for some of the stuff that they send us, they pay at
the time and we, or our posterity, have to pay them back later on;
this is the only way in which we can make posterity pay for the war,
and then it only means that our posterity pays America's. It is not
possible to carry on war with wealth that is going to be produced some
day. The effort of self-sacrifice that war demands has to be made by
somebody during its progress--otherwise the war could not be fought.

That effort of self-sacrifice we have already made in so far as we
have paid for our war cost out of money raised at home. That money has
been raised in three ways--by taxation, by borrowing saved money, and
by inflation. When it is raised by taxation the sacrifice is obvious,
and, in nearly all cases, inevitable: we pay our larger war taxes and
so we have less to spend on ourselves, and so we go without things. A
few people raise money to pay taxes during war by borrowing or drafts
on capital, but they are probably so exceptional that their case need
not be considered. We transfer our buying power to the Government to
be used for