“After the war capital will be ungrudging in its remuneration to labour; and labour, in turn, must be ungrudging in its output.”

No one doubts that after the war the British worker will have his full share of profits.  As one large manufacturer told me:  “We have so gotten into the habit of turning our profits over to the government that it will be easy to divide with our employees.”  Here may be the panacea for the whole English labour ill.

But, whatever may be the readjustment of this labour problem, one thing is certain:  Peace will find a disciplined England.  The five million men, trained to military service, will dominate the new English life; and this means that it will be orderly and productive.

With this discipline will come a democracy—­social and industrial—­such as England has never known.  The comradeship between peer and valet, master and man, born of common danger under fire, will find renewal, in part at least, when they go back to their respective tasks.  This wiping out of caste in shop, mill and counting room will likewise remove one of the old barriers to the larger prosperity.

England wants the closest trade relations with her Dominions.  But will the Colonies accept the idea of a fiscal union of empire, which practically means intercolonial free trade?  Or will they want to protect their own industries, even against the Mother Country?  Like the French, they are willing to risk life and limb for a cause, but they likewise want to guard jealously their purse and products.  They have not forgotten the click when Churchill locked the home door against them.

This leads to the question that is agitating all England:  Will peace bring tariff reform?  Both English and American economic destiny will be affected by the decision, whatever it may be.

Canvass England and you encounter a widespread movement that means, as the advocates see it, a broadening of the home market; security for the infant “key” industries; a safeguard for British labour—­in short, the end of the old inequality of a Free England against a Protected Germany.

Protection in England, hitched to a world-wide freeze-out business campaign against Germany, would doubtless divert a whole new international discount business to New York.  German exporters under these circumstances might refuse payments from their other customers on London, demanding bills on New York instead.  To hold this business, however, we should need direct banking and cable connections with all the grand divisions of trade, adequate sea-carrying power, dollar credits, and a government friendly to business.

Then, there is the middle English ground which demands a “tariff for revenue only,” and subsidy—­not protection—­for the new industries.

Combating all this is the dyed-in-the-bone free trader, who points to the fact that free trade made England the richest of the Allies and gave her control of the sea.  “How can a nation that is one huge seaport, and which lives by foreign trade, ever be a protectionist?” he asks.