It is the Reckoning of that Uncertain
To-morrow that will prove to be the problem.
You cannot bankrupt a nation any more than you can ruin an individual so
long as brains and energy are available. Peace therefore will not find a
ruined Europe but it will dawn on a group of depleted countries facing
enormous responsibilities. War ends but the cost of it endures. Just as
present millions are paying with their lives so will unborn hosts pay
with the sweat of their brows.
Meanwhile our Financial Stake in the Great Struggle is secure. How much
more we will have to put into Europe's Red Pay Envelope remains to be
seen. In any event, we have learned how to do it.
VII--_The Man Lloyd George_
The door opened and almost before I had crossed the threshold the little
grey-haired man down at the end of the long stately room began to speak.
Lloyd George was in action.
I had last seen him a year ago in the murk of a London railway station
when I bade him farewell after a memorable day. With him I had gone to
Bristol where he had made an impassioned plea for harmony to the Trade
Union Congress. Then he was Minister of Munitions, Shell-Master of the
Nation in its critical hour of Ammunition Need.
Now he had succeeded the lamented Kitchener as Minister of War; sat in
the Seat of Strategy, head of the far-flung khakied hosts that even at
this moment were breasting death on half a dozen fronts. Just as twelve
months before he had unflinchingly met the Great Emergency that
threatened his country's existence, so did he again fill the National
Breach.
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