In so far as it is mere emotional exhaustion which we are now feeling, and not the beginning of a new tradition and new attitude in which intelligence, however dimly, has its part, it has in it little hope. For inertia has its dangers as grave as those of unseeing passion. In the one case the ship is driven helplessly by a gale on to the rocks, in the other it drifts just as helplessly into the whirlpool. A consciousness of direction, a desire at least to be master of our fate and to make the effort of thought to that end, is the indispensable condition of freedom, salvation. That is the first and last justification for the discussion we have just summarised. FOOTNOTES: [1] But British policy can hardly be called less contradictory. A year after the enactment of a Treaty which quite avowedly was framed for the purpose of checking the development of German trade, we find the unemployment crisis producing on the part of the _New Statesman_ the following comment:-- 'It must be admitted, however, that the present wave of depression and unemployment is far more an international than a national problem. The abolition of "casual labour" and the adoption of a system of "industrial maintenance" would appreciably affect it. The international aspect of the question has always been important, but never so overwhelmingly important as it is to-day. 'The present great depression, however, is not normal. It is due in the main to the breakdown of credit and the demoralisation of the "exchanges" throughout Europe. France cannot buy locomotives in England if she has to pay 60 francs to the pound sterling. Germany, with an exchange of 260 (instead of the pre-war 20) marks to the pound, can buy scarcely anything. Russia, for other reasons cannot buy at all. And even neutral countries like Sweden and Denmark, which made much money out of the war and whose "exchanges" are fairly normal, are financially almost _hors de combat_, owing presumably to the ruin of Germany. There appears to be no remedy for this position save the economic rehabilitation of Central Europe. 'As long as German workmen are unable to exercise their full productive capacity, English workmen will be unemployed. That, at present, is the root of the problem. For the last two years we, as an industrial nation, have been cutting off our nose to spite our face. In so far as we ruin Germany we are ruining ourselves; and in so far as we refuse to trade with revolutionary Russia we are increasing the likelihood of violent upheavals in Great Britain. Sooner or later we shall have to scrap every Treaty that has been signed and begin again the creation of the New Europe on the basis of universal co-operation and mutual aid. Where we have demanded indemnities we must offer loans.