ell is released by destroying by
instantaneous combustion a certain amount of valuable chemical products.
Then, besides all this direct destruction of commodities which must
ultimately be replaced, or which at least some kind contractor may
plausibly offer to replace, consider for a moment the increased wear and
tear of every sort of equipment both civil and military, from
steam-rollers and rolling-stock to boots and bandages and
walking-sticks, which a state of war must involve. Or consider again
that the mere mobilisation of an army implies that several hundred
thousand men, whose annual income before was less than L100 a year, are
now living at the rate of L400 a year.[43]

Anyone who cares to examine in detail all these forms of waste and
destruction, and all these forms of unnatural and feverish consumption,
will begin to understand to what an extent war stimulates the demand by
which alone Trade can survive.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 41: Also, of course, by the campaign for Preferential Tariffs,
which, it was hoped, would have increased consumption by excluding a few
foreign competitors from colonial markets.]

[Footnote 42: Cf. the many stories of beef and other rations being
supplied to troops in such quantities that the units responsible for
their consumption were obliged to bury them. These stories come mostly
from Flanders. At home the same superabundance may have been the undoing
of many a Quartermaster-Sergeant, who, not knowing what to do with such
a plethora of beef, and having a proper superstition against throwing
away good food, was tempted to sell it for about a penny a pound to the
local butcher.]

[Footnote 43: And the fact that they are doing so at the public expense
is, of course, only an additional advantage to the traders who supply
their needs; as they do not risk losing any of their money through bad
debts.]

Sec. 4

War stands to benefit Neutral as well as Belligerent Nations but not to
the same extent

In Western Europe at least all markets are practically open markets. No
tariff however scientifically graduated will really divert the natural
flow of trade to any considerable extent.[44] Consequently it might
appear that all nations stand to benefit in the same way, but in varying
degrees, from the intense local demand set up in the nation at war. Thus
British Trade was exhorted in a sincerely rapacious article by Captain
Dixon-Johnson[45] to snatch the opportunity presented by the