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 feverish
state of mind produced by war. The war has shown us that our wealth was
a sure and trusty weapon, and much of the strength of this weapon we owe
to our activity in International Finance.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: "England's Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century," p, 16,
by Dr. A.L. Bowley.]

[Footnote 8: "Paper against Gold," Letter III.]




CHAPTER VIII


REMEDIES AND REGULATIONS