TRADING WITH THE ENEMY AMENDMENT BILL. (Hansard, 22 July 1915)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD BUCKMASTER)

My Lords, this Bill is designed to remedy certain gaps and defects which experience has shown to exist in the Acts already on the Statute Book relating to trading with the enemy. The change proposed by this Bill is material, and I must trespass for a few minutes on your time in explaining its provisions. It is, of course, common knowledge that by the Common Law of this country trading with the enemy and the payment of money to the enemy is an offence. This was explained in certain Proclamations issued shortly after the war broke out, the most important of which was a Proclamation dated September 9. By that Proclamation "enemy" was defined, and it was defined as being any person who was resident or carrying on business in a country with which we were at war. It also specified the offences to be considered as trading with the enemy, expressly including the paying of money to the enemy. This Proclamation was followed in the same month by the first Trading with the Enemy Act. That Act provided the punishment which should be inflicted for offences of trading with the enemy, and regulated the procedure to be applicable in such cases. It also contained a provision to which sonic reference is made in the present Bill, a provision relating to a company one-third of whose shareholders or one-third of whose directorate were alien enemies, and provided that there should be certain powers of examination and control over those companies.

Later on, in November of last year, a further and most important Statute was passed, which is the one which the present Bill seeks chiefly to amend. That Act provided that the Public Trustee should be appointed custodian trustee of enemy property in this country, and that dividends, interest, and shares of profits in trade owned by alien enemies should be paid to the Public Trustee. It also provided that any person having under his control real or personal property owned by an alien enemy should make a return of it to the Public Trustee, in order that the latter might be able to compile a record of the property in this country that was owned by alien enemies. Further it provided that assignment of debts, transfer of hills of exchange, 584 transfer of securities in companies, executed after the passing of the Act should convey no title to people if the assignor or the transferor was an alien enemy. There were other provisions in that Act to which it is unnecessary that I should refer, because those which I have mentioned are the ones in respect of which amendment has been found necessary.

The amendments that are desired are these. In the first place the provision that compelled the payment of interest, income, and share of profits in these cases to the Public Trustee was the subject of a definition that excluded from the phrase moneys arising from Government or Colonial securities or municipal stocks. Clause 1 of this Bill is designed to cure this, and to provide that dividends, interest, and shares of profits should also include moneys arising from Government, Colonial, and municipal securities. The next defect found was this, that the phrase "property" in the section which related to the communication to the Public Trustee of property held on behalf of an alien enemy did not include bank balances or debts, and this Bill is designed to cure that by providing that it shall include bank balances and debts over £50 in value. Then the word "person" was believed not to include "company"; of course it is very important that "company" should be included in the phrase, as otherwise property held on behalf of an alien enemy by a company would not be the subject of this record, which it is of the greatest importance should be made as full and complete as possible.

Finally I come to a very important alteration, as I am sure your Lordships will realise. The phrase "enemy," as I have said, was defined in the first Proclamation as being a person resident or carrying on trade in a country with which we were at war. But unfortunately the enemy have occupied and have proceeded to carry on their trade in two countries with which we are in alliance—namely, Belgium and France; and it has become important that the enemy should not be at liberty through the instrumentality of banks and people in those countries to effect assignments here which would indirectly place property in their hands. Accordingly the section in the second Trading with the Enemy Act which deals with the assignment -of debts and transfer of bills of exchange and transfer of securities 585 from an enemy is now extended so that it will include also property that comes from a person resident or carrying on trading, not merely in a country with which we are at war, but in any country that is now in the occupation of the enemy. These are the whole of the material provisions in this Bill, and I trust that your Lordships will think that it is a Bill that deserves support. There is a trifling Amendment to be made in Committee owing to the fact that an obvious slip was made in drafting.