Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

viii NOTE BY THE DIRECTOR
each other. Commissions centering finally in the Supreme
Economic Council adjusted in a harmonious way questions
that would otherwise have led to rivalry and conflicting
action in purchasing war materials, securing ships, apportioning food, controlling railroads, financing the war and
doing a multitude of other things with the one common purpose of victory. The special compulsion of the struggle is
over, but it has left an aftermath of issues grave enough to
make peace insecure unless something equivalent to the
Supreme Economic Council survives in full efficiency. The
agency that did so much to win the war can do as much to
prevent another one, but to that end it will have to be guided
by economic principles and it is a saving fact that these still
survive. The war has not abolished the law of demand and
supply, though governments may forget it. In the coming
era they must build better than they now know. Economic
knowledge must either go in advance of action and prevent
disaster or follow action and be learned from disaster.
The Japanese monographs in the present series have reference to wars which were concluded before the World War
began. Although they were completed several years ago,
their publication has been delayed as a result of war-time
conditions. This series is to be followed by a series of studies
of the World War itself, made under the direction of the same
committee of accomplished Japanese scholars as the present
one. Both series will contribute much to the solution of postwar problems in all parts of the world.
JOHN BATES CLARK,
D rector.
NEW YORK,
February I, 1923.