The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1915. THE WAR AND FINANCE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14740, 20 October 1915, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1915. THE WAR AND FINANCE.

Not unnaturally thinking men . in, the Old Land ’ are looking ahead and discussing economic problems with which the nation will be faced after the war. The afterwar problem is two-fold. In the first place, industries that have been employed for war .purposes will have to go back to peace production; in the . second, a very large number of men who have been serving will come back and want work. In other words, industries and men who have been working for war will want to work for peace, and instead of being engaged in killing will want to be engaged in turning out goods for the use and comfort of mankind. There are not a few who predict a period of depression and acute unemployment after the war, after a period cf short-lived and feverish activity in trade. At first sight it does seem absurd that the prospect of a large amount of energy being diverted , from destruction to production and construction should be at all terrifying. A writer in the London Chronicle suggests that future prospects are only terrifying because economic arrangements are so twisted and tangled that a, great increase in the supply of goods and comforts is one of the worst bogies that the business world can' be asked to face. But, he says,. when one considers all the work that wants doing in the > country, in improving transport facilities, rebuilding most of the.streets in,most of.the towns, providing houses in the country districts, bringing fresh land under cultivation, and generally increasing its productive capacity, there is little need to fear that industry and labour, will be idle, if they are set going on schemes of improvement, thought out by the . best brains in the country, and especially of those classes which moat need it. For owing to thf present employment of large numbers of people who were idle before the war the productive power of the nation has been greatly increased, and at the same time its consumption of luxuries and superfluities has been, or will have been, very much reduced. Consequently, when i; goes back to business aa a world trader it ought to bo able to add to its wealth much more rapidly than it has done heretofore, and will do, if its counsels arc guided by wise and economic statesmanship. .