In a Long Barrow ('Bowles' Barrow,' near Imber) fragments of sarsen and of blue stone, apparently from Stonehenge, were found with the primary interment, suggesting that Stonehenge was of earlier date than that Neolithic barrow.

Mound No. 94.-In the article in Nature (February 17, 1923) to which reference has been made, it is shown that at No. 94 the Stonehenge stone which had occupied that site had in the Bronze Age already been removed. Hence we may infer that in the Bronze Age Stonehenge had ceased to be an object of interest, and that its dilapidation had even then already begun.

No Articles of Bronze.-The building of Stonehenge must have occupied a very large number of people for a considerable period. Some would be employed as foremen or as overseers, measuring and marking out the sites for the foundation pits and superintending the various operations. Gangs of workmen would be engaged in trimming and dressing the stones, shaping and repairing the tools, excavating the foundations, conveying the stones to place, erecting the stones and adjusting them in position, and carrying out various other operations incidental to this great work.

This large number of people were employed all over the site. They were coming and going day after day for probably several years. From time to time there would, moreover, be festivals, religious observances, quarrels, crimes, punishments, accidents, and various other events.

If the work had been executed in the Bronze Age some at least of these people would have had articles of bronze in their possession -weapons or implements, ornaments, buttons or pins for fastening their clothing. In the course of various events on this great undertaking, occupying so many people for so long a period, some (probably many) of these articles would be lost, stolen, hidden, dropped in foundation pits, or broken and trodden into the ground.

But no weapon, tool, implement, ornament, bead, button, pin or any fragment of any such article of bronze was found in the course of the excavations. And yet the earth from the excavations was carefully screened with sieves which would have detected any object of a size greater than one-eighth of an inch.

With these facts before us, it appears scarcely conceivable that the work could have been executed in the Bronze Age.

VIII. GENERAL CONCLUSION

On the considerations set forth in the foregoing pages we may conclude that Stonehenge was constructed before the coming of the Round Barrow people, and that its date would be near the close of the Neolithic period, somewhere about 2000 B.C.

E. HERBERT STONE.

AFTER WATERLOO

What followed Waterloo? Nobody reads about it. Nobody knows. (MR. LLOYD GEORGE, July 28, 1922.)

Never during the whole industrial history of our country have employers and workpeople found themselves in such a plight as to-day. Never before has any Government faced such a situation with so brazen and criminal a failure to take adequate measures for dealing with conditions which mean ruin both to individuals and the nation. (MR. GEORGE LANSBURY, August 10, 1923.)

It is evident from the second of these utterances that its author has taken no notice of the first and has not devoted any portion of the intervening twelve months to a little historical research. If he had he could hardly have made such a sweeping statement. Not that there is anything exceptional in it; similar statements are constantly proceeding from members of the Labour Party and other persons who wish to deal the Government a blow or to foment discontent in general. The economic state of the country and unemployment in particular are stock missiles. I take Mr. Lansbury's outburst because it is a handy and emphatic expression of a typical sentiment. And if I challenge its validity it is not in order to defend the Government, which is not my business, or for any other partisan purpose, but for the sake of historical accuracy. Mr. Lloyd George's remarks last year caught my eye because, as it happened, I had for some time been studying the period to which he referred and had written a good deal about it. It is a most interesting and, in my opinion, instructive study, but far too extensive for anything approaching adequate treatment in a single article in these days of contracted space. I can only pick out a few points for notice.

The reason why this period is so interesting to-day is that it is the only one at all comparable with the present. There are many points of resemblance, and in some respects the parallelism is remarkable. The divergence is not less so, and both resemblances and differences are instructive. The chief points of resemblance lie on the surface. They are a long war of defence waged with allies against military aggression, involving the utmost strain on all the resources of the country, with great economic dislocation, brought at length to a successful conclusion and followed by

general exhaustion. The exhaustion is the point of the most immediate interest. It was quite as great after the French war as after the German, for if the strain was less intense then it was far more prolonged. France, already at war with Austria and Prussia, had declared war on England in February 1793, and had carried it on for more than twenty-two years with two intervals of truce lasting fourteen months and ten months. During that long conflict, which for the greater part of the time was conducted against us by an incomparable military genius and the most formidable antagonist this country has ever had, many other things occurred to increase the burden. There were wars with the United States, with native rulers in India, with the Dutch and the Danes; there were military expeditions to South America and the Cape, several rebellions in Ireland, industrial riots at home, a mutiny in the Navy, suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act and of payment by the Bank of England, the assassination of a Prime Minister, and various other minor troubles. The surprising thing is not that the country emerged exhausted and loaded with debt, but that it passed through this terrible period at all without collapse. It was such a little country in numbers. In 1811 the population of Great Britain was only twelve millions, of England only ten millions. The great secret of its economic strength seems to have been the balance between agriculture and industry which marked this particular period. Industry was expanding rapidly, but not yet out of all proportion to agriculture. The country had ceased to export grain about the beginning of the period, but it was still practically self-supporting one year with another, and though the population increased more rapidly than it had ever done before or has done since, through the expansion of industry, the production of food increased with it, so that the average importation of wheat remained small and almost stationary. At the same time our growing manufactures had the world's market to themselves to a degree never since equalled, and during the war our command of the sea became supreme. This combination, which was unique and temporary, happened to coincide with the war and the period immediately following.

Here, then, are some striking resemblances and differences in the preliminary conditions. In what follows the resemblances stand out more prominently than the differences; and they are, indeed, surprisingly numerous. History does repeat itself, though always with a difference. It is curious how many of the questions which agitate men's minds to-day were canvassed then, down to such matters as smoke prevention, birth control, cruelty to animals, and the price of beer. The larger questions attending the transition from war to peace-finance, taxation, trade, industry, employment, etc.-presented themselves in essentially the

same forms as to-day, though everything was on a smaller scale, of It is with these that I shall here chiefly deal.

course.

Great economic troubles followed the Napoleonic wars and were accompanied by unemployment, distress, agitation and disorder. The same causes were named, the same criticisms were made, and the same remedies proposed as in our own day. And these troubles continued, with oscillations, for many years. A bird's-eye view can, perhaps, be best given by means of brief chronological notes.

1815. Expenditure, 120 millions; ordinary revenue, 46 millions; National Debt, 860 millions-431. a head. Great agricultural depression, accentuated after Waterloo, in spite of Corn Law; many farmers ruined; farms thrown out of cultivation and labourers out of work. Riots in the north. Corn Law, restricting importation, passed.

1816. General stagnation of trade, extreme agricultural depression. Bread or blood' riots in eastern counties by unemployed labourers. Whole villages on poor rates. Industrial depression; foreign countries too poor to buy; factories closed down or on short time. Riot in London with firearms after mass meeting of unemployed. Fall of wages and great rise of grain prices after bad harvest. Strong criticisms of enormous peace establishment of Army and Navy.

1817. Continued depression and unemployment; wide-spread distress; one-third of the population in Birmingham on the poor rates. Public relief works. Much emigration. Active agitation for revolutionary political changes. Outrage on Prince Regent at opening of Parliament. March of Blanketeers' (unemployed) from Manchester. Fears of revolutionary plots. Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act. Excessive expenditure and taxation blamed depression. Some improvement in latter part of the year.

1818. Trade and industry reviving; cotton active. Strike of spinners; rioting by weavers at Burnley. Peel's Factory Act introduced. Much discussion on currency and exchange.

1819. Optimistic spirit prevalent, but checked in the spring by sudden return of depression. Imports fall six millions, exports nine millions. Distress; strikes; riots. Sydney Smith predicts I war of the rich against the poor.' Peterloo (fatal charge of Yeomanry on mass meeting in Manchester). Robert Owen's Utopian plan of small co-operative settlements. Universal gloom (fifth winter after Waterloo).

1820. Continued depression. Serious outbreak threatened in Lanarkshire, people said to be in a state of 'absolute destitution.' Collision with Yeomanry at Bonnymuir. Cato Street conspiracy of Thistlewood to assassinate the Cabinet. Distress world-wide. Petition of London merchants in favour of Free

Trade. Partial improvement later in year, but agriculture worse than ever.

1821. Continued agricultural distress. Ruinous losses. Deflation of currency blamed. High taxation blamed. Strong demand for retrenchment and reduced taxation. Special taxation of fund-holders proposed. Free Trade and non-interference by Government advocated. Protection demanded. Gold coin payments resumed.

1822. General demand by all classes for reduced expenditure, Government 'badgered to death.' Trade improving. Riots and outrages (Whiteboys) in Ireland. Potato famine. Large relief funds. Distress relieved and outrages resumed.

1823. Continued agitation about the state of agriculture. Currency blamed again. Wild policy advocated by Cobbett. Proposed reduction of interest on debt and 'revision of contracts.' Sudden rice of corn prices. Agitation dropped. Optimism. Rising commercial activity.

1824. Recovery of agriculture. General prosperity (ninth year after Waterloo). Repeal of Combination Acts.

It is impossible to run through this condensed record of ten years without being struck by the similarity to our own recent and current experiences. Since, as I have already said, agriculture then occupied a far more important place in the national economy than it does now, its depressed state produced correspondingly severer effects, and the plunge from an artificial war prosperity to the collapse of the market in peace was also more sudden. But broadly we see the same phenomena, the same troubles, the same confused and excited discussion of causes and remedies, the same agitations, the same hopes and fears, the same miscalculations, the same helplessness. It is like looking into a mirror. Yet there was peace in Europe, at any rate for five years; and then the disorders that arose were of a minor character-revolutionary movements in the Peninsula and Italy, war in the Balkans against Turkey, and small things of that kind. The Great Powers were peaceful, and the Allies did not quarrel. We were on good terms with France, who played the game and carried out her obligations. We lent her money. The indemnity of 700 million francs was reduced and paid off in less than the time allowed. The army of occupation was completely withdrawn in 1818. Indeed, there was no considerable war for thirty-nine years, and then France was our ally. There was no war on the grand scale until Wilhelm II. persuaded himself that he was a Napoleon, one hundred years later.

In spite of this comparative tranquillity and absence of obstacles to the resumption of trade, the economic depression was quite as severe and general as in our own time, quite as resistant to reme