{"product_id":"2940013652927","title":"THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  I.  INTRODUCTORY\u003cbr\u003e II.  EUROPE BEFORE THE WAR\u003cbr\u003eIII.  THE CONFERENCE\u003cbr\u003e IV.  THE TREATY\u003cbr\u003e  V.  REPARATION\u003cbr\u003e VI.  EUROPE AFTER THE TREATY\u003cbr\u003eVII.  REMEDIES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eINTRODUCTORY\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked\u003cbr\u003echaracteristic of mankind. Very few of us realize with conviction the\u003cbr\u003eintensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, temporary nature\u003cbr\u003eof the economic organization by which Western Europe has lived for the\u003cbr\u003elast half century. We assume some of the most peculiar and temporary of\u003cbr\u003eour late advantages as natural, permanent, and to be depended on, and we\u003cbr\u003elay our plans accordingly. On this sandy and false foundation we scheme\u003cbr\u003efor social improvement and dress our political platforms, pursue our\u003cbr\u003eanimosities and particular ambitions, and feel ourselves with enough\u003cbr\u003emargin in hand to foster, not assuage, civil conflict in the European\u003cbr\u003efamily. Moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, the German\u003cbr\u003epeople overturned the foundations on which we all lived and built. But\u003cbr\u003ethe spokesmen of the French and British peoples have run the risk of\u003cbr\u003ecompleting the ruin, which Germany began, by a Peace which, if it is\u003cbr\u003ecarried into effect, must impair yet further, when it might have\u003cbr\u003erestored, the delicate, complicated organization, already shaken and\u003cbr\u003ebroken by war, through which alone the European peoples can employ\u003cbr\u003ethemselves and live.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn England the outward aspect of life does not yet teach us to feel or\u003cbr\u003erealize in the least that an age is over. We are busy picking up the\u003cbr\u003ethreads of our life where we dropped them, with this difference only,\u003cbr\u003ethat many of us seem a good deal richer than we were before. Where we\u003cbr\u003espent millions before the war, we have now learnt that we can spend\u003cbr\u003ehundreds of millions and apparently not suffer for it. Evidently we did\u003cbr\u003enot exploit to the utmost the possibilities of our economic life. We\u003cbr\u003elook, therefore, not only to a return to the comforts of 1914, but to an\u003cbr\u003eimmense broadening and intensification of them. All classes alike thus\u003cbr\u003ebuild their plans, the rich to spend more and save less, the poor to\u003cbr\u003espend more and work less.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut perhaps it is only in England (and America) that it is possible to\u003cbr\u003ebe so unconscious. In continental Europe the earth heaves and no one but\u003cbr\u003eis aware of the rumblings. There it is not just a matter of extravagance\u003cbr\u003eor \"labor troubles\"; but of life and death, of starvation and existence,\u003cbr\u003eand of the fearful convulsions of a dying civilization.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       *       *       *       *       *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor one who spent in Paris the greater part of the six months which\u003cbr\u003esucceeded the Armistice an occasional visit to London was a strange\u003cbr\u003eexperience. England still stands outside Europe. Europe's voiceless\u003cbr\u003etremors do not reach her. Europe is apart and England is not of her\u003cbr\u003eflesh and body. But Europe is solid with herself. France, Germany,\u003cbr\u003eItaly, Austria and Holland, Russia and Roumania and Poland, throb\u003cbr\u003etogether, and their structure and civilization are essentially one. They\u003cbr\u003eflourished together, they have rocked together in a war, which we, in\u003cbr\u003espite of our enormous contributions and sacrifices (like though in a\u003cbr\u003eless degree than America), economically stood outside, and they may fall\u003cbr\u003etogether. In this lies the destructive significance of the Peace of\u003cbr\u003eParis. If the European Civil War is to end with France and Italy abusing\u003cbr\u003etheir momentary victorious power to destroy Germany and Austria-Hungary\u003cbr\u003enow prostrate, they invite their own destruction also, being so deeply\u003cbr\u003eand inextricably intertwined with their victims by hidden psychic and\u003cbr\u003eeconomic bonds. At any rate an Englishman who took part in the\u003cbr\u003eConference of Paris and was during those months a member of the Supreme\u003cbr\u003eEconomic Council of the Allied Powers, was bound to become, for him a\u003cbr\u003enew experience, a European in his cares and outlook. There, at the nerve\u003cbr\u003ecenter of the European system, his British preoccupations must largely\u003cbr\u003efall away and he must be haunted by other and more dreadful specters.\u003cbr\u003eParis was a nightmare, and every one there was morbid. A sense of\u003cbr\u003eimpending catastrophe overhung the frivolous scene; the futility and\u003cbr\u003esmallness of man before the great events confronting him; the mingled\u003cbr\u003esignificance and unreality of the decisions; levity, blindness,\u003cbr\u003einsolence, confused cries from without,--all the elements of ancient\u003cbr\u003etragedy were there.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47152609263856,"sku":"2940013652927","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013652927_p0.jpg?v=1763583795","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013652927","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}