i88 FOREIGN CAPITAL

capital abroad and opened a free market to the pro-
ducts of all other countries. At a time when, owing
to exceptional circumstances, we ourselves happen
to be in need of capital, it would appear to be an
extremely short-sighted policy to refuse to admit it,
wherever it came from. We have excellent reason
to known that, when capital is once invested in a
foreign country, it is largely in the power of the
Inhabitants and Government of that country to
control its working. Any foreigner, even an enemy,
who set up a factory in England after the war would
be doing just the very thing which we most of all
want to be done, namely, setting the wheels of
industry going, relieving the labour market from
a possible glut after demobilisation, and helping
that difficult stage of transition from war work to
peace work.

The Committee, however, considers that " at the
root of the whole matter lies a question which is not
one of Company Law amendment at all, but one
of high political and economic policy." It does not
fall within its province " to inquire whether the
traditional policy of this country to admit and
welcome all who seek our shores and submit them-
selves loyally to our laws ought, in the case of some
and what aliens, to be revised "; or whether dis-
crimination ought to be made between an alien of
one nationality and an alien of another. " As
regards aliens who are now our enemies, it may be
that the British Empire may adopt the policy that
a special stigma ought to be attached to the German,
and that neither as an individual, nor as a firm, nor