ABSTRACT
In 1938, the last full year of peace, there were on an average nearly 1,900,000 persons unemployed in Britain and Northern Ireland. In melting away unemployment, the second World War has repeated the experience of 1914–18. Under the unplanned market economy of peace a substantial part of the productive resources of each country more often than not stood idle; in the last decade before the war the average loss of potential output through this cause was an eighth or more. Under the planned economy of war, output has leapt forward by 30 to 50 per cent. in three or four years. It is not necessary or desirable to attempt in peace to drive the economic machine at the pace of war. The target set in war is made deliberately too high; to stave off defeat, all that is possible must be done and more than is possible must be attempted.
