If the Government is allowed to go on financing the war by increasing
the currency with the very reluctant help of the bankers, the
difficulties of maintaining our gold standard and keeping the
exchanges in favour of London will be very greatly magnified when
the war is over and our gold reserves are no longer protected by the
submarines and the high cost of shipping gold that they produce. It
therefore follows that all who have the true interests of the City at
heart should use all the influence they can to force the Government to
adopt a sounder financial policy before it is too late.

It is true that our war finance has hitherto been sounder than that of
any other warring Power, but it has fallen very short if we apply the
rough test of the proportion of the cost of war borne out of taxation
and compare our performance with the results achieved by our ancestors
in the Napoleonic and Crimean wars.

If we have done better than France, Italy, Russia and Germany in this
respect, it must also be remembered that the financial prestige which
these countries had to maintain was not nearly so great and well
established as ours, with the possible exception of France; and
France, being exposed to the ravages of a ruthless invader, was in a
position which put special obstacles in the way of the canons of sound
finance.

If, then, there are certain dangers that threaten our financial
position when the war is over, we must remember, on the other hand,
that the war has already done a great deal to maintain our financial
prestige and raise it to a height at which it never stood before.

When the war began we were expected to finance the Allies, to keep the