AN AFTERCOST OF THE WORLD WAR TO THE UNITED STATES.

In this industrial age a nation cannot beat its swords into plowshares in a few years; the process takes decades. In order to test this prosperity argument for war, the article examines the job-creating powers of the World War by comparing production during the post-World War period with production in the pre-World War period. The procedure will be to determine, if possible, the rate of growth in the physical volume of production and other measures of the totality of economic activity during the prewar period and extrapolate these prewar rates of growth into the postwar period in order to determine whether the postwar rates of growth have maintained the pre-war pace. The carry-over of wartime stimuli to expansion and investment had petered out; the new and usual peacetime stimuli to investment still awaited the attainment of a favorable international balance of economic and political power, a return of world-wide confidence in the future of domestic and foreign investments. Postwar adjustments and "appeasement" are not a function of time; the time they require is a question of the attitudes and ambitions of rulers as well as the force of events.