h
industry shall be entirely unhampered in its endeavours to carry out
the very puzzling operations involved by transferring its energies
from war activities to peace production. However well the thing may
be managed, it will be an exceedingly difficult and complicated
operation. In certain industries, especially in shipbuilding and
engineering, the building trade and all the allied enterprises, those
who are responsible for their efficient management ought to be able to
count upon a keen and widely-spread demand for their products. But in
many industries there will necessarily be a good deal of doubt as to
the kind of article which the consuming public at home and abroad is
likely to want. There will be the great difficulty of sorting out the
right kind of labour, of obtaining the necessary raw materials, and of
getting the necessary credit and capital.

That this huge problem can be solved, and solved so well that the
country can go ahead to a great period of increased productivity and
prosperity, I fully believe; but this can only be done if it is able
to command the most efficient co-operation of all the various factors
in production--if employers put their best brains and if workers put
their best energy into the business, and if everything is done to make
the whole machinery work with the utmost possible smoothness. One
element in the machinery, and a highly important one, is the question
of capital. During the war the citizens of this country have been
trained to save and to put their money at the disposal of the
Government with a success which could hardly have been expected
when the war began. Whether they will continue to exercise the same
self-denial when the war is over Is a very open question. At any rate,
there can be no doubt that there will be a tendency among a very large
number of people who have answered the appeal to save money for the
war to listen with considerable indifference to any appeals that
may be made to them to save money in order to provide industry with
capital. All the capital that industry can get, it will certainly
want. If, besides what it can get at home, it can also get a
considerable amount from foreign countries, then its ability to resume
work on a prosperous and profitable basis when the war is over will be
very greatly helped. This would seem to be so obvious that one might
have thought that even a Government which is believed to be flirting
with what is called Tariff Reform