the Companies Acts has often before the war been a more or
less burning question. Whenever the public thought that it had been
swindled by the company promoting machinery, it used to write letters
to the newspapers and point out that it was a scandal that the sharks
of the City should be allowed to prey upon the ignorant public,
and that something ought to be done by Parliament to insure that
investments offered to the public should somehow or other be made
absolutely watertight and safe, while by some unexplained method the
public would still be somehow able to derive large benefits from
fortunate speculations in enterprises which turned out right. Every
one must admit there have been some black pages in the history
of British company promoting, and that many swindles have been
perpetrated by which the public has lost its money and dishonest and
third-rate promoters have retired with the spoil. The question is,
however, what is the remedy for this admitted and glaring evil? Is it
to be found by making the Companies Laws so strict that no respectable
citizen would venture to become a director owing to the fear of penal
servitude if the company on whose board he sat did not happen to pay a
dividend, and that no prospectus could be issued except in the case of
a concern which had already stood so severe a test that its earning
capacity was placed beyond doubt? It would certainly be possible by
legislative enactment to make any security that was offered as safe as
Consols, and less subject to fluctuation in value. But when this had
been done the effect would be very much like the effect upon rabbits
of the recent fixing of their price. No more securities would be
offered.

It is certainly extremely important for the future financial and
industrial development of this country that the machinery of finance
and company promotion should be made as clean as possible. What we
want to do is to make everybody see that a great increase in output is
required, that this great increase in output can only be brought about
if there is a great increase in the available amount of capital, that
capital can only be brought into being by being saved, and that it is
therefore everybody's business, both for his own sake and that of the
country, to earn as much as he can and save as much as he can so that
the country's capital fund can be increased; so that industry, which
will have many difficult problems to face when the war is over, shall
b