The War After the War

Part 1

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THE WAR AFTER THE WAR

THE WAR AFTER THE WAR

ISAAC F. MARCOSSON

CO-AUTHOR OF "CHARLES FROHMAN, MANAGER AND MAN" AUTHOR OF "THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CLOWN," ETC.

NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD TORONTO: S. B. GUNDY : : : MCMXVII

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY

Copyright, 1917, BY JOHN LANE COMPANY

Press of J. J. Little & Ives Company New York, U.S.A.

TO LORD NORTHCLIFFE IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION

FOREWORD

For nearly three years Europe has been drenched with blood and rent with bitter strife. Millions of men have been killed or maimed: billions of dollars in property have gone up in smoke and ruin--all part of the mighty sacrifice laid on the Altar of the Great War.

This tragic tumult must inevitably subside. The smoke of battle will clear: the scarred fields will mantle again with springtime verdure: the fighting hosts will once more find their way to peaceful pursuit. Time the Healer will wipe out the wounds of war.

The world already wearies of the Crimson Canvas splashed with martial scene. Heroism has become the most commonplace of qualities: it takes a monster thrill to move a civilisation sick of destruction. With eager eye it looks forward to the era of regeneration. War ends some time.

Business never ceases. Under the shock of mighty upheaval it has been dislocated by the most drastic strain ever put upon the economic fabric. But it will march on long after Peace will have mercifully sheathed the Sword. Therefore the permanent world problem is the Business problem.

This is why I made two trips to Europe: why I submit this little book in the hope that it may point the way to some realisation of the immense responsibilities which will inevitably crowd upon the world and more especially upon the United States.

Peace will be as great a shock as War. Hence the need of Preparedness to meet the inevitable conflict for Universal Trade. We--as a nation--are as unready for this emergency as we are to meet the clash of actual physical combat. Commercial Preparedness is as vital to the national well being as the Training for Arms.

Nor will Commerce be the only thing that we will have to reckon with. When you have heard the guns roar and watched horizons flame with fury and seen men go to their death smiling and unafraid; when the pitiless panorama of carnage has passed before you in terms of terror and tragedy, you realise that there is something human as well as economic in the relentless Thing called War.

It means that just as there was no compromise with dishonour in the approach to the Super-Struggle for which nations are pouring out their youth and fortune, so will there be no flinching in that coming contest for commercial mastery--the bloodless aftermath of History's deadliest and costliest war.

We have reached a place in the World Trade Sun. Unless we are ready to hold it we will slip into the Shadow.

We must prepare.

I. F. M.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE COMING WAR 15

II. ENGLAND AWAKE 40

III. AMERICAN BUSINESS IN FRANCE 71

IV. THE NEW FRANCE 98

Part 2

V. SAVING FOR VICTORY 120

VI. THE PRICE OF GLORY 164

VII. THE MAN LLOYD GEORGE 210

VIII. FROM PEDLAR TO PREMIER 258

THE WAR AFTER THE WAR

I--The Coming War

While the guns roar from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, and the greatest armed host that history has ever known is still locked in a life-and-death struggle on a dozen fronts, another war, more potent and permanent perhaps than the one which now engulfs Europe, lurks beyond the distant horizon of peace.

Its fighting line will be the boundaries of all human needs; its dynamic purpose a heroic rehabilitation after stupendous loss. It will be the far-flung struggle for the rich prize of International Trade, waiting at the end of the Crimson Lane that sooner or later will have a turning.

Embattled commercial groups will supplant embroiled nations; boycotts, discriminations and exclusions will succeed the strategies of line and trench; the animosities fought out to-day with shell and steel will have their heritage in ruthless rivalries.

How shall we fare in this tumult of tariff and treaty? Where shall we stand when the curtain of fire fades before a task of regeneration that will spell economic rebirth or disaster for millions? Will fiscal punishment be meted out to neutral and foe alike? Will reason rule or revenge dictate a costly reprisal in this war after the war?

These are the questions that rise out of the dust and din of the colossal upheaval which is rending half of the world. Directly or indirectly they touch the whole American people, regardless of rank or wealth. The tide of war has rolled us far upon the shores of world affairs. We have prospered in the kinship of the nations. Will the ebb of peace leave us high and dry amid a mighty isolation?

I went to England and France to study this problem at first hand. I interviewed Cabinet Ministers; I talked with lawmakers, soldiers, captains of capital, masters of industry, and plain, everyday business men. Often the talk was disturbed by shriek of shell or bomb of midnight Zeppelin marauder.

Through all the travail of debt and death that rends the allied peoples runs the clear current of determination to retrieve the immense loss. War is waste; some one must pay--we among the rest. Already the guns are being trained for the inevitable commercial battle, which, willingly or unwillingly, will bring us under fire. Let us examine the plan of campaign.

But before going into the concrete details that mean so much to our future and our fortune, it is important to understand some very essential conditions.

First and foremost is the uncertainty of the war itself. All prophecy--at best a dangerous thing--is purest speculation. No one can tell how long the duel will last; how badly the loser will be beaten; what the terms of peace will be. Yet out of these contingencies will emerge the strong hands that will redraw the trade map of the world. Whatever the outcome, the countries now fighting, especially the Allies, have definitely stated the principles that must govern--for a long time, at least--the whole realignment of commercial relations. Their way shall be the universal way.

In the second place, be you Ally or Teuton and regardless of how you may feel about the ethics of the Great Struggle, it must be remembered that behind the glamour as to whether it is waged to conserve human liberty, maintain the integrity of "scraps of paper" or to safeguard democracy, the larger fact remains that it is a war rooted in commercial jealousies and fanned by commercial aggressions.

Now we come to the really vital point, and it is this: When the guns are hushed you will find that national and industrial defence among the warring countries will be one and the same thing. The Allies learned to their cost that the economic advance of Germany was merely part of her one-time resistless military machine. Her trade and her preparedness went conqueringly hand in hand. Henceforth that game will be played by all. England, for instance, will manufacture dyestuffs not only for her textile trades, but because coal-tar products are essential to the making of high explosives.

Thus, Competition, which was once merely part of the natural progress of a country, will hereafter be a large part of the struggle for national existence.

There is still another factor: No matter who wins, peace must mean prosperity for everybody. For the victor it will take the form of an attempted stewardship of trade and navigation; for the vanquished it will be the dedication of a terrible energy to the twin restoration of pride and product.

Now you begin to see why it is up to the United States to make ready for whatever business fate awaits her beyond the uncertain frontiers of to-morrow. Nor have we been without warning of what may be in store for us. Prohibitive tariffs, blacklists and boycotts, embargoes on mail and cargo, the exclusion from England and France of hundreds of our manufactured articles--all show which way the international trade winds may blow when the belligerents begin to take toll of their losses. Meantime, what are the facts?

Take the case of England. Thirty years ago she was the workshop of the world. From the Tyne to the Thames her factories hummed with ceaseless industry. Her goods went wherever her ships steamed, and that meant the globe. Supreme in her insularity--at once her defence and her undoing--she became infected with the virus of content. Her steel was the best steel; her wares led all the rest. "Take it or leave it!" was her selling maxim. When devices came along that saved labour and increased production she refused to scrap the old to make way for the new. Born, too, was the evil of restricted output. Moss began to grow on her vaunted industrial structure. England lagged in the trade procession.

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