§ 15. Mr. R. McNEILLasked the President of the Board of Trade whether, in sanctioning the scheme of reconstruction of the Rubel Bronze and Metal Company, Limited, necessitated by the large enemy alien interest in the company, he made it a condition that the company should give the German shareholders three months within which 503 to take up their shares and to pay the application money thereon; whether more than 40,000 shares were applied for by and allotted to Germans, and whether the German shareholders have remitted through a neutral country sums amounting to 4s. per share upon their holdings, which sums the company has received under permission from the British Government?
Mr. HARCOURTThe facts stated in the question are substantially accurate, but, taken by themselves, they give a totally misleading account of what has taken place. They require to be supplemented by the statement that the whole of the shares allotted to enemies under the reconstruction scheme have been vested in the custodian of enemy property in order that they may be sold to British subjects. I may add that the reconstruction scheme itself arose out of circumstances independent of the enemy interest in the concern, and that the licences granted by the Board of Trade were necessary incidents in the reconstruction.