The Washington herald., 1921-10-02


at home or will the economic pressure IN the end
compel an enormous tide Of migration and leave
England with half Of its present population! Even
at the present moment the most optimistic English
agree that there must be reduction not expansion
OF the British population In word that the limit
has been reached and passed and there Is small prom
ise In the future that developments can make
possible the maintenance of people than now
live in the British Islands Thus the natural increase
At the least must be balanced by emigration
Up to the outbreak of the world war British trade
had managed to keep pace with the extraordinary
expansion Of population In England alone the popu-
lation in 1901 just under 100000 At the latest
had have seen, almost touched 100000
and this for area almost exactly that Of New York
State In a degree England had become almost a
single city doing business for very large portion OF
the world dependent upon that business to exist But
the wiped out certain portion of the business
transformed the conditions in still further fields
1t followed by situation in which millions of
and women living in England were without work.
Since there is market for their production there
funds to buy food which they must live.
T AM dwelling upon these conditions in this article
i because am anxious to make clear to my readers
the basis of British policy in the world have written
frequently and at length upon the French policy
which is based upon the need flor security against
Germany. have pointed out that the British sought
trade and that they prepared to subordinate
French safety il need be the restoration Of German
economic health and consequence the restoration
offCentral Europe to something approaching normal
But bottom essential perceive that the British
policy not less than the French is dictated by inn
perious necessity. If it is matter of life and death
for France that she be guaranteed against new
German attack it is not less matter of life and death
for Britain that she escape from the shadow of sarva
tion which overhangs literally. .~...~. ..-
The question OF whether Britain can in
the old of the word, to the conditions of
1914 is keeny debated everywhere and nowhere more
frankly than in Britain ITSELF. competitor has
arisen the West financially stronger than Britain is
or probably ever can be now The war has made that
rival the strongest industrial power in the world
and the largest creditor nation At the time the
conflict has gravey reduced British foreign invest
ments, wiped out those markets in which Britain
busiest and destroyed the purchasing power of
tries which consumed British products and supplied
either the food the funds to pay the food bill con-
tracted elsewhere. ~ s - 'F.
On the continent the separations provisions. of
the treaty of Versailles have alone abolished the
British coal market in France in Belgium. in Italy,
but in addition promise to impose upon Germany
industrial development to pay her debts to her
querors which will make her ten times dangerous
competitor as she was in 1914 Moreover Britain
is to share in the German payments only share
by consentng to take precisely the kind of things she
manufactures and sells and her own factories must
stand idle in. consequence. '' r. " i&s%,' r. +,
TO-DAY one has only to read the London press, to
i realize the agitation for economy which is going
throughout the country. Millions of men and
women arc out of work and there is immediate
prospect that they will be able to find work Al the
moment the work of empire building is going on
and British troops and British funds are being en-
ployed to organize Mesopotamia Palestine defend
Egypt and India. And one can easily find in the
present British situation analogy with that of Rome
when last the strain of expansion became great
and the emperors decided to retire behind the Rhine
and the Danube and enduring limits the empire
itself N,7... - ..>..-a.. .... .,..,
TL -. :. ps...u IT.. .,. /. =, -