It is untrue to say that we were unprepared for the war.  We were more than prepared to do all that we promised to do.  What we were unprepared for was finding ourselves required to turn ourselves into, not only the greatest naval Power in the world, but one of the greatest military Powers also.  This demand was sprang upon us, and we have met it with extraordinary success.  The whole idea that Germany’s achievement has been such as to warrant any attempt on our part to model our institutions on her pattern seems to me to fall to pieces as soon as one looks calmly at the actual results produced by the different systems.  Moreover, even if we were to admit that Germany’s achievement in the war has been immeasurably greater than ours, it still would not follow that we could improve matters here by following the German system.  It ought not to be necessary to observe that a system which is good for one nation or individual is not necessarily good for another.  In the simple matter of diet, for instance, a most scientifically planned diet given to a child who does not happen to like it will not do that child any good.  These things ought to be obvious, but unfortunately in these times, which call for eminently practical thought and effort, there is a curious doctrinaire spirit abroad, and the theorist is continually encouraged to imagine how much better things would be if everything were quite different, whereas what we want is the application of practical common sense to practical facts as they are.

In the realm of finance the freedom and individual initiative and elasticity of our English system have long been the envy of the world.  Our banking system, as was shown, on an earlier page, has always worked with much less restriction on the part of legislative and official interference than any other, and, with the help of this freedom from official control, English bankers and finance houses had made London the financial centre of the world before the war.  The attempt of Parliament to control banking by Peel’s Act of 1844 was quietly set aside by the banking machinery through the development of the use of cheques, which made the regulations imposed on the note issue a matter of quite minor importance, except in times of severe crisis, when these regulations could always be set aside by an appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  There was no Government interference in the matter of new issues of securities on the London Stock Exchange or of the quotations granted to new securities by the Committee of the Stock Exchange.  Now the Companies Acts are to be revised in view of what may be necessary after the war, and there is only too much reason to fear that mistakes may occur through the imposition of drastic restrictions, which look so easy to work on paper, but are more than likely to have the actual effect of doing much more harm than good.