War-Time Financial Problems

by Hartley Withers

Finance is an enormously important weapon in the hands of our rulers for gliding the economic activities of the people. This is so even in peace time to a certain extent, though the revenue then collected is so small an item in the total national income that it counts for much less than in war, when the power that the Government can wield by its policy in taxation and borrowing might have been all-powerful in keeping the nation on the right lines in the matter of spending and keeping down the cost of the war, and in maintaining our financial staying power to a far greater extent than has actually been done.

It is easy, as they say on the Stock Exchange, to job backwards, and it is also easy, and perhaps rather unprofitable, to hazard opinions about what would have happened if things had been otherwise. Nevertheless, when we look back on the spirit of the country as it was in those early days of the war, when the violation of Belgium had sent a chivalrous thrill through the hearts of all classes in the country, when we all recognised that we were faced with the greatest crisis in our history, that our country and the future of civilisation were about to be tested by the severest strain ever applied to them, that the life and fortune of the individual did not count, but that the war and victory were the only interests that any one had a right to consider—when one remembers all these things, and the use that a wise financial policy might have made of them, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the history of the war in this country and its social and political effects might have been something much finer, much cleaner and more noble if only the weapons of finance had been more boldly and wisely used. It is not a good thing to indulge in high-falutin' on this subject. It is absurd to suppose that the war suddenly turned us all into plaster saints at the beginning, and that we might have continued so to the end if the State had dealt with our money in a proper way. But without setting up any such idealistic arguments as these, looking back on those early days of the war, one can still remember the thrill of earnestness and of eagerness for self-sacrifice which has since then given way lamentably to war profiteering, war strikes, and a general struggle among many classes of the community to make as much as possible out of the war, merely because our financial leaders have never really put the country's financial problem properly before the country.

We were not plaster saints, but we were either Idealistic and perhaps foolish people who attached great importance to the freedom and security of small nations and all those items in the programme of idealistic Radicalism, or else we were good, red-hot, true-blue Jingoes with a hearty hatred for Germany, and enjoyed the thought that the big fight which we had long foreseen between the two countries was at last going to be fought out. Or, again, we were just commonplace people who did not much believe in idealistic Radicalism or anti-German bitterness, but saw that the whole future of our country was at stake, and were prepared to do anything for it. A fine example was set us in those days by the Trade Union leaders. The industrial world was seething with discontent. The Suffragettes in London and the Carsonites in Ireland had shown us how much could be done by appeals to physical force in a lazy-minded community; and hints of industrial revolution, with great organised strikes, which were going to tie up the transport industry of the country were in the air. And then, when the war came, the Labour leaders said, "No strikes until the war is over. Our country comes first."

This was the lead given to the country by those down at the bottom, who had the least to lose, and whose patriotism during the course of the war has frequently been questioned. At the top the financial and property-owning classes, having been saved by Mr Lloyd George's able adroitness from a bad crisis in the City, were entirely tame, and would have suffered anything in the way of taxation or financial conscription if the need for it had been properly put before them.

It is almost amusing to remember now that in those early days of the war the shareholders in Home Railway companies were thought lucky. The Government were taking the railways over, and were guaranteeing that their proprietors should receive the same dividends as they had had before the war. Such was the view in financial and property-owning circles of results of war that, so far from any expectation of the huge profits which war has put into the pockets of certain classes, they were only too thankful if they could be assured that their gross incomes were not going to be reduced.

Such was the spirit with which the Government of that day had to deal. A spirit in all classes earnestly patriotic, and so thoroughly frightened of the economic consequences of the war that it would have been ready to face any sacrifices that the Government had asked of it. How, then, would the Government have dealt with this spirit if it had taken the trouble really to think out the problem of war finance on a long view instead of proceeding along a haphazard line, adjusting peace methods to war without any consideration as to their adequacy? If the problem had been really thought out beforehand the Government must have seen clearly that the real economic problem in war-time is not merely a question of raising money, since that can at any time be done easily by means of a printing-press, but of diverting the industrial energy of the nation from peace to war purposes, that is to say, transferring from the enjoyment of the individual citizen the goods and services that used to contribute to his comfort and amusement, and turning them over to the provision of the things needed for the war. War's needs can only be met out of the current production of the world as it is at present. All the warring powers begin a war with certain accumulated war stores consisting of battleships, ammunition, guns and all other forms of war material. Apart from these stores with which they begin, the whole work of providing the armies with the fighting materials that they require, and the food and clothes that they consume, has to be done during the course of the war, that is to say, out of the current production of the moment.

Therefore the real economic problem that any Government has to face in war-time is that of inducing its citizens to reduce their purchase of goods and services, that is to say, to spend less, so that all the things required for the Army and Navy may be obtained by the Government. It is true that some of the goods and services required for carrying on war can be obtained from foreign countries by any belligerent which is able to communicate with them freely. In that case the current production of the foreigner can be called in to help. But this can only be done if the warring country is able to ship goods to the foreigner in payment for what it buys, or if it is able to obtain a loan from the foreigner, or some other foreign country, in order to pay for its purchases abroad, or again, if, as in our case, it holds a large accumulation of securities which foreign countries are prepared to take in exchange for goods that they send for the purposes of the war. By these two last-named processes, raising money abroad, and selling securities to foreign nations, the warring country impoverishes itself for the future. When it borrows abroad it pledges itself to export goods and services in future to meet interest and sinking fund on the money so raised, so getting no goods and services in return. When it ships its accumulated wealth in the form of securities it gives up for the future any claim to goods and services from the debtor country which used to come to it to meet interest and redemption. It is only by shipping goods in return for goods imported for the war that a country can keep its financial staying-power on an even keel.

Thus the problem which a statesman who had thought out the economics of war beforehand would have recognised as the keystone of his policy, would have been that of diverting the activities of the country from providing itself with comforts and amusements to turning out goods required for war, and of doing so with the least possible friction, the least possible alteration in the economic equilibrium of the country, and, above all, with the least possible cost to the national finances. We arrive at the true aspect of this problem more easily if we leave out the question of money altogether and think of it in units of energy. When a nation goes to war it means to say that it has to apply so many units of energy to the business of fighting, and to provide the fighters with all that they need. If at the beginning of the war its utmost capacity of output was, to mention merely a fanciful figure, a thousand million units of energy, and if it was clear that the fighting forces of the country would need for their proper maintenance five hundred million units of energy, then it is clear that the nation's ordinary consumption of goods and services would have to be reduced to the extent of five hundred millions of units of energy, which would have to be applied to the war, that is, assuming that its possible output remained the same.

In other words, the spending power of the citizens of the country had to be reduced so that the industrial energy that used to go into meeting their wants might be made available for the purposes of fighting forces. Now what was the straightest, simplest and cleanest way of bringing about this reduction in buying power on the part of the ordinary citizen which has been shown to be necessary for the purposes of war finance? Clearly the best way of doing it is by taxation equitably imposed. When the State taxes, it says in effect to the citizens, "Your country needs certain goods and services, you therefore will have to go without those goods and services, and the simplest way to make you do this is to take away your money and so ration your buying power. Whatever is needed for the Army and Navy will be taken away from you by taxation, and the result of this will be that, instead of your indulging in comforts and luxuries, to the extent of the war's needs the Government will use your money for paying for what is needed for the Army and Navy."

If such a policy had been carried out the cost of the war to the community would have been enormously cheapened. There need have been no general rise in prices because there would have been no increase in demand for goods and services. Anything that the Government spent would have been counter-balanced by decreased spending by the individual; any work that the Government needed for the war would have been counter-balanced by a reduction in demand for work on the part of individual citizens. There would have been no multiplication of currency owing to enormous credits raised by the Government; there would have been merely a transfer of buying power from individuals to the State. The process would have been gradual, there need have been no acute dislocation, but as the cost of the war increased, that is to say, as the Government needed more and more goods and services for its prosecution, the community would gradually have shed one after another the extravagances on which it spent so many hundreds of millions in days before the war. As it shed these extravagances the labour and energy needed to produce them would have been automatically transferred to the service of the war, or to the production of necessaries of life. By this simple process of monetary rationing all the frantic appeals for economy, and most of the complicated, tangled problems raised by such matters as Food Control or National Service would have been avoided.