The Treasury has drawn up rules (published in the papers
of Tuesday) for new issues of capital in order that the financial resources of the country may be husbanded. Issues are to be allowed in the United Kingdom only when it is proved that they are desirable in the national interest. Issues for undertakings in the Dominions shall be allowed only when urgency or special circumstances justify them. Issues for undertakings outside the Empire are prohibited. We confess that we dislike on principle all interference with financial freedom, for the simple reason that such interference is an expensive thing. It has to be paid for like all interferences with natural laws. The need to keep money in the country for the war and keep it safe is, however, a need by itself. We see some objections to the Treasury embargo, but not such wide and fundamental objections as we explain elsewhere must be brought against the proposal artificially to keep down the price of food. That would indeed be a disastrous enter- prise making by the shortest and most direst route for scarcity. For ourselves, we hold that if the Government prohibit loans, unless officially sanctioned, they had better borrow straight off the money in waiting. They will want it before long. If people are not to be allowed to lend their money, they will cease to accumulate.
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