Perhaps
it was the greatest achievement of Morris in the way of thought that he
saw economics, even more clearly than Ruskin, as a matter not of natural
laws, but of conscience and duty. He did not talk about economics at
all, but about the waste of labour, just as we talk about it now. The
only difference is that he saw it to be one of the chief causes of
poverty in time of peace, whereas we see it as a hindrance to victory in
time of war. We have, for war purposes, acquired the conscience that he
wished us to acquire for all purposes. The question is whether we shall
keep it in peace.
Upon that depends the question how soon we shall recover from the war.
For there is no doubt that we shall not be able to afford our former
waste of labour; and, if we persist in it, we shall be bankrupt as a
society. It may be said that we shall not have the money, the power, to
waste labour. But we shall certainly have some superfluous energy, more
and more, it is to be hoped, as time goes on; and our future recovery
will depend upon the use we make of this superfluous energy. We can
waste it, as we wasted it before the war; or we can keep the conscience
we have acquired in war and ask ourselves in peace, with every penny we
spend, whether we are wasting labour. It is true that what may be waste
to one will not be waste to another; but in that matter every one must
obey his own conscience. The important thing is that every one should
have a conscience and obey it.
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