The curious turn of events in England, where the most enterprising nation of modern times seemed to have fallen on evil days, came in for much discussion. Tom had accumulated a number of ideas while traveling abroad. For one thing, England, having acquired great wealth, seemed bent on holding onto it, preferably without having to work. Her desire for economic security reflected a human trait that accompanies maturity. Her government, always responsive to business influence, had gradually abandoned free trade in exchange for monopolies and cartels. Meanwhile business had exploited labor as a commodity, a fact disclosed by the character of her industrial cities. The High Street led upwind by way of wide avenues to cultivated gardens; the crooked lane to the workers’ cottages wound past bleak habitations blackened by factory smoke. Ultimately, labor in revolt had replaced the business monopoly with one of its own. Labor leaders, having acquired power, became its prisoners. Unless they wielded their power for the material benefit of the workers they represented, someone else would either force them to action or grab their jobs. In time these labor monopolists would feel the force of government in the form of a dictatorship or government monopoly. With the nationalization of industry, initiative and enterprise were sure to be stifled; all incentive would be lost. Tom had witnessed this in France without dreaming it could spread to England. With the vital spark extinguished, the body politic must decay. It always had. Yet while watching the creeping paralysis in England, Tom observed that certain nations continued to exercise their initiative. In Holland, for instance, where the Dutch, though defeated by the English fleet, had gone on to expand ocean commerce to create an empire in the Indies, the perception of their statesmen and merchants had suffered no obscuration. As far back as October 7, 1918, a month before the Armistice, the Dutch had pioneered with what was to become the world-famous K.L.M. and K.N.I.L.M., outstanding services on the continent of Europe extending to the Dutch East and West Indies. The Scandinavian countries, which behind the sure shield of the Grand Fleet had expanded their sea power, now linked their homeland with the rest of the Continent and with London, and made plans for their forthcoming service to the Americas. In Norway, Bernt Balchen, the well-known explorer, tied the efforts in with American products; in Sweden, Aktiebolaget Aerotransport standardized on American aircraft like the Douglas DC-3.