"I don't believe the food people do make so much. It's the world shortage that causes the trouble, not the prices—or rather one involves the other."
"It isn't so much that. It's a rise of prices all round. Things get expensive, so the country strikes for higher wages and gets them—then prices go up because the sovereign has depreciated, and they strike again. It goes on in a vicious circle."
"Can't be a circle—because that's progression. You've got to get to a smash in time."
"Yes, it means there'll be just as much cash in the world, but every one will be poor. Cash isn't wealth—work is wealth, and all work nowadays is wasted. We're chucking it into the air in Flanders."
"Well, we'll last out this war, and then have to lash out."
"Oh yes—there'll be room to lash out in, too. We'll be back in Elizabeth's days—lots of room for every one, but no capital."
"So long as there are no Huns we'll be happy, so what's the odds? Give us a match."
"Well, I want a few Huns left to compare notes with after this. It would be dull to hear our own side only. One couldn't meet their Army, of course, but their Navy's not so bad. They've tried to fight clean, at any rate, and they fight good and 'earty. Yes, I know about Fritz, but if you had orders to torpedo liners, wouldn't you do it? 'Course you would, if you were told they were carrying munitions and you were saving your country by it. There are Fritzes who like it, certainly, but we have to give the others the benefit of the doubt."
"Well, I'd like to read their logs and so on after the war, though we'll be so damn sick of all the truck they'll publish here when the Censor pays off that we wont want to read much of anything."
"It isn't the stuff just after the war one would like to read. I'd like to be alive in a hundred years to read the truth."