are advocating policies by which we should
even restrict our commercial and economic intercourse with our
brothers-in-arms. If the clamour for Imperial preference is to have
any practical result, it can only tend to cultivate trade within the
British Empire, protected by an economic ring-fence at the expense
of the trade which, before the war, we carried on with our present
Allies. And a large number of people who, under the cover of Imperial
preference, are agitating also for Protection for this country, would
endeavour to make the British Isles as far as possible self-sufficient
at the expense of their trade, not only with all their present Allies,
but even with their brethren overseas.

It is fortunately probable that the very muddle-headed reasoning which
is producing such curious results as these, at a time when the world
is preparing to enter on a period of closer co-operation and improved
and extended relations between one country and another, is confined,
in fact, to a few noisy people who possess in a high degree the
faculty of successful self-advertisement. I do not believe that the
country as a whole is prepared to relinquish the economic policy which
gave it such an enormous increase in material resources during the
past century, and has enabled it to stand forward as the industrial
and financial champion of the Allied cause during the difficult early
years of the war. Our rulers seem to be sitting very carefully on the
top of the fence, waiting to see which way the cat is going to
jump. They have made brave statements about abrogating all treaties
involving the most-favoured nation clause and about adopting the
principle of Imperial preference; but when their eager followers press
them to do something besides talking about what they are going to do,
they then have a tendency to return to the domain of common-sense and
to point out that it is above all desirable that our economic policy
should be in unison with that of the United States.

Whatever may happen in the realm of trade and commercial policy, it
would seem to be self-evident that with regard to capital it would be
still more difficult and undesirable to impose restrictions than with
regard to the entry of goods; and above all, it seems to be obvious
that at any rate the free entry of capital into this country is a
matter which should be specially encouraged when the war is over. At
that difficult period we have to secure, if possible, that Britis