War-time financial problems

POLITICAL INFLUENCES 95

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 inter-
ference 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.

" Circumstances arising out of the war and
developments likely to arise on its conclusion " give
this Committee a roving commission to consider all
kinds of things, which may or may not happen, in
the light of wisdom which may be put before it by
interested witnesses, and, worse still, in the light of
semi-official pressure to produce a report which will
go down well with the House of Commons. Our
politicians are at present in a state of extreme
servility before the enterprising gentlemen who are
now at the head of what is called the Labour Party.
Every one will sympathise with the aspirations of
this party in so far as they aim at bettering the lot
of those who do the hard and uninteresting work of
the world, and giving them a larger share of the
productions that they help to turn out; but that
is not the same thing as giving obsequious attention
to the views which their representatives may have