which might, if more sensibly developed, have enjoyed a much longer life. The stupid financial policy of belligerent governments during the late war has given a great opportunity to the enemies of Capitalism by debauching the currency, pouring fortunes into the pockets of shareholders and adventurers through the consequent rise in prices, and so stirring up unrest and suspicions of "profiteering." Mr. Keynes, who develops this theme with brilliant lucidity in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, observes (page 222) that "perhaps it is historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand." But for this breach in the walls of Capitalism, private capitalists, as such, are not alone responsible; it was made rather by the politicians of their class whom the wealth that they created enabled to serve their country according to their lights, with results that are now plainly to be seen.
In other corners of the economic field, however, capitalists have themselves worked hard to weaken their own position. By continually resisting the claims of the wage-earners for higher wages on the ground that industry could not stand them, when subsequent experience proved that it could, they have
