CLAUSE 11.—(Definitions.) (Hansard, 26 July 1918)

§ Sir E. POLLOCK
I beg to move, in paragraph (b), after the word "where," to insert the words "it appears to the Board of Trade that."
I understand that the Board of Trade do not offer any objection to this and to the following Amendment which really give a slightly added power to the Board.

§ Mr. J. HENDERSON
I think that this is a very unfortunate time to pass this Bill, just when we are trying to arrange for the liberation of our prisoners of war who have suffered so many years of imprisonment and hardship in Germany. There is no doubt that it will affect what they will say in Berlin when they are considering the ratification of the terms which have been agreed between the representatives at The Hague. This Bill can do no good. It divides itself into two parts. It tries to hasten the liquidation of certain foreign banks, and, if liquidation does not give satisfaction, it provides for dissolution—immediate dissolution, whatever that may involve. There are three principal German banks in Great Britain—the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, and the Discontogesellschaft. These banks transact nine-tenths of the German business in this country, but they are all branches, and you cannot dissolve them. You cannot dissolve a company which is-not incorporated in this country. What can you do? You can seize their property and close them up, but that you have done long ago. You have got all the assets. Here is a list of 5,000 which have been in the hands of the Public Trustee since 1916. The only effect that this Bill can possibly have will be to force realisation and to waste the assets. You will have a series of companies picking up these securities from the Public Trustee at a 2219 cheap rate and holding them until the markets are better and commercial relations are resumed with foreign countries. It takes many years to wind up any bank in this country, and when you come to consider that the bulk of these assets are in Germany, Austria, or Turkey, and, in fact, spread over the world, you will see that you are not hastening the realisation by one single day.
Our forefathers a century and a half ago were not content with hanging a man, but the judge solemnly ordered that he was to be drawn and quartered. I never could understand that, because if you hanged a man I thought you had finished with him, and that the poor thing could not suffer any more indignity by hacking away at his body or dancing on him. Now I understand what it was. The feelings of the community had been lacerated, and nothing would satisfy them but this piece of stupid vengeance. That is precisely the case here. It would occur to any sensible man in cold blood that if you had got all the assets and had shut up the premises you did not want to go any further. Not at all; you want to dance on them and to dissolve them. In that sense, perhaps, the Bill is necessary. A great deal of excited and lacerated feeling has been shown by several Members of this House, and a great many of the public have been worked up to this angry feeling of vindictiveness by the Press. I suppose we must consider these people and do something to assuage this unfortunate state of mind into which they have got. If this Bill would do that, I would not offer it any opposition. With regard to the five years after the War during which you are not going to allow any banking transactions whatever with Germany by any banking agent in this country, well, that again, may satisfy certain anxieties and indignation, but it will do no good. You cannot by this Bill anticipate or provide for the terms of peace which will be ultimately arranged. If the terms of peace include an economic boycott of Germany, Austria, and Turkey the Bill will be all right, but if there is no economic boycott, then it will be useless. Why put the Bill on the Statute Book at all? Why not wait? If the feelings of the Allies are sufficiently strong at the end of this War to desire and to promulgate an economic boycott, all I can say is that that will be no peace at all. An economic boycott carried on for five or 2220 ten years can only mean war, for you cannot have nations boycotting nations in the transactions of their inhabitants without keeping at boiling point the desire for war. It will then naturally be waiting the opportunity to carry the economic war into military war. That must be so, and why should we have gone out of our way to say that for five years, or such time as Parliament may decide, we shall have no bank or any house conducting anything approaching a banking business? Why they stop at banking business I do not know, because if you have other businesses you must have banking businesses. If you have dealing in commodities you can only carry it on through banks. Why should you go out of your way to say we feel so angry now that, no matter what be the terms of peace, we will have five years of immunity, and will not have any connection with those foreign countries with whom we are at war now, but with whom we will be at peace when peace comes? So far as the five years are concerned, I and my hon. Friend look upon them in the same way. Both parts of the Bill are soothing and softening down a number of hon. Members who have been greatly excited, who wish to close everything and to shut out everything, and, now that they have got this Bill and those feelings are allayed, may I suggest to some of them—and some of them are big, hefty fellows—that they might go to the front and have a real shot at the Germans and not worry them in this silly way. Let them go and shoot a few of the enemy and then they will come back perfectly happy. As to this Bill, I offer no objection, but it is not worth a snap of the fingers.

§ Mr. R. MCNEILL
I should like to be allowed to say one or two words to thank my right hon. Friend for the Amendment he introduced to satisfy the wishes that some of us expressed earlier in the day. I am extremely glad the original limitation has disappeared, and that these banking businesses will not be re-established in this country until Parliament definitely takes the matter into consideration. That is a very great improvement to the Bill, and, unlike my hon. Friend who has just sat down, I think the Bill will have considerable value. My hon. Friend made nearly the same speech as on the Second Reading, with one exception. I do not intend to make the same speech as I made in reply to his on that occasion, but he did not remind us, as he told us then— 2221 which, I think, is a significant circumstance—of those German bank shares still reposing in his bank safe on behalf of clients of his.

§ Mr. HENDERSON
Why not? Would not you like to have some?

§ Mr. MCNEILL
No, I do not want any of them, thank you. I have not the slightest doubt his anxiety to get rid of them is very genuine, but I do not think he will dispose of them to me. All I want to say with regard to his speech—and I have no doubt he represents a certain measure of opinion in this House and in the country—is that there are a certain number of people who live in an atmosphere of assets and profits and can never get beyond that.

§ Mr. ROCH
Do not the gas people who had your support make profits and dividends?

§ Mr. McNEILL
Certainly. I am not objecting to profits; only I say there are occasions when you should think of something else, and I only complain about my hon. Friend on a Bill of this sort when principles are involved which appeal to the dominant sentiment of the country—and, I think, a very justifiable sentiment—that these ideas are absolutely out of place. I do not complain of that speech he made for the second time, and I am thankful he has had a very small measure 2222 of support from this House. I am glad this Bill is going to become law, and I renew my thanks to the President of the Board of Trade for the way he has improved one particular point.