Many things that are now happening must be tickling the sardonic humour of the Muse of History. The majority of the civilised Powers are banded together to overthrow a menace to civilisation, carrying on a war which, it is hoped, is to produce a state of things in which mankind, purged of the evil spirits of militarism and aggression, is to start on a new order of co-operation. At the same time, while we are engaged in fighting under banners with these noble ideals inscribed on them, a large number of citizens of this country are airing proposals aimed at restrictions upon our intercourse with other nations, especially in the economic sphere. In last month's issue of this Journal a very interesting article, signed "Veritas," discussed the question as to how far it was in the power of the Allies to make use of the economic weapon against their enemies after the war. That such a question should even be mooted as an end to a war undertaken with these objects, shows what a number of queer cross-currents are at work in the minds of many of us to-day. But some people go much further than that, and 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.