War-time financial problems

THE ELUSIVE. ALIEN 191

similar difficulties. It is easy to ensure that they
shall be all, or a majority of them, British subjects,
but there is no means of ensuring that their actions
shall not be controlled by aliens whose nationality is
not disclosed.

Having pointed out these difficulties, which seem
in effect to reduce the whole question to the domain
of farce, the Committee goes on to inquire whether it
is desirable to legislate in the direction of forbidding
the employment of foreign capital here in Joint
Stock Companies, unless :—

(1) There is disclosure of the alien character of the

foreign owner ;

(2) Not more than a certain proportion of the

Company's shares are held by aliens;

(3) The Board, or a certain proportion of the

Board, shall not be alien;

and, further, whether it is desirable to discriminate
between one alien and another, and to legislate in
that direction in the case of certain aliens and not
of others.

In answering these questions, the Committee
decided that it was necessary to discriminate between
certain classes of companies—Class A being com-
panies in general, Class B. being companies owning
British shipping, and Class C companies engaged in
"key" industries. With regard to companies in
Class A, they recommend that no restrictions at all
be imposed, but, nevertheless, they elaborate a
scheme of enforcing disclosure of alien ownership if
that policy seems to the legislature to be right. This
scheme, the Committee admits, is necessarily detailed