But now comes the second way of meeting the after-the-war obligations.  This second way is by increasing the wealth of the state and by increasing the national production to such an extent that the payment of the rentier class will not be an overwhelming burthen.  Rising prices bilk the creditor.  Increased production will check the rise in prices and get him a real payment.  The outlook for the national creditor seems to be that he will be partly bilked and partly paid; how far he will be bilked and how far depends almost entirely upon this possible increase in production; and there is consequently a very keen and quite unprecedented desire very widely diffused among intelligent and active people, holding War Loan scrip and the like, in all the belligerent countries, to see bold and hopeful schemes for state enrichment pushed forward.  The movement towards socialism is receiving an impulse from a new and unexpected quarter, there is now a rentier socialism, and it is interesting to note that while the London Times is full of schemes of great state enterprises, for the exploitation of Colonial state lands, for the state purchase and wholesaling of food and many natural products, and for the syndication of shipping and the great staple industries into vast trusts into which not only the British but the French and Italian governments may enter as partners, the so-called socialist press of Great Britain is chiefly busy about the draughts in the cell of Mr. Fenner Brockway and the refusal of Private Scott Duckers to put on his khaki trousers. The New Statesman and the Fabian Society, however, display a wider intelligence.

There is a great variety of suggestions for this increase of public wealth and production.  Many of them have an extreme reasonableness.  The extent to which they will be adopted depends, no doubt, very largely upon the politician and permanent official, and both these classes are prone to panic in the presence of reality.  In spite of its own interests in restraining a rise in prices, the old official “salariat” is likely to be obstructive to any such innovations.  It is the resistance of spurs and red tabs to military innovations over again.  This is the resistance of quills and red tape.  On the other hand the organisation of Britain for war has “officialised” a number of industrial leaders, and created a large body of temporary and adventurous officials.  They may want to carry on into peace production the great new factories the war has created.  At the end of the war, for example, every belligerent country will be in urgent need of cheap automobiles for farmers, tradesmen, and industrial purposes generally, America is now producing such automobiles at a price of eighty pounds.  But Europe will be heavily in debt to America, her industries will be disorganised, and there will therefore be no sort of return payment possible for these hundreds of thousands of automobiles.  A country that is neither creditor nor producer cannot