suffer from limitations from which outside dealers were exempt was certainly a hardship.  On the other hand, since the armistice there has been a considerable expansion in Stock Exchange business.  Oil shares, Mexican securities, industrial shares, insurance shares, and others in which capitalisation of reserves and bonus issues have been used as an effective lever for speculation, have enjoyed spells of considerable activity.  With this revival in progress, in spite of many obvious bear points, such as industrial unrest at home, Bolshevism abroad, the continuance of heavy expenditure by the Government, and the hardly slackened growth of the national debt, it seems to have been scarcely necessary in the interests of the House to have made regulations which, though perhaps demanded by abstract justice, imposed new ties on enterprise at a time when complete freedom, as far as it was consistent with the best interests of the country, was most of all desirable.

How far, we have next to ask, is it necessary for the best interests of the country to restrict the freedom of capital issues?  If we look back at the terms of reference under which the reconstituted Committee is to work, we see that the officially expressed objects are (1) preserving capital for essential undertakings in the United Kingdom, and (2) preventing any avoidable drain upon Foreign Exchanges by the export of capital.  There is certainly much to be said for both these objects.  When we lend money to foreigners we give them the right to draw on us now in return for their promises to pay some day; in other words, we make an invisible import of foreign securities, and in the present state of our trade balance all imports, whether visible or invisible, need careful watching.  It is also very evident that at a time when capital is scarce there is much to be said for keeping it for essential industries, especially those which produce necessaries and goods for export, and not allowing it to be swept up by borrowers who are going to devote it to making expensive fripperies on which big profits are probable.

There remains a very big other side to both these questions.  All over the world there is a demand for goods which have not been produced, or only in greatly reduced quantities, during the war.  This demand is only effective in so far as willing buyers can pay; some of them have the needful cash in hand or waiting in London or elsewhere to be drawn on, but a great number of would-be buyers want to be financed, and will have to be financed by somebody if the needs that they feel are to be translated into actual purchases.  In other words, in order that the wheels of industry are to be set turning as fast as they might, if they had a full chance, somebody has to lend freely.  Now, it is surely most of all important in the national interest that those wheels should begin spinning as fast as possible, and the question is whether we are more likely to serve that interest best by keeping