udalism and social restrictions put in their way in
old countries; and it cleared the home labour market and so helped the
workers in their uphill struggle for better conditions and a chance of
a real life. But when the guns begin to shoot, the question must arise
whether we were wise in leaving the export of capital, which has such
great and complicated effects, entirely to the influence of the higgling
of the market, and the price offered by the highest bidder.

Much will evidently depend on the way in which the present war ends. If
it should prove to be, as so many hoped at its beginning, a "war to end
war," and should be followed by a peace so well and truly founded that
we need have no fear for its destruction, then there will be much to be
said for leaving economic forces to work themselves out by economic
means, subject to any checks that their social effects may make
necessary. But if, as seems to be probable, the war ends in a way that
makes other such wars quite possible, when we have all recovered from
the exhaustion and disgust produced by the present one, then political
expediency may overrule economic advantage, and we may find it necessary
to consider the policy of restricting the export of British capital to
countries with which there is no chance of our ever being at war, and
especially to our own Dominions oversea, not necessarily by prohibitions
and hard and fast rules, but rather by seeing that the countries to
which it is desirable for our capital to go may have some advantage when
they appeal for it.

This advantage our own colonial Dominions already possess, both from the
sentiment of investors, which is a strong influence in their favour, and
will be stronger than ever after the war, and from legal enactment which
allows trustees to invest trust funds in their loans. Probably the
safest course would be to leave sentiment to settle the matter, and pray
to Providence to give us sensible sentiments. Actual restraints on the
export of capital would be very difficult to enforce, for capital is an
elusive commodity that cannot be stopped at the Customs houses. If we
lent money to a friendly nation, and our friend was thereby enabled to
lend to a likely foe, we should not have mended matters. The time is not
yet ripe for a full discussion of this difficult and complicated
question, and it is above all important that we should not jump to
hasty conclusions about it while under the influence of the feveri