Page:The Economics of Unemployment.djvu/131

In concluding my argument I think it is desirable to give a fuller and more formal reply to two lines of criticism which are likely to block its reception in many minds.

It may be said that this is a most inopportune time to press the claim of a doctrine of under-consumption or over-saving. The present depression and unemployment require and admit no such explanation. They are manifestly due to the destruction of capital resources and of the productive power of labour from the war and the social disorders which ensued in Central Europe, Russia and the near East, the breakdown of the financial system by which commerce between nations, and even within the several countries, is normally conducted, deficiencies in the machinery of transport, protective tariffs, embargoes and other obstacles to trade, the cost and difficulty of getting the fabric of industry from a war-basis on to a peace-basis, political insecurity and related wastes of armaments, high taxation, war debts, reparations, and the aggregate result of all these conditions in paralysing business confidence and the plans and activities