t. This scheme, the Committee admits, is
necessarily detailed and laborious; it puts difficulties in the way of
investment in English securities, whether by British subject or alien.
It would supply, no doubt, to the Board of Trade useful information
as to the extent of foreign investment in English industries, but the
price paid for this advantage would, in the Committee's opinion, be
too great. If adopted, the scheme could be evaded. And, with regard to
companies in general, the Committee's recommendations go the length
of allowing complete freedom as to the nationality both of the
corporators and of the Board. They would allow, for instance, American
capitalists to come here and establish themselves as a British
corporation in which all the corporators and all the directors were
American, and so with every other nationality. They would make no
discrimination between aliens of different nationality, for, if
there is to be such discrimination, there must be the machinery of
disclosure, involving a deterrent effect and acting prejudicially
in the case of all investors. But, if any such discrimination were
adopted, the Committee thinks that at any rate it should be limited to
some short period, say, three or five years after the end of the war.

If, however, the legislature should decide upon the necessity of
disclosure of alien ownership, the Committee draws up the following
scheme for securing it in Paragraph 15 of its Report:

15. For reasons already given, it is not possible efficiently to
ensure full disclosure, but the following suggestions would, in
the absence of deliberate and intentional evasion (which would be
quite possible), meet the point and in the large majority of cases
would disclose the extent of alien interests and control:--

(a) Every allottee of shares upon allotment and every transferee
upon transfer should be required to make a declaration disclosing
his nationality and whether he is the beneficial owner of the
shares, and, if not, for whom he is trustee, and what is the
nationality of the beneficial owner, and should undertake within
a limited time, after any change in the beneficial ownership, to
communicate the new facts to the company. In default of compliance
with the above, the shares should, at the option of the company,
either (1) be liable to sale by the company and the holder be
entitled only to the proceeds; or (2) be liable