On the other hand the great shell factories of Europe will be
standing idle and ready, their staffs disciplined and available, for
conversion to the new task. The imperative common sense of the position
seems to be that the European governments should set themselves straight
away to out-Ford Ford, and provide their own people with cheap road
transport.
But here comes in the question whether this common-sense course is
inevitable. Suppose the mental energy left in Europe after the war is
insufficient for such a constructive feat as this. There will certainly
be the obstruction of official pedantry, the hold-up of this vested
interest and that, the greedy desire of "private enterprise" to exploit
the occasion upon rather more costly and less productive lines, the
general distrust felt by ignorant and unimaginative people of a new way
of doing things. The process after all may not get done in the obviously
wise way. This will not mean that Europe will buy American cars. It will
be quite unable to buy American cars. It will be unable to make anything
that America will not be able to make more cheaply for itself. But it
will mean that Europe will go on without cheap cars, that is to say
it will go on a more sluggishly and clumsily and wastefully at a lower
economic level. Hampered transport means hampered production of other
things, and in increasing inability to buy abroad.
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