It may be true that capital will not flow to London if London is not in a position to lend, but we see no reason why London should not be able to resume her position as an international money lender, not perhaps immediately on the declaration of peace, but as soon as the aftermath of war has been cleared away and the first few months of difficulty and danger have been passed. The prophecy that foreign trade will decrease may also be true for a time owing to the destruction of merchant shipping that the war is causing. This possibility, however, may be remedied between now and the end of the war if the great programmes of merchant shipbuilding which have been undertaken by the British and American Governments are duly carried out. In any case, even if foreign trade decreases, there is no reason whatever to expect that England's will decrease faster than that of other nations. In all these problems we have to look for the relative answer and to consider not whether England has suffered by the war, for it is most obvious that she has, but whether she will have been found to have suffered more than any competitor who may threaten her after-war position. "Free trade," says our German Jeremiah, "that mighty agent in the development of England's supremacy, will, in all probability, give place to protection." We venture to think that it will be recognised that the Free Trade policy of the past gave us a well-distributed wealth which was an invaluable weapon in time of war, and that any attempt to impose import duties when peace comes 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 every 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.