There have been other influences besides that patience of the common people which often before has helped Europe through worse evils. The actions of those in power have been wiser than their words. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that no parts of the Peace Treaties have been carried out, except those relating to frontiers and to disarmament. Many of the misfortunes which I predicted as attendant on the execution of the Reparation Chapter have not occurred, because no serious attempt has been made to execute it. And, whilst no one can predict with what particular sauce the makers of the Treaty will eat their words, there can no longer be any question of the actual enforcement of this Chapter. And there has been a third factor, not quite in accordance with expectations, paradoxical at first sight, but natural, nevertheless, and concordant with past experience,—the fact that it is in times of growing profits and not in times of growing distress that the working classes stir themselves and threaten their masters. When times are bad and poverty presses on them they sink back again into a weary acquiescence. Great Britain and all Europe have learned this in 1921. Was not the French Revolution rather due perhaps to the growing wealth of eighteenth–century France—for at that time France was the richest country in the world—than to the pressure of taxation or the exactions of the old régime? It is the profiteer, not privation, that makes man shake his chains. In spite, therefore, of trade depression and disordered exchanges, Europe, under the surface, is much stabler and much healthier than two years ago. The disturbance of minds is less. The organization, destroyed by war, has been partly restored; transport, except in Eastern Europe, is largely repaired; there has been a good harvest, everywhere but in Russia, and raw materials are abundant. Great Britain and the United States and their markets overseas have suffered a cyclical fluctuation of trade prosperity of a greater amplitude than ever before; but there are indications that the worst point is passed. Two obstacles remain. The Treaty, though unexecuted, is not revised. And that part of organization, which consists in currency regulation, public finance, and the foreign exchanges, remains nearly as bad as it ever was. In most European countries there is still no proper balance between the expenditure of the State and its income, so that inflation continues and the international values of their currencies are fluctuating and uncertain. The suggestions which follow are mainly directed towards these problems. * * * * *