War-time financial problems

THE RELATIVE POSITION 21

weapon in time of war, and that any attempt to
impose import duties when peace conies will be
admitted, even by the most ardent Tariff Reformers,
as untimely when there is likely to be a world-wide
scramble for food and raw materials, and the one
object of fivery nation will be to get them wherever
they can and as cheaply as they can.

If Stock Exchange business will be less, though
this does not by any means follow, there is no reason
why it should be relatively less here than in other
centres. As to rates of interest being permanently
higher, the same answer applies. It may be true,
but there is no reason why they should be relatively
higher in London than elsewhere ; and, if they are
high, it will be because there will be a great demand
for capital, which will mean a great trade expansion;
both in the provision of capital and in meeting the
demands of trade expansion England will be doing
what she has done with marked success in the past
and can, if she works in the right way now and after
the war, do again with equal and still greater success.

There is, however, a danger that threatens our
financial position after the war, on the subject of
which our German critic is discreetly silent, because
that danger threatens the position of Germany very
much more emphatically. It consists in the way in
which our Government is at present meeting the
needs of war finance, not by compelling economy on
the civilian population through taxation and borrow-
ing direct from investors, but by manufacturing
currency for the purposes of the war by means of the
printing press and the banking machinery. The