In Russia, Poland, Hungary, or Austria such a thing as a budget cannot be seriously considered to exist at all.[154] Thus the menace of inflationism described above is not merely a product of the war, of which peace begins the cure.

It is a continuing phenomenon of which the end is not yet in sight.
All these influences combine not merely to prevent Europe from supplying immediately a sufficient stream of exports to pay for the goods she needs to import, but they impair her credit for securing the working capital required to re-start the circle of exchange and also, by swinging the forces of economic law yet further from equilibrium rather than towards it, they favor a continuance of the present conditions instead of a recovery from them.

An inefficient, unemployed, disorganized Europe faces us, torn by internal strife and international hate, fighting, starving, pillaging, and lying.

What warrant is there for a picture of less somber colors?
I have paid little heed in this book to Russia, Hungary, or Austria.[155] There the miseries of life and the disintegration of society are too notorious to require analysis; and these countries are already experiencing the actuality of what for the rest of Europe is still in the realm of prediction.

Yet they comprehend a vast territory and a great population, and are an extant example of how much man can suffer and how far society can decay.