So pessimistic a pronouncement lends itself to the assumption that we are merely jumping out of the frying-pan of international strife into the fire of internal or domestic disruption. The writer of this article is, however, not quite so pessimistic as to be unable to offer any remedy, for as an alternative he insists that "this mad orgy of spending must cease from Government Departments downwards. All classes must turn to work.... Employers and employed must give up quarrelling and work together. Economy and work are the two watchwords for the nation." "En avant," then. But first of all "let us examine things," as Mr. Lloyd George would have us do, "in the spirit of comradeship which has been created by the war, that spirit of comradeship which arose from a common sacrifice," and then, "let us demonstrate to the world once more that Britain, beyond all lands, has the traditional power of reaching a solution of her most baffling problems without resorting to anarchy, but merely by appeal to the commonsense of most, and in a spirit of fair play." Unhappily enough everybody was, however, "suffering from the terrible strain of the war; nerves were jagged and sore; the world was suffering from shell-shock on a great scale." The position, therefore, if not indeed dangerous was none the less serious and fraught with difficulty. Put in a nutshell, "we were spending more, we were earning less; we were consuming more, we were producing less; we were not paying our way. Before the war our National Debt was £645,000,000; to-day it is £7,800,000,000" (cp. the _Times_, August 19th, 1919). "En avant!" But how to remedy the state of affairs? How to straighten out the tangle? What invariably happens when the blind lead the blind seemed bound to occur if the Coalition Ministry continued leading or misleading the people. "I make this indictment against the Ministry of the day," exclaimed Sir D. Maclean when addressing the House on August 12th, 1919, "that in this supreme financial crisis of the nation they are failing wholly in their duty to put a stop to extravagant expenditure." The Chancellor of the Exchequer estimated the then daily average expenditure at no less than £4,442,000; the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force accounting for £1,491,000 of this amount, notwithstanding the fact that since the Armistice a total of 3,087,973 of all ranks had been demobilised (cp. the _Times_, August 13th, 1919. Statement issued by the War Office).