Our City Editor has written elsewhere about the proposal of
the General Electric Company to prevent foreigners from buying its new shares, and its remarkable change of policy at the last moment, in response to American protests. This is a matter of public interest, the significance of which extends far beyond the Stock Exchange. It is intelligible that British companies should wish to maintain British control, but this end should never have been sought by, in effect, telling American shareholders that they had not the rights of ordinary shareholders. No hint of this procedure had been given to Americans when they invested their money. They therefore naturally said to the company, " You are offering shares at about 13s. below their market value to British shareholders only. The market value of the shares has been created with the help of our money. You are arbitrarily making a present to one group of your shareholders at our - expense." We are so anxious to see American mqney, of which there is a welcome superfluity, flowing into Great Britain for the rescue and expansion of industry, that we regard any action which amounts to the declaration " No American money wanted here ! " as a disastrous error in policy.
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