TRADING WITH THE ENEMY ACT (1914) AMENDMENT BILL. (Hansard, 27 November 1914)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, this is a Bill which has passed the other House, and its purpose is to amend the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1914. The main principle of the Bill is to deal with enemy property, which is a difficult subject. An enemy may have over here dividends or money which ought to be paid to him, and what the Bill proposes is to constitute the office of custodian of enemy property. The Bill also deals with the duty of trustees for enemies to notify such custodian. There are other provisions in the Bill, one being a provision to invalidate the transfer of shares in a company by an enemy in order to get out of his difficulties. Then there are provisions to stiffen the prohibition against trading with the enemy. There are also provisions enabling the Board of Trade to appoint a controller in the case of a business where it is expedient that control should be exercised owing to circumstances arising out of the war. Those are the main provisions of this Bill. The Bill passed the other House late last night, and it was ascertained that certain slips had been made. As I have said, the Bill seeks to prohibit and to invalidate transfers of securities, shares in companies, and so on made by enemies. That looked simple enough until the mechanism of the transfer came to be considered. In the Case of non-registered securities, for instance—bearer bonds—it is quite simple. This class of security passes from hand to hand, and unless a broker knows they come from enemy sources he is held to be acting bona fide. But everything done that cannot be shown to be bona fide is struck at. In the case of registered securities the burden is put upon the Stock Exchange of ascertaining what the nationality is. After the Third Reading I propose to move certain Amendments which I ant informed the other House will accept at once, in order to correct the difficulties got into by the House of Commons last night.