THE CANDID CASE FOR ENGLAND

...And within it England has its appointed "service" to perform...

...A New Agency Of Order It was thuis Victorian Liberalism which decreed its "service" and made England a rich country...

...If we would secure peace on earth, we must forego a treaty...

...A Society Of Cartels The way out, then, is neither a nation-economy nor a concord among political powers...

...It was given the strictest sort of regulation by an authority shaped to its distinctive needs...

...The warring nation issued bonds based, not upon good solid merchandise, but upon its own promise to pay—and forced its own people and banks to take them...

...Thus an order, a world order, operating with the precision of a machine, carried on...

...The state replaced the Street as '¦He asrency of ordar, and, since the State could command only within its borders, the trend was towards political isolation...

...it can regulate only a closed economy...

...there emerged a series of "completely closed and autarkic economies...

...The London Market will, as in days of old, be free to men of all nations...

...it has always sought to avoid the expenses of police...

...And, as a rational order is imposed upon the production and marketing of every important commodity, competition can be relegated to the museum...

...It is, therefore, incorrect to dub the years from Waterloo to Serajevo as the period of laissez-faire...

...The idea that there was a 19th Century world of miraculously cooperative nations is sheer myth...

...It got its chance in the American War of Independence...

...The Street will, as it did of old, regulate the industry of the world to the mutual advantage of all peoples—as their interests are seen from the insular vantage point...

...If I had not used up more than the space the Editors of The Progressive have generously allowed me, I would like to set down my own come-back...

...The 19th Century boys failed to appreciate the destructive character of the fight for markets...

...A third of the livings of its forty-odd million people—a declining third—comes from manufactures sent abroad...

...So, here goes, and I'll be as fair as I can...

...Thus was created the world between the wars...

...Nor will the alternative of making the British Empire a closed economy do any better...

...and, if you will get out an American edition to sell for a quarter, I'll smuggle you my copy, or rather the one I lifted off of Judge Thurman Arnold...

...So let each nation send a note to each of its enemies to the effect that: (1) the shooting is over, and (2) our courts will give full faith and credit to all contracts entered into between our nationals and yours...

...In business, especially world business, it is convenient to have a government handy...

...money, pried loose from the control of the Street, was anchored upon "the national credit...

...And—I am merely passing on what Sarpedon says—unless we can escape the fallacy that politics and economics will mix, we are headed for a poorer, tougher, far less happy world...

...The goods did not have to pass through the port of London...

...It was the Street—that is, Lombard Street— which ruled an economy far broader than, and not to be confused with, the splash of red across the globe...

...The London Money Market rattled on with its function gone...

...The state did not meddle with industry, but industry was not left alone...

...Its mercantile dominion was won by small armies and at little cost...

...England's Plight For England the obvious ways of escape just won't do...

...but the common sense of the 19th Century held it in leash until the explosion in 1914...

...If they do not, it may be necessary "to knock that much sense" into their heads...

...It "will never forego the right of trading freely" in the ports of the Continent...

...To make England the Empire in a world which has forsaken the doctrine of the non-political character of business, just would not do...

...Then—remember I am reciting the gospel according to Sarpedon—the way will be open to organize every industry as a world-wide cartel...

...For the British possessions are widely-scattered and the costs of Empire defense would be staggering in comparison with continental nations, occupying compact territories, such as Russia, Germany, the United States...

...Cartel must trade with cartel...

...and, for want of it, goods stayed at home or passed beyond the frontier onlv by barter...

...It is not a book for timid souls who can not bear to read what they do not agree with...

...He means a great commercial imperium, with London as its hub, and the great institution called the Bank as its agency of control...

...It was, instead,—mind you, I am quoting Sarpedon— an era in which men had sense enough to know that politics and economics do not mix...

...It is to be found by adapting the London Money Market to the conditions of today—our author tells us...

...it went nationalistic...

...England's glory has been in a world-wide imperium...

...But you need to know about it, for it is a clear, shrewd, and irritating account of the recent course of human events...

...The "pharisaic financiers of London, the naive financiers of New York," turned up their noses at these new state-monies—as if the dollar and the noble pound had not gone the way of all currencies...

...and he recites sober, blunt, downright realism, not the fluff and sentiment so dear to Colonial Americans...

...A second third—threatened by a world of closed economies—consists of income or investments for which no goods have to be sent in return...

...to restrict its commerce to the Empire would betray a great tradition...

...It has always been willing to withhold its flag, if it were left in full enjoyment of its mercantile rights...

...The Street laid down the rules and through its network of banks secured obedienca the world over...

...And there's no use to worry about the high pries of the bookj for the chances are you can't get it...

...At this point let England rest its case...

...States cannot control the dynamic thing called trade by treaties which they have no capacity to conclude and which not one will voluntarily keep—to its own hurt...

...It is copyrighted in Great Britain, but not over here...

...The task of the merchant was to carry and fetch from lands where the goods were cheap to lands where they were dear...

...I say "suggest" for the rich texture of the book, with its thesis often repeated and always with fresh variations, cannot be captured...

...The business of cutting industrial systems to the dimensions of the territorial state erupted with a bang in 1939...

...There ensued the greatest revolution in modern times...

...But, now that the argument has been put on exhibit, it is far more important that the reader come across with his own concurrence or dissent...

...And Geneva cannot replace the Street...

...But as the drama of progress took its course, the villain of nationalism appeared...

...the very term is self-contradictory...

...A league of nations cannot do it...

...For, in a far-flung financial system, the rule of the Street reached "beyond the bounds of the City to the utmost corners of the earth...

...To this end an inter-cartel credit, a new kind of international money, is needed...

...He means London, or batter, the Money Market, or best of all The Street...

...the firms fitted to the task are to be found there...

...But it used the state as instrument rather than obeyed it as sover- eign...

...For each cartel, occupying its particular province, will turn out its own products...

...the international order that was England passed into eclipse...

...Here, then, are "the solid realities" which fix England's position...

...The limits of space have forced me to employ my own words in summary somewhat more than I should have liked...

...And all without the benefit of treaties, global courts, leagues of nations...

...It was not God Almighty, or the Laws of Nature, but the London Money Market which staged a sit-down—Sarpedon tells us...

...The Declaration of Independence, I believe, it was called...

...As each State issued its own circulating medium good only within its borders, money was nationalized as well as socialized...

...For tradition has created in London such a center...

...the invoices, bills of exchange, paper fictions by which they were kept moving did not have to go there...

...All other peoples should recognize their mutuality of interest with London...

...for it is not the natural wealth of the country, but its power to take a toll on world trade, which makes England rich...

...As the war began, the wise ones said that for lack of money it could not last six months...

...Then, as quotas are set, markets assigned, prices fixed, an agency is created to which husiness can appeal for order and labor for employment...

...But the political state pulled its own invention...

...In a word it is that, if we are to have peace on earth, we must unseat the State and vest the Street with all economic power...

...And, just to get the fire-works going, may i inquire if it wasn't a sort of kindred scheme—with London as the hub of a mercantile empire and taking a toll on all passing traffic—that once touched off an immortal document, regarded in England at the time as "treason...

...And this England—or the Street—is in the best position to offer...

...England will fight, if fight it must, until no one doubts "our right to maintain the position essential to our life and honor...

...So the nation did what it is the very spirit of the nation to do...

...Let the nations and states discuss and propose to their hearts', content— "but let them never meet...

...In a game of competitive nationalism, England would be at serious disadvantage...

...but in this case the only fair way is to exhibit the argument—and allow the reader his own back-tack...

...There is now no agency of control to do what the London Money Market so nobly did...

...The Street Made The Rules The superb feat of the 19th Century was the maintenance of this glorious economy...

...He doesn't mean the Empire, the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom, or the state called England...

...A deal done in a few minutes in Mincing Lane might set a thousand white men and—note the ratio—10 times that number of orientals to work...

...Here, is the cause, the downright material cause, for which England is fighting...

...But it demands attention "because Sarpedon speaks for "the mercantile interest"—perhaps the most powerful group in England...

...In an armament race in a nationalistic world it just couldn't compete...

...A third —in serious jeopardy because of our own venture into shipping—is made up of profits from maritime transport...

...We have tried to build an international order "out of a combination of elements that are entirely incapable of combining...

...the workers in one cartel must consume the products of many others...

...It is usual to review a book by telling what the reviewer thinks...

...For "the right of England to render our traditional service to the world—and thereby to earn our livelihood—is as sacred as any other right...

...so the great invisible empire of finance employed the English Government, which happened to be in Whitehall nearby, as its political agent...

...I have, however, tried and tried hard, to suggest the spirit, the idiom, the flavor of the text...

...Its current plight is serious...

...The role of the banker was to put up the funds necessary to move any merchandise which was within reach of the London market...

...The job of the politician was to repress the itch to interfere in matters which lay beyond his craft...

...All nations could develop their resources "within the limits of mutual compatibility—as seen from London...

...The Street has always wanted the profits of trade...

...In its creation the merchant, the banker, the politician each had his part...

...The state can not do it...

...There was no longer an international money...

...To begin with, you must get straight what Sarpedon means by England...

...Great Britain guarantees the freedom of ocean-borne commerce...

...Thus a business order, independent of the nation, is already coming into being...

...It will never permit the economy of Central or Western Europe to "become subservient to Berlin or Timbuek-too...