give him the enormous potential advantage of having broken the Trade
Unions.[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 52: As a matter of fact, nearly all the luxury trades cut down
their scale of wages during the first year of the war; and many of these
ostentatiously gave to some War Charity a fraction of the sum thus
extracted from their employees. I suppose it would be libellous to give
examples.]

[Footnote 53: Though frantic attempts to conceal it have been made since
the Tax on War Profits was introduced.]

[Footnote 54: The _New Statesman_, May 22, 1915.]

[Footnote 55: See above, p. 47, note 4. Some illuminating details are
given in the _Nation_, May 22, 1915, concerning the unscrupulous plea of
Government work in order to excuse the employment of children.]

[Footnote 56: The _Saturday Review_, September 18, 1915.]

[Footnote 57: "The shortage" too was a permanent excuse just as good for
holding prices up as for holding wages down. Cf. a correspondent in _The
Times_, May 17, 1916: "This position of affairs makes one doubt if the
shortage in these articles (bottles, jars, tins, boxes, etc.) is as
stated, or that the shortage pays better and the various trades do not
wish the tension to be in any way relieved."]

[Footnote 58: I hope it will not soon be forgotten that _Punch_ was not
ashamed to endorse this charge.]

[Footnote 59: Cf. Mr. Emil Davies in the _New Statesman_, April 8, 1916:
"My impression is that the annoyance of Clyde manufacturers at the
present labour troubles is not wholly free from a certain grim
satisfaction. They are not anxious to see carried out the pledge that
shop conditions should go back to the pre-war basis, and, they argue, if
the men are discredited with the public, it will be all to the good of
the employers in the big industrial struggle they look upon as
inevitable after the war. They regard this struggle without anxiety and
are accumulating funds; some of them talk of special funds being created
for the purpose by the employers in association. These are the
impressions gained from conversations with prominent members of the
Glasgow business world."]

Sec. 9

Trade Profit and National Loss

It need not therefore be supposed that the War Profits, of which there
is such abundant evidence, conflict at all with Mr. Norman Angell's
contention[60] that all modern war, even if the military operations end
in a military success, is futile and unprofitable from the national
point of vi