Page:The Economics of Unemployment.djvu/140

consistent with physiological survival, provided that other members of the group will make good their personal economy by consuming more. It is a group balance that must be maintained between production and consumption.

This implies that in an international economic world there is no necessary limit to the current savings of a particular nation. If it saves more than the right proportion imposed by the prevailing condition of the arts of industry, it can make good that excess by enabling some other nations to save less. In other words, it may continue to roll up increasing claims upon other peoples, postponing indefinitely the enlarged consumption which these claims enable it to practise. This is what the great creditor nations of the world have to various extents been doing, ever since industry evolved to the point of producing surpluses beyond those utilisable as capital to supply the rising home consumption. Great Britain was doing this before the War, investing larger proportions of its surplus savings abroad and not even receiving for home consumption the full interest upon past investments. The United States has recently been practising the same economy with concentrated energy. During the War her surplus savings were poured into Europe, enabling the belligerents hugely to expand their 'consumption' while reducing their production. After the War American lending continued on a vast scale, by further advances and reinvestment abroad of most of the interest due. Indeed, the new drive of American business into export trade, coupled with her rigorous Protection, involves the